Conclusions
Of the two motherboards we've looked at today, the Striker Extreme easily has the most to prove. Not only is the Striker Asus' flagship Core 2 motherboard, it's also the most expensive single-socket board we've ever tested. Fortunately, it's also the most luxurious. The port cluster LCD display and temperature probes are great, we love the onboard buttons, and the layout is superb as long as your CPU cooler fits within the confines of the ornate chipset and VRM cooler assembly. Performance is exceptional, as well, and the fact that our sample hit a front-side bus of 480MHz suggests that the board has plenty of headroom for overclocking.

Still, the Striker falls a little short of what we'd expect from a motherboard that costs well in excess of $300. Sure, it's flashy enough, but where's the onboard Wi-Fi? Where are the temperature targets for the CPU and system fan headers? Where is the digital S/PDIF input? Where are the Vista-specific extras? If I'm dropping more than three bills on a motherboard, it has to be perfect. It has to include everything. The Striker comes mighty close, but it's not quite there.

So the Striker Extreme doesn't quite live up to our admittedly lofty expectations, but the P5N-E SLI more than exceeds what we typically ask from a $120 motherboard. For the most part, the board is every bit as fast as the Striker. You also get a decent array of BIOS options and just enough onboard peripherals.

And then there's the board's overclocking potential, which, if our sample is any indication, is simply jaw-dropping.

Now there are some things about the P5N-E that we don't like, such as the dated south bridge and the Gigabit Ethernet controller's lack of proper hardware acceleration. Asus should know better than to put the SATA ports that close to the secondary PCIe x16 slot, too. But those are really minor complains in light of the P5N-E's other attributes and its phenomenal price tag. If you're looking for an affordable overclocking platform for a Core 2 Duo, the P5N-E SLI should be on your short list, if not at the top of it.