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Introduction
I was lucky enough recently to be able
to play with an Epox 4PDA2+ which was built on the
i865PE "Springdale" chipset. There's no
doubt that Springdale is destined to be a great chipset
that further bolsters the Intel fortress, but for
those who yearn for nothing less than the best around
it's the i875 chipset that currently gets the nod.
Designed primarily as an entry level
server product it wasn't much of a surprise to see
the enthusiast market take to the i875 in a big way.
The performance on offer through the adoption of an
800MHz front side bus, dual channel DDR memory and
the much misunderstood (or is that misinformed?) PAT
or "Performance Acceleration Technology"
all combined to make i875 driven boards very desirable
indeed for the discerning P4 owner.
The board I have on test today is the
ASUS P4C800 Deluxe. This well stocked board offers
a number of seemingly innovative features which we'll
look at in a moment and of course comes with an 875P
MCH riding tandem with an ICH5.
Before we go too much further here's
the tale of the tape:
Specifications
| CPU |
-Socket 478 for
Intel Pentium 4/ Celeron up to 3.2 GHz+
-Intel Hyper-Threading Technology ready
-New power design supports
Intel next generation Prescott CPU |
| Chipset |
Intel 875P MCH
Intel ICH5 |
| Front Side Bus |
800/ 533 / 400
MHz |
| Memory |
-Dual Channel Memory
Architecture
-4 x 184-pin DIMM Sockets support max. 4GB PC3200/PC2700/PC2100
ECC/Non_ECC DDR SDRAM memory
-Intel Performance Acceleration
Technology |
| Expansion Slots |
1 x AGP Pro/ 8X/
4X (0.8V, 1.5V only)
5 x PCI
1 x ASUS WIFI Connector for optional wireless
LAN upgrade |
| Storage |
South Bridge:
2 x UltraDMA 100
2 x Serial ATA
Promise 20378 RAID controller:
1 x UltraDMA 133 support two hard drives
2 x Serial ATA
RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 0+1, Multiple RAID |
| AI Audio |
ADI AD1985 SoundMAX
6-channel CODEC
Audio Sensing and Enumeration Technology
support S/PDIF out interface |
| AI LAN |
3COM 3C940 Gigabit
LAN PCI Controller supporting 10/100/1000 BASE-T
Ethernet
Virtual Cable Tester™ Net-Diagnosing
Utility |
| AI BIOS Feature |
CrashFree BIOS2,
Q-Fan, Post Reporter |
| AI Overclock |
-Intelligent CPU
frequency tuner
-ASUS JumperFree
-CPU, Memory, and AGP voltage adjustable
-SFS (Stepless Frequency Selection) from 100MHz
up to 400MHz at 1MHz increment
-Adjustable FSB/DDR ratio. Fixed AGP/PCI frequencies
-ASUS C.P.R.(CPU Parameter Recall) |
| IEEE 1394 |
VIA 1394 Controller
supports 2 x 1394 ports |
| USB |
Max. 8 USB2.0 ports |
| Special Features |
InterVideo WinDVD
Suite
Power Loss Restart
support S/PDIF out interface
ASUS Q-Fan technology
ASUS EZ Flash
CrashFree BIOS2
ASUS POST Reporter
Multi-language BIOS
Asus Instant Music
Asus MyLogo2 |
| Back Panel I/O Ports |
1 x Parallel
1 x Serial
1 x PS/2 Keyboard
1 x PS/2 Mouse
1 x S/PDIF Output
1 x IEEE1394
1 x Audio I/O
4 x USB 2.0/1.1
1 x RJ45 |
| Internal I/O Connectors |
2 x USB 2.0 connector
support additional 4 USB 2.0 ports
CPU / Power / Chassis FAN connectors
Chassis Intrusion
S/PDIF out connector
CD / AUX / Modem audio in
1 x IEEE1394 ports
Front Panel Audio connector
COM2 connector
GAME/MIDI connector
20-pin ATX Power connector
4-pin ATX 12V Power connector |
| BIOS Feature |
4 Mb Flash ROM,AMI
BIOS, PnP, DMI2.0, WfM2.0, SM BIOS 2.3, Multi-language
BIOS, ASUS EZ Flash, MyLogo2, ASUS C.P.R. |
| Industrial Standard |
PCI 2.2, PCI 2.3,
USB 2.0 |
| Manageability |
WfM 2.0,DMI 2.0,WOL
by PME,WOR by PME, Chassis Intrusion, SM Bus |
| Support CD |
Drivers
ASUS PC Probe
Trend Micro PC-cillin 2002 anti-virus software
ASUS LiveUpdate Utility |
| Accessories |
User's manual
InterVideo WinDVD Suite
2 x UltraDMA 133/100/66 cable
2 x Serial ATA cable
1 x IDE cable
FDD cable
I/O shield |
| Form Factor |
ATX Form Factor
12"x 9.6" (30.5cm x 24.5cm) |
Initial observations
As you'd expect from a showcase chipset
all the big features are in place including the slightly
over-hyped but undoubtedly very useful support for
Hyper-Threading Processors. This is one of those features
that doesn't quite bring the benefits you'd expect
but is so much better than not having it that it's
actually genuinely worthwhile.
Officially we have no idea what Intel's
proprietary"PAT" actually is but stories
I've heard range from actual, physical improvements
PAT capable 875P MCH's to the suggestion that Intel
may have "speed binned" these chips and/or
may be running them at a slightly higher frequency
than the actual system bus.
All the main "box splash"
features are there too including USB2.0, AGP8X, IEEE1393,
single channel IDE RAID, dual channel SATA RAID, Gigabit
LAN, 6 channel audio and a list of added value features
that sound just too good to ignore.
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