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ASUS P4PE Review October 18, 2002 Brandon Bell |
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Summary: Based on the 845PE chipset, ASUS's P4PE supports DDR333 SDRAM and Intel's Hyper-Threading technology. But that's not all, ASUS also includes Gigabit LAN, Firewire, Serial ATA, and SoundMAX 5.1 all onboard. When you combine this with bus speeds up to 200MHz in 1MHz increments, you've got one powerful Pentium 4 motherboard. See how it performs in today's review!
 Introduction | Page:: ( 1 / 13 ) |
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Intel’s dominating chipset presence
When Intel launches a new chipset, everyone jumps onboard. The reasoning behind it is simple, as the world’s largest microprocessor manufacturer, Intel has an overwhelming share of PC’s equipped with Intel processors inside them. And with the majority of Pentium 4 systems being sold based on one variant of the 845 chipset or another, it’s no surprise that motherboard manufacturers were proud to announce their products based on the 845GE/GV and 845PE chipsets that were launched last week.
If you missed our preview of these chipsets, we’ll provide a brief recap. The key addition Intel has added is support for DDR333 memory. This offers the Pentium 4 up to 2.7GB/sec of memory bandwidth and a substantial performance increase over 845E. In our preview article we noted performance gains up to nine percent in some benchmark tests. The 845GE/PE chipsets also support Intel’s Hyper-Threading technology out of the box, motherboards based on the 845 and 850 families support Hyper-Threading as well, you’ll just need to update your motherboard’s BIOS in order to get this support.
Besides these two new additions, there isn’t anything else new with these chipsets, making them a relatively minor release in the grand scheme of things. Later this year Intel, SiS, and VIA will be releasing Pentium 4 chipsets with dual-channel memory controllers. These solutions should bring even more performance to the DDR Pentium 4 platform if they live up to their potential on paper. In fact, we expect them to offer more performance than any other chipset that has been released for the Pentium 4 to this date.
Now that you’re up to speed regarding the 845PE chipset that the ASUS P4PE is based on, we’ll now delve into ASUS itself.
ASUS: Motherboard manufacturer extraordinaire
Based on reader response we’d be willing to guess that you’re probably pretty familiar with ASUS. They’ve been in the motherboard business for over a decade and command the stop spot in the motherboard market. Their products have traditionally appealed to enthusiasts as well as more mainstream consumers thanks to their excellent combination of features, reliability, and performance. The P4PE in particular has quite a few features that stand out from typical motherboards, and as you’ll see in our benchmark results, it’s quite an impressive performer. But first lets take a look at what makes it so special.
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SIDEBAR: ASUS P4PE Product Webpage
| Special Features | Page:: ( 2 / 13 ) |
Serial ATA
Like all of ASUS’s newer motherboards, the P4PE supports Serial ATA storage devices via the Promise 20376 controller. Serial ATA storage devices consume less power, offer data transfer rates up to 150MB/sec, and utilize much thinner cables than their parallel ATA counterparts. This feature in particular is probably the most forward-looking aspect of the P4PE, as Serial ATA hard drives won’t make their debut until early 2003 and ASUS does not include a Serial ATA-to-Parallel ATA adapter in the P4PE’s packaging.
Two Serial ATA connectors are provided on the P4PE, each located on opposite ends of the Promise controller itself. With each connector supporting one Serial ATA hard drive, the P4PE supports up to two Serial ATA drives. ASUS has also integrated a third IDE connector that is tied to the Promise controller, for those of you who would like to connect an additional hard drive to the four drives supported natively by the 845PE chipset. The third IDE connector can also be used in a RAID 0+1 configuration.
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Gigabit LAN/Firewire
Another feature looking towards the future is the P4PE’s built-in BroadCom 5702 Gigabit LAN controller. With Gigabit LAN offering transfer speeds up to 10 times faster than conventional 10/100 Ethernet connections, the P4PE is a networking powerhouse.
Like Serial ATA, Gigabit LAN hasn’t quite taken off but it is being offered in an increasing number of motherboards these days and we definitely see it becoming more popular in the future. Those of you who transfer large amounts of data such as audio and video files will probably take advantage of this feature as soon as possible to cut down on data transfer times.
Although the 845PE chipset doesn’t natively support it, the P4PE supports IEEE1394 (Firewire) devices through its VIA Technologies VIA Fire IIM VT6307 controller. Personally, we find it a bit ironic that a motherboard based on an Intel chipset utilizes a VIA controller to provide Firewire support, but until Intel jumps onboard with Firewire support we expect a lot of motherboard manufacturers will continue to utilize the VT6307 chip for Firewire functionality.
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SoundMAX 5.1 audio
In the 845PE preview, we mentioned how we were huge fans of Analog Devices SoundMAX audio, so we were thrilled to see their 1980 CODEC present on the P4PE. One upcoming game title that we’ve witnessed taking advantage of Analog Devices SPX technology is Planetside, and we wouldn’t be surprised if more game developers have jumped onboard since we last met with Analog Devices last year. SoundMAX audio erases all the preconceptions we’ve held towards previous audio solutions that were offered in the past on motherboards. Its audio quality definitely rivals that of today’s discrete sound cards from the likes of Creative Labs.
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ASUS Q-Fan/EZ Plug
Q-Fan and EZ Plug make their return on the P4PE. These are two popular features that have earned ASUS a loyal following among enthusiasts. With Q-Fan, the P4PE actively monitors the CPU’s current temperature. If the temperature begins to increase as the system comes under heavy load, Q-Fan kicks in and bumps up the RPMs on the fans within the system. Once things settle down a bit, Q-Fan slows the fans down, reducing the PC’s noise level. EZ Plug is for end users with older non-ATX12V power supplies. Thanks to EZ Plug these consumers won’t have to go out and upgrade their power supply, saving them a little bit of money.
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SIDEBAR: The P4PE also supports ASUS’s CrashFree BIOS technology. If your BIOS becomes corrupted, end users can restore their BIOS via a floppy diskette.
| Board Design | Page:: ( 3 / 13 ) |
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Board layout
ASUS’s engineering team is well known for its unique board designs. When most motherboard manufacturers are implementing the same basic layout, it’s not uncommon to see ASUS come out with a board design that is totally out of the ordinary.
For the P4PE, we’ve got a fairly crowded layout, as the P4PE is chocked full of features, yet it only utilizes a 12.0” by 9.0” frame. For instance, ASUS motherboards have traditionally been one of the few designs that actually have enough space between the DIMM sockets and AGP slot to allow for both components to be easily installed. But with the P4PE, end users will have to install their system memory before installing the AGP card. Again, this is one negative aspect that you’ll find in 90% of the motherboards on the market, so the P4PE is certainly not unique in this respect.
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Some capacitors on the P4PE appear to be dangerously close to the Socket 478 interface, but in practice this is not the case. The 20-pin ATX connector is located on the right edge of the motherboard, so it doesn’t interfere with airflow near the CPU. The ATX12V connector is just below the CPU interface, which is a bit inconvenient but shouldn’t be a problem since the cable itself isn’t very large.
For troubleshooting, the P4PE features a green power LED on the lower portion of the motherboard. This is helpful for diagnosing dead motherboards. If the green LED doesn’t shine when you connect the power cable to the motherboard, you know that the motherboard isn’t receiving power and is likely dead. A red LED is placed just below the AGP slot, this LED only shines when you install a 3.3V AGP card in the AGP slot. When this occurs, the system cannot be turned on to prevent damaging the AGP slot.
The sixth (blue) PCI slot is known as the BlueMagic PCI slot. It’s unique from the others because it’s designed to support wireless LAN cards. ASUS will be introducing its own wireless LAN solutions later this year that ASUS hopes will make a perfect companion for the BlueMagic slot.
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Overall the P4PE’s layout is well implemented. We just wished it stood out from the crowd like ASUS motherboards frequently do.
SIDEBAR: The board revision of our P4PE board was 1.02.
| P4PE BIOS | Page:: ( 4 / 13 ) |
C.P.R.
If you’re a serious overclocker, you’ve probably experienced (on more than one occasion) the hassle that’s involved on most motherboards when you adjust a setting just a bit too high and the system won’t boot up. Time to dig inside your system case to find the clear CMOS jumper!
Thanks to ASUS’s CPU Parameter Recall (C.P.R.), these days are over. Simply turn the system off, then turn it back on, and the P4PE will boot up with the CPU and memory’s default (safe) settings. In fact, C.P.R. will load you straight into BIOS so you can give your overclocking another try! This makes things incredibly convenient for those of you who like to tweak the settings inside BIOS.
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BIOS Interface
While we’ll be the first to admit that we prefer the Award interface used on most other motherboards, ASUS still implements a powerful BIOS setup on the P4PE. For starters we’ve got bus speeds available from 100MHz-200MHz in 1MHz increments, which should allow for quite a bit of flexibility if you plan on overclocking your CPU. CPU voltages up to 1.85V are available (in 0.025V increments), as well as DDR voltage adjustment.
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The P4PE is loaded with all kinds of goodies for squeezing even more performance out of your system if the bus adjustments aren’t enough for you. Also present are settings for tweaking memory timings as well as enhancing performance. Two settings that stand out are System Performance Mode (with options of “Auto”, “Optimal”, and “Turbo”) and Memory Turbo Mode (which can be toggled on and off), even a CAS latency setting of 1.5 is available! As an added bonus, the P4PE also offers a 355MHz memory setting for consumers with ultra fast memory, with the system bus at 150MHz that equates to a 400MHz memory bus!
Therefore, as you can expect we were quite pleased with the P4PE’s BIOS. We have a feeling that the enthusiasts and overclockers out there will enjoy it as well.
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SIDEBAR: C.P.R. has been a standard feature on ASUS motherboards for quite awhile, its just that this is the first time that we can recall ASUS has given it a name.
| System Setup | Page:: ( 5 / 13 ) |
Intel Pentium 4 2.8GHz
ABIT IT7-MAX2 (845E)
ASUS P4PE (845PE)
Intel D845PEBT2 (845PE)
MSI 648 MAX-F (SiS 648)
256MB Corsair XMS3200 DDR400 CAS2 SDRAM
NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4600 reference board
Driver version Detonator 40.41
30GB IBM Deskstar DTLA 307030 ATA/100 Hard Drive
AFREEY 12X DVD-ROM
Windows XP Professional
DirectX 8.1
Desktop Resolution: 1024x768x32
Benchmarks
3DMark 2001 Second Edition - 32-bit color, 32-bit textures
Quake 3 Retail - High Quality
Serious Sam: The Second Encounter - Normal (32-bit) The Elephant Atrium demo
Jedi Knight II
Unreal Tournament 2003 demo
Business Winstone 2001
Content Creation Winstone 2002
SIDEBAR: Like the Intel motherboards we looked at earlier this week, the ICH4 chip on the P4PE was labeled “Secret”.
| 3DMark 2001 | Page:: ( 6 / 13 ) |
3DMark 2001 - DirectX 8
SIDEBAR: The codename of Intel’s dual-channel DDR chipset is “Granite Bay”.
| Serious Sam 2 | Page:: ( 7 / 13 ) |
Serious Sam 2 - OpenGL
SIDEBAR: The dual-channel DDR chipsets will utilize PC2100 DDR SDRAM.
| Quake III | Page:: ( 8 / 13 ) |
Quake III - High Quality
SIDEBAR: With ASUS EZ-Flash, you can update the BIOS without having to use a DOS-based utility.
| Jedi Knight II | Page:: ( 9 / 13 ) |
Jedi Knight II
SIDEBAR: The first processor to take advantage of Intel’s HyperThreading technology will be the Pentium 4 3.06GHz.
| UT 2003 | Page:: ( 10 / 13 ) |
Unreal Tournament 2003 demo - flyby
SIDEBAR: We’ve witnessed slightly lower frame rates with the retail version of UT2003, likely due to the use of larger textures.
| Business applications | Page:: ( 11 / 13 ) |
Content Creation Winstone 2002
Business Winstone 2001
SIDEBAR: E-Testing Labs recently released a newer version of Business Winstone, we’ll be upgrading to it shortly.
| Ballistics Report | Page:: ( 12 / 13 ) |
Pros
Intel 845PE chipset: Unfortunately, all of Intel’s DDR chipset offerings have been short on features, and offered even shorter lifetimes. And while 845PE won’t live as long as 845D or 845E in the enthusiast segment, it’s still Intel’s best DDR offering to date.
Serial ATA: While there isn’t a chipset currently available on the market that supports Serial ATA, in an attempt to differentiate their high-end products from more basic offerings, many motherboard manufacturers have integrated Serial ATA controllers on their motherboards. The P4PE possesses the popular Promise 20376 controller and supports up to two Serial ATA hard drives as well as IDE RAID. With Intel behind the Serial ATA standard, we expect it will quickly take off next year, so it’s good to see that the P4PE supports this technology today. Therefore, once Serial ATA hard drives arrive, P4PE owners won’t have to purchase adapters or external controllers.
5.1 audio: Shame on you if you disable the sound onboard the P4PE, you’d better have a really high-end sound card/speaker combination! Analog Devices SoundMAX audio is that good. Whether you’re into gaming, listening to MP3s, or watching DVDs on your PC, we’re pretty certain you’ll be happy with the audio quality of the SoundMAX CODEC. And if they’re solid enough to be standard equipment on Intel motherboards, you can pretty much bet that Analog Devices will continue to provide proper support for end users further down the road.
ASUS-specific features: ASUS loads the P4PE with tons of goodies unique to ASUS motherboards. Features such as Q-Fan, which monitors the CPU temperature versus workload, and adjusts fan speeds accordingly, or C.P.R. which boots the BIOS into safe mode after an unsuccessful overclock without having to touch anything within the system itself are just a few of the highlights we’ve come to really enjoy from ASUS motherboards. New for the P4PE is ASUS’s CrashFree BIOS technology. If an unsuccessful flash or virus corrupts your BIOS, the BIOS can be restored via a floppy diskette.
These are the types of features that really allow ASUS motherboards to stand out from the crowd, and are just icing on the cake of what is already a very good product.
Stability and Performance:: Being based on an Intel chipset, it goes without saying that the P4PE ran without a hiccup and was highly reliable. And now that DDR333 memory is onboard, performance rivals that of other DDR chipset currently available on the market.
Cons
Short lifetime: With dual-channel DDR chipsets in the works from Intel, SiS, and VIA arriving later this year, the 845PE chipset the P4PE is based on will be outdated very quickly. If you must purchase a Pentium 4 system right now, the 845PE chipset would be the best way to go, but enthusiasts who aren’t as rushed should wait a little longer and see what kind of performance these chipsets will bring.
SIDEBAR: ASUS bundles InterVideo’s WinCinema Gold software suite with the P4PE.
| Final Verdict | Page:: ( 13 / 13 ) |