 | |||
|
|
|
|
|
 |
ASUS P4P800 Deluxe Review June 02, 2003 Brandon Bell |
|
 |
|
| |
Summary: One of the chief advantages Intel's 875P chipset offers over 865PE is support for Intel's Performance Acceleration Technology (PAT). PAT brings a 3-5% performance boost to 875P. ASUS claims their 865PE-based P4P800 Deluxe supports Intel's PAT technology, and it costs substantially less than an 875P motherboard. Is ASUS really able to deliver 875P performance in their Springdale motherboard? Find out in this review!
 Introduction | Page:: ( 1 / 16 ) |
[image]
| <% print_image("01"); %> | <% print_image("02"); %> |
Intel’s Pentium 4 3.0C/875P launch in April brought new levels of performance to the Pentium 4 platform, largely due to the faster 800MHz system bus supported by both parts and 875P’s dual-channel DDR400 memory interface, capable of providing up to 6.4GB/sec of peak memory bandwidth to the processor. The downside of these components however was price. Pentium 4 3.0C processors currently sell for over $400, while many 875P motherboards sell for $170-$200: clearly putting both out of the budget of many consumers.To address the needs of the mainstream market, Intel has recently introduced a trio of new CPUs, the Pentium 4 2.4C, Pentium 4 2.6C, and Pentium 4 2.8C. These processors all feature 800MHz bus support (hence, the “C” designation) and Intel’s Hyper-Threading technology. With the added bandwidth the faster bus provides, these chips easily outperform their 533MHz Pentium 4 equivalent. The real kicker though is the price, Pentium 4 2.4C’s can already be found for under $200 online.
In order to tackle the second issue, motherboard price, Intel has introduced the 865 platform. 865 is composed of three chipsets: 865PE, 865G, and 865P. The 865PE is a direct descendant of 875P, offering full support of the 800MHz bus and dual-channel DDR400 memory. The only difference between the chipset’s is Intel’s Performance Acceleration Technology, PAT.
As you probably know by now, PAT enables faster timings within the North Bridge of the 875P chipset, resulting in enhanced memory access performance. 875P chipsets have been validated to support PAT’s tighter timings, while 865PE hasn’t. Physically they’re the same chip. The ASUS P4P800 Deluxe we’re reviewing today is based on the 865PE chipset. In contrast, the 865G chipset adds Intel’s integrated graphics core to the equation, this is ASUS’ P4P800-VM.
The final chipset in the 865 family is 865P. This chipset features a dual-channel memory controller like its cousins, but doesn’t offer the 800MHz bus or DDR400 memory support that 865PE and 865G provide. Instead, it supports Intel’s 400MHz and 533MHz buses with memory support up to DDR333. This puts consumers in an unpredictable situation. If you aren’t careful, you could mistakenly purchase an 865P motherboard like the ASUS P4P8X and wouldn’t know the difference until it was too late. Definitely keep your eyes open if you find an 865 motherboard with a price that seems too good to be true. Chances are it is.
ASUS P4P800: 875P in disguise?
Late last week ASUS turned heads with a shocking press declaring that its P4P800 series supported 875P’s PAT technology: “PAT is a trigger for extreme performance, boosting system performance by 3-5%. Combined with the 865PE chipset enabling an 800MHz system bus, it is designed for extreme performance. According to Intel, PAT is an exclusive technology for the 875P chipset, but with ASUS' strong engineering capability, the P4P800 series comes equipped with this feature as well.” ASUS then provided instructions for enabling this feature on the P4P800 series!
This statement got many enthusiasts heads churning: if the P4P800 offered the performance benefits of PAT, but at a price tag that was substantially less than even the cheapest 875P motherboards, what’s the point of purchasing an 875P motherboard in the first place? With this in mind, it’s no small wonder that this press release has been removed from the ASUS website. Since this event occurred, we’ve received a deluge of inquiries regarding the P4P800, all regarding Intel’s PAT and whether the P4P800 really supports it. We’ll attempt to tackle this issue and the rest of the details surrounding the P4P800 Deluxe over the course of this review.
SIDEBAR: P4P800 Deluxe Product Webpage
| Board Features | Page:: ( 2 / 16 ) |
Considering the similarities between the 865PE and 875P chipsets, you’d naturally assume ASUS would do one of two things for the P4P800 Deluxe: build a direct copy of the 875P-based P4C800 Deluxe, or implement a similar design but at a substantially reduced cost. Surprisingly, ASUS has chosen to do neither.
RAID controllers
For starters, ASUS has implemented Intel’s ICH5R South Bridge for P4P800 Deluxe, rather than the ICH5 used on the P4C800 series. The ICH5R adds native IDE RAID support to the chipset, specifically RAID Level 0 (striping) and supports two hard drives. Promise’s PDC20378 controller was used on the P4C800 Deluxe and while it adds RAID 1 support in addition to RAID 0, it’s also tied to the 133MB/sec PCI bus, creating a bottleneck since the P4C800 Deluxe also uses the PCI bus for FireWire and Gigabit Ethernet.
[image]
| <% print_image("03"); %> | <% print_image("04"); %> |
In addition to the ICH5R, the P4P800 Deluxe also offers RAID support for parallel IDE hard drives. This is provided by the VIA VT6410. The VT6410 supports RAID Levels 0, 1, 0+1, and JBOD (spanning).
JBOD, short for “just a bunch of disks” really isn’t RAID as you traditionally know it at all. JBOD simply combines multiple hard drives into a single volume. Unfortunately, you don’t get the performance benefits of striping (RAID 0), or the data security of mirroring (RAID 1). JBOD will allow you to combine hard disks of different sizes without losing any capacity (i.e. a 40GB drive and a 20GB drive can be combined into one 60GB volume), but this is its only real advantage over the other RAID options.
ASUS continues to use 3Com’s 940 controller rather than CSA, but considering the market the ASUS P4P800 Deluxe is aiming for (desktop rather than workstation for the P4C800) we can understand this move: there simply aren’t many home users that use Gigabit switches. In addition, the use of the aforementioned ICH5R chip rather than ICH5 reduces the workload on the PCI bus.
[image]
| <% print_image("05"); %> | <% print_image("06"); %> |
FireWire and audio
In addition to the VIA RAID controller, VIA’s VT6307 FireWire controller is integrated on the P4P800 Deluxe as well. VIA’s VIA Fire controllers are pretty common on Intel-based motherboards, as manufacturers chose to implement the technology even though the chipset doesn’t natively support it. Texas Instruments is another popular supplier.
Audio duties are handled by Analog Devices AD1985 SoundMAX controller. We’ve praised SoundMAX audio many times in the past, so we won’t do so again here, but needless to say that it’s the best integrated audio offering currently available on the market short of NVIDIA’s audio processing unit present in many nForce and nForce2 motherboards. The new jack-sensing technology makes installation issues a thing of the past, informing the end user if a device is hooked up incorrectly.
ASUS “Deluxe”?
One area we’ve noticed ASUS has begun to grow complacent is the accessories included in the packaging. Both the P4P800 Deluxe and P4C800 Deluxe ship without external USB brackets! This means end user’s are limited to the four ports provided on the back plate of the motherboard out of the box. Keep in mind that both chipsets natively support eight USB devices.
With many motherboard manufacturers going out of their way to include tons of accessories (including round IDE cables) in their retail packaging, the ASUS P4P800 Deluxe doesn’t seem very “deluxe” in this department.
[image]
| <% print_image("07"); %> | <% print_image("08"); %> |
SIDEBAR: ASUS also makes its own line of Centrino notebooks.
| Board Analysis | Page:: ( 3 / 16 ) |
As you can see, the North Bridge on our P4P800 Deluxe is tilted towards the CPU interface; this is a standard aspect of the 865PE/875P reference design. While this shortens trace lengths between both components, the end result is that heatsink installation was more difficult on the P4C800 Deluxe, especially in the case of some of the larger Pentium 4 coolers available on the market.
To address this, ASUS has rotated the CPU interface 90 degrees. As a result, you have a lot more room to work with during heatsink installation/removal -- your fingers are no longer fighting for space between the CPU socket and the North Bridge’s heatsink. We’ve also heard that ASUS has implemented a newer revision of the P4P800 Deluxe that tilts the heatsink so that it’s parallel with the edge of the CPU socket. You can see this pictured on the ASUS website right now for the P4P800. This change increases the amount of free space between both components.
[image]
| <% print_image("09"); %> | <% print_image("10"); %> | <% print_image("11"); %> |
Since the P4P800 Deluxe isn’t intended for the workstation market, ASUS has implemented a standard universal AGP slot rather than the AGP Pro slot we’ve seen on previous ASUS products. The AGP retention mechanism is also a little different than what we’re used to seeing, it slides back and forth to lock the AGP card into place.
[image]
| <% print_image("12"); %> | <% print_image("13"); %> |
Unfortunately, there isn’t a lot of space between the memory sockets and the AGP slot. As with many motherboards, you’ll have to install your memory before the graphics card can be installed. It was surprising for us to see this on the P4P800 Deluxe, as this is one advantage so many ASUS designs have had over their competitors over the past few years.
Overall, there aren’t any significant showstoppers in the board design of the P4P800 Deluxe. The rotation of the CPU interface gets a big thumbs-up, but the lack of space between the graphics card and memory is a step backwards. There’s just enough space for the GeForce FX 5900 Ultra and RADEON 9800 PRO 256MB to be installed properly, but both are tight fits.
SIDEBAR: ASUS includes a copy of WinDVD, WinRip, and Win DVD Creator in the P4P800 Deluxe packaging.
| BIOS/Overclocking | Page:: ( 4 / 16 ) |
Like the P4C800 Deluxe, the P4P800 Deluxe utilizes the AMI BIOS interface. It’s a bit different to get used to, especially if you’re coming from Award’s popular interface, but offers a wealth of tweaking options for enthusiasts to dive into. We’re going to start our discussion of the P4P800 Deluxe BIOS on its most talked about feature: Memory Acceleration Mode (MAM).
[image]
| <% print_image("14"); %> | <% print_image("15"); %> | <% print_image("16"); %> |
Memory Acceleration Mode, or MAM, is what ASUS’ marketing department likens to Intel’s Performance Acceleration Technology (PAT) found in 875P. We’re unconvinced that this is PAT at work here, but ASUS has certainly come up with a way to accomplish something similar without the use of 875P. Found under the “Chipset” menu, MAM can be turned off by selecting “auto” or toggled on by implementing the “enabled” setting. All of our tests were conducted with MAM enabled unless otherwise noted.
While MAM is busy stealing all the headlines, the real gem of the P4P800 Deluxe BIOS is still the “Turbo” performance mode setting. This is a feature that has been present in various ASUS motherboards for years, and brings a nice performance improvement once enabled. We’ve provided scores with and without the turbo performance mode so you can see the improvement for yourself.
[image]
| <% print_image("17"); %> | <% print_image("18"); %> | <% print_image("19"); %> |
The rest of the P4P800 Deluxe BIOS is fairly interesting. First, ASUS offers their AI Overclock Tuner, which will automatically overclock your system by 5, 10, 20, or 30%. This is probably a nice feature for inexperienced users that don’t want to delve into the inner workings of overclocking, but power users will still want to do things manually. Fortunately the P4P800 Deluxe BIOS has everything you’ll need.
For manual bus speed adjustment, settings range from 100-400MHz in 1MHz increments, offering tons of options for the enthusiasts out there who wish to overclock their P4P800 Deluxe system. The memory bus and AGP/PCI frequencies can be locked at specific speeds, another must-have item for successful overclocking. And while the original P4P800 Deluxe BIOS was limited to just 1.7V for CPU core voltage adjustment, the latest 1006 release offers settings up to a whopping 1.95V in 0.025V increments.
[image]
| <% print_image("20"); %> | <% print_image("21"); %> |
Offering settings up to 1.95V is actually probably a little too aggressive, as an excessive amount of voltage can actually damage your processor. If you need more than 1.85V of juice to get your processor stable, you probably need to tone the settings down a bit.
DDR voltage settings of 2.55, 2.65, 2.75, and 2.85V are also available, while AGP voltages of 1.5V, 1.6V, 1.7V, and 1.8V are also offered.
Besides these settings, everything else is pretty much standard fare. You’ve got options for adjusting memory timings and hardware monitoring, which is one area ASUS goes one step beyond others thanks to Q-Fan. Q-Fan can dynamically adjust the speed of fans within your system depending on temperature. Obviously this is a great option to have if you want to keep noise level to a minimum.
Overclocking
We were able to hit bus speeds as high as 275MHz with our P4P800 Deluxe board. That’s an effective 1.1GHz bus speed folks! Keep in mind that while this sounds impressive, you’ll always get the best performance when your memory bus and system bus are operating synchronously, just like the nForce2 and 875P chipsets. Unfortunately, it’s impossible to find DDR memory that will run at 275MHz, but we’re sure many memory manufacturers are trying.
In any case, those of you who planned on pairing the P4P800 Deluxe with a 2.4C Pentium 4 processor should know in advance that running your system bus at 250MHz (for a 3GHz CPU, 1.0GHz effective system bus) but with the memory bus running at 200MHz will result in lower performance than running a true 3.0C/200MHz bus/200MHz memory combination.
SIDEBAR: If your overclock attempt is unsuccessful, you can press the insert key to load the P4P800 Deluxe BIOS in safe mode.
| Test Systems | Page:: ( 5 / 16 ) |
System Setup
Intel Pentium 4 3.0GHz (Hyper-Threading enabled)
ASUS P4P800 Deluxe (865PE)
ASUS P4C800 Deluxe (875P)
ASUS P4G8X (E7205)
DFI LANPARTY PRO875 (875P)
FIC P4-865PE Max II (865PE)
MSI 854PE Max2-FISR
512MB Corsair XMS3500 DDR SDRAM
ATI RADEON 9800 PRO
Driver version CATALYST 3.2
30GB IBM Deskstar DTLA 307030 ATA/100 Hard Drive
Windows XP Professional
DirectX 9.0
Benchmarks
3DMark 03
Quake III: Arena version 1.17
Serious Sam: The Second Encounter (Elephant Atrium demo)
Unreal Tournament 2003
Comanche 4
Splinter Cell
SiSoft Sandra 2003
SIDEBAR: We used the 1006 BIOS for testing the P4P800 Deluxe.
| 3DMark03 | Page:: ( 6 / 16 ) |
3DMark03
SIDEBAR: The P4P800 Deluxe board we tested was Rev 1.02.
| 3DMark03 – Frame Rates | Page:: ( 7 / 16 ) |
3DMark03 – Wings of Fury
3DMark03 – Battle of Proxycon
3DMark03 – Troll’s Lair
3DMark03 – Mother Nature
SIDEBAR: The P4P800 Deluxe will support Intel's upcoming "Prescott" CPU core.
| Serious Sam 2 | Page:: ( 8 / 16 ) |
Serious Sam 2 - OpenGL
SIDEBAR: Besides PAT, another critical difference between 865PE and 875P is ECC memory support.
| Quake III | Page:: ( 9 / 16 ) |
Quake III - High Quality
SIDEBAR: ASUS is maintaing a memory compatibility list on its website for the P4P800 Deluxe, you may want to check it out.
| Comanche 4 | Page:: ( 10 / 16 ) |
Comanche 4 demo
SIDEBAR: ASUS shipped over 17 million motherboards last year.
| Unreal Tournament 2003 | Page:: ( 11 / 16 ) |
Unreal Tournament 2003 - flyby
Unreal Tournament 2003 - botmatch
SIDEBAR: According to ASUS, one out of six PCs is powered by one of their motherboards.
| Splinter Cell | Page:: ( 12 / 16 ) |
Splinter Cell – Direct3D
SIDEBAR: ASUS participated in the launches for the Pentium 4 and K7.
| SiSoft Sandra 2003 Memory Bandwidth | Page:: ( 13 / 16 ) |
SiSoft Sandra 2003 Memory Bandwidth
SIDEBAR: The P4P800 Deluxe also supports 533MHz P4 processors.
| MAM Performance | Page:: ( 14 / 16 ) |
SiSoft Sandra 2003 Memory Bandwidth
Unreal Tournament 2003
SIDEBAR: ASUS also manufactures PDAs.
| Ballistics Report | Page:: ( 15 / 16 ) |
Pros
Performance: As you saw in our test results, the P4P800 Deluxe is no slouch when it comes to performance, actually outpacing the 875P motherboards we tested. This is wonderful news to the enthusiast on a budget, as 875P motherboards are pretty pricey, often $170 or more. In comparison, the P4P800 can be found for under $130 online while P4P800 Deluxe motherboards are available for under $150. If you’re looking for the most bang for your buck, the P4P800 and P4P800 Deluxe should be at the top of your list.
Overclocking bonanza: While initial BIOS versions offered limited CPU voltage options, ASUS’ latest BIOS reverses this completely, even the most die-hard enthusiast should be pleased with the voltage settings available. Likewise, a plethora of bus speed options are offered, while you can still lock your AGP frequency and PCI and memory buses. ASUS has really thought of it all in terms of overclocking.
BIOS enhancements: ASUS’ Memory Acceleration Mode and “Turbo” performance setting are features unique to the P4P800 Deluxe BIOS, giving ASUS a unique advantage over its competitors. Keep in mind that you will need high quality components to enable these settings, but the added performance should be worth it to enthusiasts.
ASUS unique features: You can’t discuss an ASUS product without mentioning the features unique to their motherboards. Q-Fan is the most widely talked about feature, although it’s no longer unique to just ASUS. Q-Fan dynamically adjusts the speed of fans within your system, ensuring that your system is running as quietly as the current temperature allows at all times. CrashFree BIOS 2 is another excellent feature.
If your BIOS becomes corrupted, CrashFree BIOS 2 allows you to recover your it from the ASUS CD or by downloading the latest BIOS from the ASUS website. The system will prompt you upon boot up for either option, or you can manually invoke it by pressing Alt F1 during boot up. Recovering from a corrupted BIOS has never been easier.
The POST reporter is still difficult to understand; hopefully ASUS will just implement a diagnostic LED display at some point instead.
Memory compatibility: We successfully tested the P4P800 Deluxe with modules from Corsair, Mushkin, and OCZ Technology and didn’t encounter any issues. As we’ve mentioned in the past, finding the best memory timings is probably the most difficult part of installation, as modules that run fine at CAS2 on the nForce2 platform just can’t achieve this on 865PE with complete stability. We were finally able to get 2-2-2 timings to work with OCZ’s latest DDR3200 as well as Corsair’s XMS3500 modules.
Cons
Declining accessories: With motherboard manufacturers steadily improving their bundle of additional accessories, it’s surprising to see ASUS going in the opposite direction: actually removing what used to be standard accessories on their motherboards such as external USB and FireWire headers. As a result, the P4P800 Deluxe only supports four USB and a single FireWire port out of the box. (We even checked the P4P800 Deluxe manual to make sure our motherboard’s packaging was correct, unfortunately, it was.)
We can forgive ASUS for not including round IDE and floppy cables (even though we’ve encountered multiple 865PE and 875P motherboards with these features), but to not include a single USB or FireWire bracket is simply inexcusable, especially on a flagship product.
Only two Serial ATA drives: Serial ATA hard drives are still in their infancy, so we don’t see this being a huge knock against the P4P800 Deluxe, but there are multiple 865PE motherboards on the market that support more than two Serial ATA hard drives, the FIC 865PE Max II board included in this review is one of them. Considering that this is a Deluxe board, we’re disappointed to see that ASUS is one step behind its competitors in this area.
SIDEBAR: Keep in mind that the system bus on the P4P800 Deluxe runs at 202MHz by default.
| Final Verdict | Page:: ( 16 / 16 ) |
FiringSquad says:
ASUS has hyped the P4P800 Deluxe as the Canterwood killer, the board that would make enthusiasts think twice before purchasing a motherboard based on Intel’s 875P chipset. Based on the results we’ve seen today, ASUS has accomplished this mission in spades.
From a performance perspective, the P4P800 Deluxe easily outclasses other 865PE motherboards, performing more similarly to 875P. Is it faster than the P4C800 Deluxe? No, once the P4C800 Deluxe is cranked in Turbo mode, the P4P800 Deluxe quickly falls behind. But it can give current 875P motherboards a very tough fight, and at a substantially lower price point.
The P4P800 Deluxe does have its faults however. It isn’t loaded with Serial ATA ports or even basic USB and FireWire headers. In the rush to produce the fastest 865PE motherboard on the market, ASUS somehow forgot to include these basic essentials. As a result, you will find other 865PE motherboards that offer more features. Gigabyte in particular offers the GA-8PENXP. This board is loaded is loaded with goodies: 4 serial ATA hard drives are supported in addition to ATA133 RAID, the GA-8PENXP even supports Intel’s CSA architecture. Fortunately ASUS has addressed some of the shortcomings of P4C800 Deluxe by incorporating Intel’s ICH5R South Bridge. This brings native Serial ATA support with RAID to the platform, removing some of the burden off the PCI bus.
As a result, we feel that the P4P800 Deluxe is the board for the hot-rodder, the guy who wants the fastest 865PE “Springdale” motherboard on the market. Crank this motherboard into Turbo mode, enable Memory Acceleration Mode, and watch the frames (and competing 875P motherboards) fly in the dust. At accomplishing this task the P4P800 Deluxe has no equal at its price point. For this reason, the P4P800 Deluxe earns our Bull’s Eye Award. If you recall, the Bull’s Eye Award is awarded to the product that demonstrates an incredible price/performance ratio. Show us a motherboard that delivers more bang-for-the-buck than the P4P800 Deluxe.
We have a feeling that the P4P800 and P4P800 Deluxe may end up being the most popular ASUS Pentium 4 motherboard to date among enthusiasts. Now if ASUS could just deliver a P4P800 Black Pearl Edition with more features and a competitive price, they might have an Editor’s Choice Product on their hands!
SIDEBAR: Were you planning on purchasing an 875P motherboard and are now having second thoughts after reading this review? Perhaps you aren't impressed with the P4P800 Deluxe's feature set. Chat with others about this product in the news comments!