Asus P4C800-E: Updating the Intel Flagship
by Wesley Fink on August 30, 2003 10:55 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Asus P4C800-E: Basic Features
| Motherboard Specifications | |
| CPU Interface | Socket-478 |
| Chipset | Intel 82875P MCH (North Bridge) Intel 82801ER ICH5R (South Bridge) |
| Bus Speeds | up to 400 MHz (in 1MHz increments) |
| Core Voltages Supported | up to 1.95V (in 0.0125V increments to 1.60V, 0.025V increments 1.6 to 1.95V) |
| AGP VDDQ Voltages Supported | 1.5 to 1.8V (0.1V increments) |
| DRAM Voltages Supported | up to 2.85V (in 0.1V increments) |
| Memory Slots | 4 x 184-pin DDR DIMM Slots |
| Expansion Slots | 1 AGP 8X Slot 5 PCI Slots |
| Onboard RAID | Intel ICH5R Southbridge Promise PDC20378 Controller |
| Onboard USB 2.0/IEEE-1394 | Eight USB 2.0 supported through South Bridge VT6307 IEEE-1394 FireWire Controller |
| Onboard LAN | Intel PRO1000 CSA GigaLAN (CSA bus) |
| Onboard Audio | Analog Devices AD1985 Controller |
| Onboard Serial ATA | Two SATA connectors via Promise PDC20378 Controller Two SATA connectors via ICH5R (Intel SATA RAID 0,1 or non-RAID) |
| BIOS Revision | 1.010 |
The basic features of the P4C800 Deluxe are described in the earlier review of the P4C800 Deluxe. Changes from the original P4C800 Deluxe are indicated in bold print. Asus has made many changes to the adjustment ranges in the BIOS. These BIOS changes also apply to the P4C800 Deluxe.
The P4C800-E Deluxe replaces the Intel ICH5 with the ICH5R. This adds the capability of Intel SATA RAID in addition to SATA RAID provided by the on-board Promise controller. With recent updates to the BIOS and Intel RAID drivers, the P4C800-E can support both Raid 0 (striping for performance) and Raid 1 (mirroring for security).
Intel’s CSA Gigabit LAN replaces 3Com on the “E” revision. This PRO1000 chipset moves LAN off the PCI bus and provides communication with the chipset and CPU on a dedicated communications bus.
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0sparkie - Tuesday, September 2, 2003 - link
I have just download the .pdf manual of the P4C800-E. The manual says that "If installing the ATi 9500 or 9700 Pro Series VGA cards, use only the card version PN xxx-xxxxx-30 or later, for optimum performance and overcloking stability (chapter 2.6.4)." As I have just bought a Gigabyte Radeon 9800Pro (GV-R98P128D) Version : PN109-A07500-00 {SN0322009623} I began to worry. Is it compatible? Will it be stable if I OC it? Shall I have the optimum perfomance of my VGA ? If anyone can answer this .... (thanks)amdecos - Tuesday, September 2, 2003 - link
But what about the 512 vs 1 GB area? That is still expensive territory, especially if you want the higher speed DDR (>3500). Would 1 GB of 3200 DDR even out with 512K of 3500 DDR?Icewind - Tuesday, September 2, 2003 - link
#17Only thing that justifies more then a Gig of memory would be music or video editing and or CAD/arcitechure or an absolute crap load of multitasking.
amdecos - Tuesday, September 2, 2003 - link
The test were based on 2x256 memory yes? Did you also look at 1GB (of 2 or 4 sticks)? Is there a real benefit to gaming by going to 1 GB or is this more a multi tasking benefit?Anonymous User - Tuesday, September 2, 2003 - link
The whole Prescott support situation is still very clouded.Some motherboards might support initial lower speed Prescotts up to 1.5 specs, but not necessarily support later Prescotts (still 478 socket though) which require 2.0 level specs.
So, be careful what you buy. Even if Abit says they will support Prescott, it doesn't mean that the board in question will support all socket 478 Prescott CPU's up to and including the 3.8GHz model.
Just so that you know...
Anonymous User - Monday, September 1, 2003 - link
#14 if you want maximum OC ability, do the Abit. If you want stability, get the ASUS. Im more for stability, so you know which one I chose and I couldn't be happier, my P4 just keeps going higher and higher the more I push the FSBAnonymous User - Monday, September 1, 2003 - link
This board seems solid but i am looking at 2 boards that i want the asus P4C800-E and the abit ic7-max3. Wesley when will you do a review on the ic7-max3 board??Anonymous User - Monday, September 1, 2003 - link
Awesome review, although I would be very interested in the PSU used in this review.Anonymous User - Sunday, August 31, 2003 - link
I am thrilled that you are doing reviews for Anandtech now. You test and write for the enthusiast, and the overclocker in particular. This is just the direction that Anandtech needed to go to get me reading the articles again.Thanks a lot!
Wesley Fink - Sunday, August 31, 2003 - link
The Asus P4C800-E did NOT drop out of Dual-Channel running 4DS dimms faster than 800FSB. In that configuration, PAT was disabled, which made 4DS dimms about 1 to 2% slower than 2DS dimms. We still don't know if this is true with ALL 875P boards, i.e. an Intel issue, or if is an issue unique to Asus. 4 SS dimms run fine with PAT still working over 800FSB, as does any other configuration.