ASUS P4T i850 Pentium 4 ATX Motherboard

Pros and Cons

Stability has always been a hallmark of ASUS products, and the P4T was no exception as it was one of the most stable motherboards we have ever tested.  With four 1200uF capacitors and seventeen 1500uF capacitors located around the RIMM slots, 82850 MCH, and the CPU socket, combined with the unique board design, the P4T refused to crash once after 48 hours of stress testing.  Even under our overclocking tests, the board would not crash.

Remember the new ATX 2.03 specification Intel announced together with the Pentium 4?  A lot of people complained about the specifications since they would have to purchase not only a new case, but  also a new power supply with the ATX12V connector.

As mentioned previously, ASUS gets around the case problem by having their own baseboard design, but they have also put in quite a bit of effort to get around the new power supply specification as well.  As an experiment, we unplugged both the ATX12V and AUX power connectors, leaving only the standard ATX connector in place. We then proceeded to run our normal stress tests and found that the P4T still did not crash once within 16 hours, showing that the board was able to draw all the necessary current solely from the ATX power connector.

This discovery shows that there is a good chance that you do not in fact need to go out and get a new power supply with the ATX12V connector.  Of course, this is also partially dependant on the quality of your current PSU. 

The biggest complaint we have with the P4T, if any, is the lack of the now common IDE RAID support.  ASUS has been using a Promise IDE RAID controller on several of their other motherboards, but they chose not do so with the P4T.  It’s not even an optional feature, so ASUS will have to redesign the PCB if they want to implement one in the future.

ASUS has always had excellent manuals for end users, and that trend continues with the P4T.  It contains very detailed instructions and diagrams on how to install the motherboard, RDRAM, and the CPU, information on all the connectors, jumpers, and dipswitches settings, as well as a detailed explanation of all the BIOS settings.  Moreover, ASUS also included sections on how to install all kinds of drivers and utilities that come on the bundled CD.