Asus P4C800-E: Updating the Intel Flagship
by Wesley Fink on August 30, 2003 10:55 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Final Words
The original P4C800 Deluxe was and still is an outstanding performer. However, the missing ICH5R south bridge with Intel SATA RAID support and no Intel Gigabit LAN utilizing the CSA bus made the P4C800 Deluxe a tough sell for many end users. Asus has done an excellent job revamping their flagship Intel board with the P4C800-E. Not only are ICH5R and Intel CSA LAN now a part of the revised board, Asus added the new features without removing any of the features and performance of the P4C800 Deluxe.The overclocking performance of the P4C800-E is every bit as good as late revisions of the P4C800 D, and Asus seems to have totally reworked memory compatibility on the “E”. It handled our 4 Corsair modules, and every high-speed memory module we could find without an issue. Even more remarkable, Asus did this memory rework without losing memory performance. If fact, it appears the P4C800-E may even be faster than the earlier Asus board.
The more we are learning about the quirks of some of the leading 875 and 865 boards, the more attractive the P4C800-E becomes. It is one of the very few 875/865 boards that can handle 300FSB if your processor is willing. It keeps going with 1:1 memory to the highest performance levels that memory can reach. It doesn’t give up at 255 on 1:1 memory like some other boards that are still waiting for a BIOS fix. Overheating with the passive heatsink was not a problem in our tests here, or our extensive high-speed testing in our DDR500 memory roundup. Some, however, may be more comfortable with an active north bridge cooling solution.
The Asus P4C800-E does all these things very well, but it doesn’t apologize to any other 875/865 for performance, because it is one of the fastest Intel motherboards that we have tested with “normal” performance. There are boards with schemes to overclock selectively or boards with aggressive timings that may work at 800FSB and no where else, which can momentarily out-perform the P4C800-E. But in the end, the P4C800-E overclocks further with greater stability under the greatest variety of test conditions than most any 875 or 865 board you can find.
As stated earlier, the older P4C800 Deluxe is an excellent motherboard. If the missing features are not important to you, then it is now available at a lower price than the new P4C800-E. Most of the early problems with the P4C800 Deluxe have now been resolved with BIOS updates and it is a mature product.
The P4C800-E is an even better motherboard, with all the 875 “trademark” features, like ICH5R SATA RAID and CSA LAN. There is nothing “missing” from the P4C800-E that will create concern for anyone looking for an 875/865 motherboard. Perhaps even more important, the memory compatibility of the P4C800-E is a significant improvement over the P4C800 Deluxe without compromising performance or overclocking ability. The P4C800-E is an outstanding motherboard no matter how you view it. If you can afford the ticket, you won’t be disappointed in the ride.
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Anonymous User - Sunday, August 31, 2003 - link
So, then running 4 DIMMs of Corsair XMS LL Platinum 512 MB would be slower than just 2 DIMMs of that memory? Is it just PAT that is affected? I've heard that this board will slow the latency timings and drop out of dual-channel mode with 4 DIMMS. BTW, I heard this from a rich friend who bought a system from Falcon Northwest and asked them about using 4 DIMMs on this exact board. They said that it would slow the latency timings and drop out of dual-channel. Was this experienced during testing? Is it that Falcon Northwest doesn't know what they're talking about? Now I am very confused about this particular board.Wesley Fink - Sunday, August 31, 2003 - link
Asus SAYS the P4C800-E is compatible with Prescott, but without a Prescott chip to test with we can not give a definitive answer.We did in fact run several benchmarks comparing the old and new when we began the memory testing for our DDR500 review, but found no real difference in performance between the old and new with both running 1.010 BIOS. That is why we did not publish performance tests comparing the two, and we stated there was no performance difference in our update. We did find memory compatibility better on the "E" and also reported that as well.
DrMrLordX - Sunday, August 31, 2003 - link
I second the request for information about this board's compatibility with Prescott.Anonymous User - Sunday, August 31, 2003 - link
Jesus Christ, how can Anandtech readers be so stupid. Both the old and new ASUS revision are based on the EXACT SAME CHIPSET! It would be ridiculous to compare them, they both use the 875P chipset, the only difference is a couple onboard features that make the newer revision a better overall board and value.Christ, READ the reviews for god sakes.
PrinceGaz - Sunday, August 31, 2003 - link
I feel #3 had a very good point. Since it is a review which begins by comparing the old revision with the new one, not including both in the benchmarks was a mistake (assuming the figures are available).@#4: Telling everyone to go and compare the results from an older review is crazy; for the time it would take for them to be included, asking everyone who reads the review to go and read another simultaneously is stupid.
Anonymous User - Sunday, August 31, 2003 - link
#4Catch a clue. Go read the old review and compare them.
Anonymous User - Sunday, August 31, 2003 - link
So, why the heck did you not bench the old against the new. That is after all what all the bloody writing ia about. That should include a lan test. Get on it, do it. What a waste, waste, waste. Oh yea....what kind of memory can you use with the old revision?Useless information is everywhere.
Anonymous User - Sunday, August 31, 2003 - link
Outstanding review! What I'm missing though is information about the support for the Intel Prescott processor. Looking on the ASUS website and in the manual, it is stated that it is compatible but such claims have been made for other motherboards only to be withdrawn later. Is it compatible with FMB 1.5 and VIN 1.5 required for the Prescott?I'm also quite surprized that PAT is disabled if you have 4 DS dimms running at FSB bus speeds higher than 200Mhz. After reading "Searching for the Memory Holy Grail: Part 1", I had planned to go for 4 256MB Cosair TwinMX dimms instead of 2 512MB ones. I'm eagerly awaiting the answer you get from ASUS.
Cheers,
Manuel
Wesley Fink - Sunday, August 31, 2003 - link
Since this was an update to an earlier review, we did not cover features that would be discussed in a full review. However, I have tested AI overclocking on the P4C800-E and find it works very well.You set the desired overclock, and the boards adjusts all parameters for the most stable overclcoking performance. Overclocks up to 30% (around 1066 FSB) are possible using AI.
Anonymous User - Sunday, August 31, 2003 - link
Would Like to know if you tested the much vaunted "Artificial Intelligence" overclocking ability of this board. This is something that mere mortals are very likely to use, rather than all the tinkering with FSB speeds and memory timing.