Thoughts
Any manufacturer's brief when designing a Canterwood-based motherboard has be put performance and features at the very top of the list. Potential buyers, we reckon, are looking for more storage potential than you can shake a stick at, Gigabit Ethernet as standard, a wealth of BIOS options and excellent performance, both in a default and overclocked state.That's exactly where ASUS' P4C800-E does well. Layout, too, is subjectively excellent. Actually, on reflection after a few days of testing, there's very little wrong with the board. A couple of BIOS tweaks and better voltage regulation is all that we can think of from the top of our heads. ASUS' board is a traditional Canterwood, such that CSA Gigabit Ethernet and ICH5R usage are both present. We also like the use of a passive heatsink that was able to cool a near-300MHz FSB Northbridge. That brings us on to another point. Subjectively speaking, ASUS Intel-based boards have shown more consistency in hitting the magical 300MHz FSB than any other manufacturer, and our sample is no different. Switching on the PC from a cold boot at 290MHz FSB, for example, seems routine rather than extraordinary. That's the kind of impression the P4C800-E gives, that is, the ability to handle everything thrown at it with aplomb.
Priced at just below the £140 mark makes it an expensive motherboard. We feel that it has enough going for it to justify that price tag. It may not be the perfect Pentium 4 motherboard but it gets closer to the definition than most we've had through the labs. Although released around 9 months ago, it still has enough virtue to be considered for premium P4-based systems.
