Review: ASUS P4C800-E i875P Motherboard

by Tarinder Sandhu on 22 June 2004, 00:00

Tags: ASUSTeK (TPE:2357)

Quick Link: HEXUS.net/qaxg

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System setup, overclocking, and notes

Here's a quick rundown of the test system should you wish to compare benchmark results with your own.
  • ASUS P4C800-E Deluxe i875P Canterwood motherboard (Revision 1.15 BIOS)
  • EPoX 8HDA3+ K8T800 chipset-based motherboard (02/12/2003 BIOS)
  • DFI i865PE Springdale motherboard with PAT-like BIOS (19/12/2003 BIOS)
  • ASUS SK8N nForce3 Pro 150 motherboard (Rev 1005 Beta 006)

Other components

  • Intel Pentium 4 3.4GHz Extreme Edition processor
  • AMD Athlon 64 FX-53 processor. 2.2GHz.
  • AMD Athlon 64 Model 3400+ CPU (2.2GHz)
  • ASUS Radeon 9800 XT (412/730)
  • 2 x 256MB Corsair XMS3500C2, run at 2-2-2-6 for ASUS' P4C800-E and DFI LP and 2.5-2-2-6 for the EPoX 8HDA3+
  • 2 x 512MB Legacy Electronics DDR400 ECC memory, run at 2.5-3-3-5
  • Pioneer 105 DVD-RW
  • Western Digital 160GB (WD1600) 8MB cache hard drive
  • Seagate 120GB SATA hard drive
  • Dell P991 19" monitor

Software

  • Windows XP Professional SP1
  • DirectX 9.0b
  • VIA Hyperion 4.51 driver set
  • Intel 5.01.1002 chipset drivers
  • ATI CATALYST 4.1 drivers and control panel
  • Pifast v41 to 10m places
  • Lame v3.92 MP3 encoding with Razor-Lame 1.15 front-end using U2's Pop album (607MB)
  • HEXUS XviD encoding test
  • KribiBench 1.19
  • ScienceMark 2.0
  • Realstorm Raytracing benchmark 320x180x32
  • 3DMark 2001SE v330
  • UT2003 Retail (Build 2225)
  • X2: The Threat - Rolling Demo
  • Comanche 4 benchmark
  • Quake 3 v1.30 HQ
  • Call of Duty - HEXUS Custom Test
    •
Notes

It's a clash of heavyweight motherboards and heavyweight CPUs. Given the deluxe nature of the P4C800-E and the potency of Intel's 3.4GHz Extreme Edition (Northwood) CPU, we thought it would be remiss not to test this select and expensive pairing. In comparison will be DFI i865PE Springdale LANPARTY motherboard that's the beneficiary of an excellent PAT-like BIOS and subsequent Canterwood-like performance. AMD's represented by the impressive Athlon 64 FX-53 and Model 3400+ CPUs. Premium kit and premium performance, hopefully. There were no problems to report during installation and testing.

Running speeds were as follows:

3408MHz - Intel Pentium 4 3.4GHz / DFI i865PE LANPARTY (Springdale 2-2-2-6)

3398.3MHz - Intel Pentium 4 3.4GHz / ASUS P4C800-E (Canterwood 2-2-2-6)

2400MHz - AMD Athlon 64 FX-53 / ASUS SK8N (nForce3 Pro 150 2.5-3-3-5)

2208.4MHz - AMD Athlon 64 Model 3400+ / EPoX 8HDA3+ (K8T800 - 2.5-2-2-6)



It's important to understand that ASUS' Canterwood motherboard is giving away almost 10MHz to DFI's Springdale-equipped offering. That sounds as if it's barely worth pointing out, but with benchmarks often decided by fractions, a board's advantage may be artificial, i.e via the use of a faster FSB.

Overclocking

The use of a semi-unlocked Pentium 4 allowed us to drop the multiplier and CPU-to-RAM ratio (3:2) and lock the AGP/PCI buses. Using a 12x multiplier, 250MHz FSB didn't cause the board to flinch. 275MHz FSB was plain sailing, too. 300MHz was generally stable within Windows, although the board would reset sporadically. We settled on a rock-solid 290MHz FSB, which represents a healthy overclock.



Hard to argue with that kind of speed.

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