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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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.