Albatron PX865PE Lite Pro vs. Asus P4P800S-E
Budget boards take a bite out of the market

by Robert Maloney
November 20th, 2003

The Asus P4P800S-E Motherboard:

When it comes to the hardware industry, one can always expect to be surprised from time to time.  When we reviewed the P4P800 Deluxe, we wondered aloud where the "deluxe" moniker came from.  The board was solid but unspectacular, and lacked some of the bells and whistles that we found on other models.  So, along comes the P4P800S-E, which is marketed as a budget board, and we find features that wouldn't have expected, including an Intel CSA Gigabit LAN Controller (which even the P4P800 Deluxe didn't come with) and an added Wi-Fi card that we cover below.  Otherwise, the two boards are mostly identical, save for a custom black heatsink over the NorthBridge with ASUS on emblazoned on the top.  Asus has made one other "correction", moving the AGP slot slightly over from its previous position, and preventing a conflict with the DIMM slots.  It's also quite obvious that the P4P800S-E comes directly from the P4P800 Deluxe when one notices the gaps with pin holes where the IDE RAID controller and ports once were placed.

There are a few other modifications to point out.  Asus has joined in with a few other manufacturers, color coding the front panel pins to make setup a much easier chore.  The colors match the wires in most cases, and an astute builder can even forego looking in the manual for the correct placement.  As we pointed out with the Albatron PX865PE board, three singularly colored DIMM slots replace the dual-channel variety.  The IDE and Floppy ports are placed nearby in the corner, along with one of the ATX connectors.  In comparison, the other lower corner is relatively bare with two SATA controllers that can be used in a RAID configuration (thanks to the ICH5R SouthBridge) and a few headers for extra USB, FireWire, and COM ports.

There were 5 PCI slots, an AGP 8X slot, and along the edge of the last PCI slot is Asus' proprietary WI-Fi Slot.  It almost looks like an IDE port in reverse, and allows the user to plug in a Wi-Fi card to enjoy the comforts of wireless LAN.  It should be noted that besides the close proximity, PCI Slot 5 and the Wi-Fi slot cannot be used simultaneously.  Also, if one intends on using a video card with a large heatsink/fan cooling solution, that would eliminate using PCI Slot 1 as well, which could very well leave only three PCI slots for expansion.  The power array is nearly identical to previous P4P800 boards, and Asus still holds to the claim that their power structure should be able to support Prescott CPUs, available next year.

THE BUNDLE:

The bundle included with the P4P800S-E is much more complete than what we found with the P4P800 Deluxe, and we were greatly relieved to find brackets with additional USB 2.0 and FireWire ports.  Two red SATA cables and a serial power cable adapter are added to complement the two SATA ports.  Asus also includes two black IDE cables and a floppy cable to complete the set.  Thankfully, Asus has seen fit to include the I/O shield, which was noticeably missing from Albatron's bundle.  Users can pore through the larger User Guide, or jump right in to building with the multi-language Quick Setup Guide.  All necessary drivers and utilities are available on CD.  

One of the highlights of the package had to be the WiFi-b 802.11b Wireless LAN card and omni-directional antenna.  The add-on card bundles an exclusive software AP (access point) to save on the cost of an actual AP.  In addition, the driver CD comes with user-friendly utilities and applications to quickly and easily make connections to notebooks, PDAs, and other Wireless LAN peripherals.  Based on the IEEE 802.11b wireless standard, the WiFI-b provides wireless data transfer at 11Mbps and is completely compatible with other 802.11b devices.  The omni-directional antenna has a maximum range listed as 100ft. in the office, and 1000ft outdoors.  It was somewhat surprising to find this added to the package as this surely has to add to the price.  We would have normally expected to find it included with the P4P800 Deluxe, which was scant on add-ons.

Specifications & Features of The Asus P4P800S-E Tapping into the power of the HyperPath

The BIOS:

Like the Asus P4P800 Deluxe, the P4P800S-E came with an AMI (American Megatrends, Inc.) BIOS.  In the Advanced Chipset section, we could fine-tune the memory timings, and set the amount of the AGP aperture, and enable the all important Memory Acceleration Mode.  If you recall, Memory Acceleration is a performance enhancement first seen with the P4P800 Deluxe.  Enabling it should lower memory latencies. Combined with a Turbo setting for the Performance mode should result in some increase in overall performance, although it could cause some stability issues with some RAM modules.  One annoyance of this setup has to be the inability of the BIOS to change the CAS latency when enabling MAM and setting Performance Mode to Turbo.  It always remains as CAS2, which could cause some problems when overclocking.  As usual, you get what you pay for with your RAM..

Part of Asus' selling strategy is the AI options, one part of which is the AI Overclock Tuner.  Simply put, this setting can automatically overclock the system by 5%, 10%, 20%, or 30%.  This option can be helpful for some users, as it takes the guesswork out of overclocking their system.  For those who are more daring, the FSB can be raised as high as 400MHz, although settings this high are purely impractical.  The CPU voltage options are just as varied, going as high as 1.95V in .025V steps.  While we appreciate the range of options, we would like to point out the risk of damaging their CPU at higher voltages, so beware.  One very useful addition to the BIOS is the C.P.R. function, short for CPU Parameter Recall.  Should improper overclocking setting render the system inoperable, one can hold down the Insert key while booting to re-enter the BIOS and lower the settings.  

Overclocking: Asus P4P800S-E Trying to get more for your money

STOCK CPU SPEED 2.40GHz P4

CPU OVERCLOCKED TO 3.08GHz (12 X 257MHz)

Although the process of overclocking the Albatron PX865PE Lite Pro proved to be an easy process, we had much less of a good time with the Asus P4P800S-E.  It struck us as odd considering how much success we have had with Asus boards in the past.  Our first stumbling block was the result of the MAM and CAS settings.  We were getting nowhere with overclocking until we disabled the MAM and lowered the CAS timings, something we are usually against doing.  Generally we try to keep the memory running as tight as possible, even during overclocking, although greater performance gains are always more attributable to CPU speed increases.  We continued to raise the front side bus up to the same speeds as the Albatron board, but we kept running into stability issues.  Attempts at increasing the CPU Voltage to 1.75V would always cause the system to stop booting.  Thankfully the C.P.R. technology allowed us to easily get back into the BIOS and try other settings.  Being unable to use a voltage of 1.75V or higher was undoubtedly an issue that may be isolated to our sample, since we have not heard of similar problems, nor did we encounter an issue like this when testing the P4P800 Deluxe with the same hardware.  We had to "settle" for an overclock of 257MHz for the FSB, about 29% higher than stock speed.

How we went about our testing