865PE/875P Motherboard Roundup June 2003 - Part 1: 20-way Shootout

ASUS P4P800 Deluxe

Though the P4P800 Deluxe is not as feature-rich as the high-end 865PE and 875P motherboards there are still lots of positive things to say about its features, especially for the price it's going for online.

First and foremost is the IDE RAID controller onboard the P4P800 Deluxe. VIA is certainly not known for their IDE RAID solutions, and so the VT6410 RAID controller is quite unique, in fact the first of its kind that we've ever come across. In combination with the Primary and Secondary IDE connectors (which support a total of four drives), the two VT6410-controlled IDE RAID connectors, and the two ICH5R-powered Serial ATA connectors, the P4P800 Deluxe is capable of supporting a total of 10 drives. That's an excellent amount of drive support for the middle-range asking price of the P4P800 Deluxe in the U.S.

Not surprisingly the P4P800 Deluxe contains excellent BIOS options, exactly the kind you would expect from ASUS. Some notable performance tweaking options include FSB adjustments available up to 400MHz, VDIMM adjustable up to 2.85V, AGP/PCI adjustments up to 80MHz/40MHz (about as high as is doable) and Vcore values available up to 1.950V in fine 0.0125V and 0.0250V increments. The FSB ceiling of 400MHz isn't in the least surprising as ASUS has always left lots of room for FSB overclockers in the past. What really stands out is the tremendous Vcore support available up to 1.950V. This ceiling is even higher when you take into account the average overvolt of 0.040V, meaning you could reach as high as 2.00V with your P4 processor on the P4P800 Deluxe (something we highly recommend against). Don't be alarmed though, ASUS has a history of producing motherboards that naturally overvolt. We should note that our FSB overclocking results were performed at a Vcore of just over 1.565V instead of the usual 1.525V because of the P4P800 Deluxe's default overvolting.

Quite obviously the most notable aspect of the P4P800 Deluxe is its ability to mimic PAT (Performance Acceleration Technology) found only on Intel's 875P series of chipsets. While the 865PE chipsets ASUS uses for the P4P800 Deluxe are not truly PAT enabled, ASUS has found a way to "crack" PAT microcode, enabling their P4P800 Deluxe motherboards to perform just as well as 875P motherboards for a significantly lower price. If you have a P4P800 Deluxe and want to make sure you're reaping 875P-like performance, make sure you enable MAM (Memory Acceleration Mode) and set the Performance Mode option to "Turbo" in the BIOS. We recommend that you use BIOS revision 1007 or higher (when available) for the best possible performance and reliability.

There are a few negative things we have to say about the P4P800 Deluxe. Firstly, we would have preferred it if ASUS had left some space between the AGP slot and DIMM connectors, as it's exceedingly inconvenient for users to have to uninstall their video card if they simply want to add or remove their memory modules. This feature is easy to implement, especially since there is an unusually large amount of space between the AGP slot and the first PCI slot.