![[H]ardOCP](/images/blank.gif){kind=small}
- Date:
- Monday , June 09, 2003
- Author:
- Morry Teitelman
- Editor:
- Kyle Bennett
- Google +1
ASUS P4P800 Deluxe
This is the ASUS entry in to the i865PE/Springdale market. Is this the board to pair up with your Pentium 4 2.4C, or does it fall short of expectations?
BIOS
The P4P800 uses an American Megatrends based BIOS, customized by ASUS with more enthusiast friendly features.
The IDE Configuration submenu contains options to configure IDE and SATA devices connected to the ICH5R controller. To use the RAID properties available in the chipset, the Onboard IDE Operate Mode option must be set to Enhanced Mode, the Configure S-ATA as RAID option must be set to Yes, and the Serial-ATA BOOTROM must be set to Enabled. The Serial-ATA BOOTROM option enables the ICH5R RAID setup utility available during system startup.
The Advanced screen contains submenus for a variety of system related performance settings. The most interesting performance related settings are located within the Jumper Free Configuration submenu, the Chipset submenu, and the Onboard Devices Configuration submenu. The Onboard Devices submenu contains a variety of options for controlling various system devices, including the VIA RAID controller. To enable the VIA controller chip, you must set the OnBoard VT6410 RAID Controller option to Enabled.
Within the JumperFree Configuration submenu, you can find all bus frequency and voltage related performance settings. The AI Overclock Tuner option allows for system controlled overclocking by percentages, with an up to 30% overclock available. When the AI Overclock Tuner option is set to Manual, the bus frequency options become user definable. The CPU External Frequency (MHz) option shows the current detected CPU FSB. This option is user configurable over a range of 100 MHz to 400 MHz, but only controls the bus speed for the CPU. The DRAM Frequency and AGP/PCI Frequency (MHz) options control the memory and PCI/AGP bus speeds. Note that the DRAM bus frequency selections available depend on the CPU FSB set. With a 533 MHz FSB CPU, a maximum memory FSB of 333 MHz is available. With an 800 MHz FSB CPU, the 400 MHz memory speed is available.
Just below the bus frequency options are the system voltage settings. The CPU vcore voltage can by set to a maximum of 1.60v through the CPU VCore Voltage option. While 1.60v is low for a massive overclock, it will allow you to achieve a reasonable degree of performance with the board. Interestingly enough, ASUS chose to build in an overvolt feature for the vcore voltage. With the CPU VCore Offset + 0.1v option enabled, the CPU vcore maximum voltage becomes 1.7v. Not too shabby, but a bit more latitude would have been nice. The DDR Reference Voltage option controls the system DRAM voltage, offering a maximum of 2.85v. Again, this is good enough for a reasonable overclock, but may prove difficult for a much over 200 MHz FSB experience. The AGP VDDQ Voltage option allows controls the voltage flow to the AGP card, with a maximum allowable voltage of 1.8v. This is more than enough to push your AGP card to its limits. The very last option offered is the Performance Mode option. This option defines how aggressively system related timing settings, other than memory, are handled by the BIOS.
The Advanced Chipset Settings submenu offers full control over all aspects of the chipset related settings, including a variety of memory timings. Changing memory related timing settings can improve system performance but can also lead to major system stability issues..
By setting the Configure DRAM Timing by SPD option set to Disabled, all five memory timing options become user definable. Settings available include CAS latency, RAS precharge delay, RAS to CAS delay, Active to precharge delay, and burst length. For all memory timing related settings, the lower value is more aggressive.
Independent of the Configure DRAM Timing by SPC option, there are three other memory related settings. Memory Acceleration Mode determines how aggressively the system sets the communication channel between the CPU and DRAM. Both the DRAM Idle Timer and DRAM Refresh Rate options control how aggressively the memory is read from and written to by the system. In both cases, a lower value is more aggressive.
Within the top level Power screen, the Hardware Monitor submenu controls all system level monitoring of various temperatures, voltages, and fan speeds. Note that only fan headers with connected fans are enabled in the submenu. The Q-Fan Control option regulates fan speed of any system fan connected to a monitored fan header. When the Q-Fan Control option is Enabled, the Fan Speed Ratio option displays allowing for manual setting of the default fan speed in 1/16 gradients.