Written: 8/16/2000
Written by: MotoŽ
Manufactured by: Asus

The ASUS CUV4X Mainboard is based on the new VIA 694X/694Z chipset with ATX form factor for the latest support in Intel Pentitum 3 Coppermine and Celeron 2 processors. The chipset is equipped with 133MHz Front Side Bus (FSB), and support for PC133/PC100 SDRAM, AGP Pro/4X, and Ultra DMA/66 as well as Chassis Intrusion Detection. The motherboard is also bundled with ASUS PC Health Monitoring to monitor to ensure safety for your PC. 

You can think of the CUV4X as the socket 370 version of the Asus P3V4X. The main difference, besides one being slot 1 and the other being socket 370, is the P3V4X has six PCI slots. The P3V4X also lacks the AGP Pro slot and the modem riser slot. The PCUV4X offers the following bus speed selections: 66, 68, 75, 80, 85, 90, 95, 100, 103, 105, 110, 112, 115, 116, 118, 120, 124, 126, 130, 133, 135, 138, 140, 142, 144, 146, 148, 150, 155, 160, 166. This should be more than enough to test the limits of both your CPU and RAM.

A new feature of the Asus CUV4X is the AGP Pro Slot. Besides offering AGP 4X, the slot offers greater voltage that is used by the new breed of AGP Pro cards hitting the market. 

A nice feature of all VIA Pro motherboards is its ability to adjust RAM speed independent of Front Side Bus speed. You have the option to set the RAM speed 33Mhz higher or lower than the Front Side Bus speed. This allows you to get the most out of your expensive PC-133 RAM. If you were using the P3V4X on the 100Mhz FSB you can increase the RAM speed to 133Mhz. Likewise if you're on the 166Mhz FSB, you can decrease the RAM speed by 33Mhz if your PC-133 RAM can't handle that high a bus speed.

The VIA Pro chipset also offers a 1/2 AGP divider. AGP video cards like the Elsa Gladiac GeForce2 GTS is meant to run on a 66Mhz AGP bus. When running your system on the stock 100Mhz FSB the AGP bus runs at 2/3 of that speed (66Mhz). The problem comes when you increase the FSB. By going to 150Mhz, the AGP bus increases to 100Mhz (2/3 of 150 = 100Mhz). A 100Mhz AGP bus is way too high for the GeForce2 GTS video card. However using that 1/2 AGP divider will give an AGP bus speed of 75Mhz (1/2 of 150 = 75Mhz). This is well within the operating limits of every AGP video card. Even when running the 166Mhz FSB, the AGP bus would be 83Mhz. Most AGP video cards can handle this.

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