I was very excited about trying out the ASUS P3V4X because of
its three bus speed above 150Mhz. My P3-550E can run at 825Mhz (150x5.5) at
below stock voltage so I really wanted to see how much more it had in it. Just
to be on the safe side I secured a second P3-550E just in case I blow up the
first one. One thing I didn't like about the P3V4X was that while you can set
CPU core voltage above stock you can't go below.
To make sure the CPUs doesn't blow up on me, I installed them
without the heat trapping backplate and mounted it onto an Alpha P3125 and
topped it off with a pair of 38CFM Delta60 high output fans from
AMK Services. To say these fans are loud is an understatement. While Zero
may like the noise, it drove me up the wall! However, they you won't find a more
powerful heatsink fan than the Delta60.
To make a long story short, I was never able to get the two
P3-550E over 825Mhz, no matter how much voltage I used. All I got when tried the
155Mhz bus was a blank screen, even with the most conservative BIOS setting.
Both 550E ran rock stable at the 150Mhz bus at default voltage. The P3V4X worked
fine with both the Corsair PC-133 and Micron PC-133 SDRAM at 150Mhz.
One thing people complain about with Via motherboards is its
lack of memory performance when compared to a BX chipset motherboard. However,
this can be compensated for by running at very high bus speeds. Check out this
SiSoft memory benchmark with the RAM running at 150Mhz.
This score is quite a bit higher than what I got with the Abit
VT6X4. This is most likely due to the more updated drivers the P3V4X shipped
with. All other benchmarks were pretty much the same as the Abit VT6X4.
There isn't much to dislike about the new ASUS motherboard. The
main one being the placement of the floppy connector. It's just dumb to have it
at that location. I wouldn't mind seeing an extra fan header also. However three
should be good enough to get what you want. The last thing I don't like about
the ASUS P3V4X is that it's more expensive than most Via motherboards. ASUS has
always priced their boards higher than the competition and the P3V4X is no
exception. However, in this case, the extra cost may be worth it. I really like
the six PCI slots and extra bus speed selection over that Abit VT6X4.
If you're in the market for a new motherboard, put the P3V4X on
the short list. This board has nearly everything one could want, with only a
few minor gripes. Given a choice between the Abit VT6X4 or the ASUS P3V4X I
would lean towards the ASUS because of its six PCI and bus speeds above 150Mhz.
While the two CPUs I had didn't work above that bus speed, I'm sure I can find
some that does. :)
The Goods
The Bads
Rating: 9/10
[Page 1]
[Page 2]
[Page 3]
[Page 4]
[Home]
