Performance

In this section of the review we will compare the performance of the ASUS P4P800-E Deluxe with that of a more expensive i875P-based mainboard. We decided to take a mainboard from the same manufacturer for this competition.

So, we used the following hardware for our tests:

• Intel Pentium 4 3.4GHz CPU;
• Mainboards: ASUS P4P800-E Deluxe (i865PE) and ASUS P4C800-E Deluxe (i875);
• 2x512MB CMX512-3200LLPro DDR400 SDRAM from Corsair, 2-3-2-6 timings (the dual-channel memory access was enabled);
• ASUS RADEON 9800 XT graphics card;
• Western Digital WD400JB HDD.

We ran our tests under MS Windows XP SP1; the BIOSes of the mainboards were set up for the maximum performance.

I met the first surprise at the phase of configuring the systems. The ASUS P4P800-E Deluxe refused to work with Performance Mode = Turbo, asking for faster and more stable modules with 2-2-2-5 timings. At the same time, the ASUS P4C800-E Deluxe on the i875P chipset worked with these modules with the Performance Mode option set to Turbo without any problems. This fact explains the slight performance lag of the P4P800-E Deluxe in the following tests:

Note that if you install 2-2-2-5 memory modules into the ASUS P4P800-E Deluxe and enable the Performance Mode (Turbo), the mainboard’s performance approaches that of the ASUS P4C800-E Deluxe.

In other words, the two mainboards from ASUS (on i865PE and i875 chipsets) do show similar speeds if you set them up identically. This is another testimony to the highest class of the ASUS engineering team that managed to boost the performance of the i865PE to the level of the i875P. Unfortunately, it’s more difficult to set the P4P800-E Deluxe up in the same manner as the i875P-based mainboard – you need to pick up specific memory modules. This fact only prevents me from saying that the P4P800-E Deluxe is as fast as i875P-based products. On the other hand, this situation may change as new BIOS versions appear.