Closer Look

The reviewed mainboard is based around the well-known i865PE chipset, so we won’t dwell upon its chipset-determined properties (you can refer to our ASUS P4P800 Review for this information). In brief, the P4P800-E Deluxe mainboard supports all the range of Socket 478 processors, including chips on the Northwood core as well as on the older 0.18µm Willamette core and on the new 90nm Prescott core. The compatibility with the Prescott is explicitly declared as such processors have relatively high energy consumption. The board carries four DDR DIMM slots, two for each memory channel. To enable the most efficient dual-channel memory access, you plug modules in pairs, into like-colored slots. Overall, it’s all as usual here.

The mainboard has an AGP 8x slot for 1.5v graphics cards. The manufacturer didn’t realize any protection system against old cards with 3.3v voltage, since such cards are practically extinct today.

Like on the previous version of the mainboard, the PCB contains five PCI slots and an exclusive WiFi slot, in its left part. By the way, when you install the original WLAN card from ASUS into this slot, the last PCI becomes unavailable. Now let’s examine the card, too.

The card supports the wireless networking protocol IEEE 802.11b, describing data-transfer rates up to 11Mb/s. Using the software that accompanies the card, you can use it in the Ad Hoc as well as in the Infrastructure mode, and the card can perform the functions of a programmable access point, providing connections to 31 clients. Thus, the owner of the WiFi-b kit can easily deploy wireless networks and connect to existing ones.

The software the manufacturer supplies with its WLAN adapter deserves our praises for simplicity and easiness of use. Even an inexperienced user will have no problems with setting networks up and connecting to them.

The WiFi-b kit is powerful enough to maintain connection to clients at a distance of up to 30 meters (indoors). More info on the WiFi-b can be found here.