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ASUS P3B-F Review

This mainboard is built on i440BX for Slot 1 processors. In fact, it is the first mainboard from ASUS with SoftMenu (Jumperfreetechnology).

by FastSite
07/24/1999 | 12:00 AM

It looks as if there isn't much time left till the so long awaited i820 finally appears in themarket. However, the mainboard manufacturers don't keep their hands in pockets waiting for this greatevent to happen. On the contrary, the market is swarming with new models based on the old i440BX. Andthough the new mainboards are made on the old chipset, they still offer the users greater opportunities.In the recent time a lot of new mainboard features have been included into the standard set, where we cannow find 5 PCI- and 4 DIMM-slots, ACPI and Suspend-to-RAM support, the possibility to change processorcore voltage, a wide range of supported FSB frequencies and improved system monitoring.<%BANNER[article]%>

As for ASUS, it wasn't wasting time as well. At Computex ASUS promised to launch a new P3B mainboardfamily - a logical continuation of the previous P2B family. And again ASUS managed to catch up with allthe rest and even to leave them far behind at one stroke. Now the mainboards from number 1 manufacturercan boast 6 PCI-slots and allow changing the CPU configuration through BIOS Setup, which is known by ASUSas JumperFree technology. Besides, the mainboards are supposed to be much better protected against fakes.So, the new mainboard from ASUSTeK - P3B-F is expected to become the hit of the market at least until i820comes out. And now let's take a closer look at the main specs of ASUS P3B-F.

Specifications

The package contents is pretty usual - nothing to be surprised at. In a very colorful box with a newbeautiful design we found the mainboard itself with the whole bunch of other different stuff. The user'smanual impressed us with the way it was composed - a perfect example of a well-balanced manual: clear andnot very overloaded. Then the package also included a CD with the drivers and with the monitoring softwarefrom Intel - LCDM, and from ASUS - PC Probe, as well as a set of cables for IDE and FDD.

Closer Look

So, let's take P3B-F. The first impression of the board may remind us of its predecessor - P2B-F,which is not surprising at all, because ASUS borrowed its successful design for our newcomer. However,the components location is the only common feature of the two mainboards - ASUS P2B-F and P3B-F. Andafter a short while a very vivid difference catches your eye: P3B-F has 6 PCI-slots and only 1ISA-slot. Well, ASUS seems to be the first one, who managed to equip one mainboard with 6 PCI-slotssupporting Bus Mastering instead of 5. Now it isn't that easy to fully understand the sense of thisinnovation - we can hardly think of a configuration with all 6 slots involved. But maybe in the nearfuture this will be quite a common thing, especially taking into account the growing popularity ofUltraDMA/66 and Firewire controllers. As for the lonely ISA-slot shared with the last PCI one, it isintended for really old devices, which are so dear to the user that he simply can't give them up.However, if you stick to PC99 spec, ASUS can offer you a P3B-F without this ISA-slot. At the sametime ASUS never forgot about the users with more than one ISA-devices: they can be happy with a P3B-Fversion equipped with 2 ISA and 5 PCI-slots. But the most interesting thing about it is that all threemainboard versions are based on one and the same PCB with a connection for all the possible slotcombinations. The sample we had for testing possessed 6 PCI and 1 ISA slot, which is the basic mainboardconfiguration of ASUS P3B-F.

As for the other expansion options, P3B-F, like most of the today's mainboards, has 4 DIMM-slots andsupports up to 1GB memory. Here we would like to note that all memory slots are located close to the systemchipset and hence the conductors connecting the chipset with the memory are relatively short. With such shortlengths no additional memory buffer is needed, because the board performs stable even if all 4 DIMM-slots arebusy at the same time.

And in general, the P3B-F design appears quite nice and hardly arouses any reproach, which is quitelogical since P3B-F belongs to the third i440BX mainboard generation and simply must be a success. However,since the PCB is unified and allows 3 different mainboard modifications, the version with 2 ISA and 5 PCIslots may still face some inconveniences with ISA-boards installation. The thing is that it will be prettyhard to install a full-size ISA-board in one of the slots because of the connectors for buttons and indicatorssituated on the case front side. Besides, it's almost impossible to connect one of the three fans becausethe corresponding connector is placed too close to Slot-1. However, these small drawbacks are soinsignificant that they can't eclipse all the highs of P3B-F.

And as for some serious lows, we would mention here the total absence of UltraDMA/66 support. Althoughi440BX launched more than one and a half years ago, doesn't support this interface, some mainboardmanufacturers, like ABIT for instance, found a very simple way-out. They installed an UltraDMA/66IDE-controller onto their mainboards since it is just a pennyworth thing. At present there isn't muchuse in UltraDMA/66 interface, which provides a twice as high data transfer rate from the harddisk - upto 66MB/sec, but the turning point is very close and soon this feature may become irreplaceable. HDDmanufacturers are also busy making constant progress that's why their today's read speed of about 25MB/secis a rather poor excuse for ASUS.

ASUS P3B-F is supplied preinstalled with a universal retention mechanism for processors, whichfits for SECC as well as for SECC2 and SEPP. Another pleasant trifle is a green light emitting diodein the middle of the board, which serves to signal power presence in the system. Initially themanufacturer intended this diode to prevent the user from some not very clever actions, such as(dis)assembling of his PC with the power on. However, this diode is powered by the PCI bus, whichis not the best solution, because the bus may be disconnected while the system is in Suspend-to-RAMstate and the system memory is under voltage. In other words, we would consider it much more logicalto power this indicator by system memory as we can see in Gigabyte BX2000 mainboard.

Then P3B-F, like all other new boards from ASUS, also has a set of ten dip-switches instead of thetraditional jumpers. Strange as it might seem, but most mainboard manufacturers started using dip-switchesonly now though they are much more convenient: nothing falls on the floor and gets lost. And if you remembersome time ago ASUS had to provide its mainboards with a spare set of jumper caps.

Besides, we would like to specially dwell on BIOS installed into P3B-F. It is Award. However, it is nota 4.51 version, which already palls on everybody with its lapidary exterior, but a new 6.0 one developedby Award and Phoenix engineers after Phoenix had bought Award. As a result of these joint efforts,BIOS has a windowed structure with the exterior from Phoenix and interior from Award. That's why BIOSSetup contains all the functions required for system configuring: IRQ assigning for PCI slots, finetuning of all memory timings, etc. Also BIOS supports Suspend-to-RAM function, which allows saving theworking system state in the memory and the latter remains under voltage while all the other componentsare disconnected. Quitting this state takes 10 seconds at the most, and after that the user can resumethe work from where he stopped when Suspend-to-RAM was activated.

Also let's pay attention to system monitoring, taking into account the fact that ASUS doesn't suggestany standard solutions and utilizes its own ASIC chip (Application Specific Integrated Circuit). Andthough the monitored parameters set is quite ordinary - 6 voltages, the status of 3 fans connected tothe board and 3 temperatures - there are some things that are really worth mentioning. In particular,ASUS didn't use the special "tail" for CPU temperature measuring introduced by Chaintech. This "tail"has a small thermistor at the end, which is pressed to the radiator. Instead of using this simple device ASUSchose a better way providing much higher measurements precision. Its ASIC takes the CPU temperaturestraight from the thermal diode built into the processor, which already appears in Pentium III,Deschutes Pentium II and PPGA370 Celeron, i.e. in all the relatively new processors. And themainboard temperature is taken in a standard way - with a thermistor placed in the lower leftcorner. Besides, it is also possible to connect an external thermal sensor if necessary. Moreover,ASIC also allows using the chassis intrusion detector.

In order to meet the requirements of PC99 ASUS provided its P3B-F with the whole bunch of funnycolored connectors for external devices. Here is the list of the color codes from PC99 specification:

ConnectorRecommended Color
Analog VGABlue
Audio line inLight blue
Audio line outLime
Digital monitor/flat panelWhite
IEEE 1394Gray
MicrophonePink
MIDI/GameGold
ParallelBurgundy
PS/2-compatible keyboardPurple
PS/2-compatible mouseGreen
SerialTealor Turquoise
Speaker out/subwooferOrange
Right-to-left speakerBrown
USBBlack
Video outYellow
SCSI, network, telephone modem, and so onNone

And as it comes to antivirus protection, ASUS also suggests a very extraordinary solution toprotect the Flash-memory contents against such viruses as CIH, for instance. First, Flash memorywrite can be disabled through BIOS Setup. But besides that, ASUS uses a non-standard programminginterface for P3B-F Flash memory, which gives the manufacturer every right to say that the Flashmemory contents simply can't be spoilt by an "unauthorized" program. However, this may also causesome problems. For example it appears not that easy to update the BIOS version - you will succeedonly with a special ASUS utility. And all other programs won't work, as simple as that.

And in conclusion, we would like to mention that P3B-F has SB-Link, Wake-on-LAN and - which isespecially unexpected - SMBus connector, as well as a strange Message LED indicator intended forsome unknown purpose.

Overclocking

ASUS mainboards are very popular among overclockers as well as among average users. And it is notdue to some extraordinary features, but due to their stable and reliable performance. While almostall the leading mainboard manufacturers have already shifted to jumperless configuring through BIOSSetup, ASUS is making its first steps in this direction only now with its new JumperFree technology.Yes! Finally ASUS P3B-F allows setting the CPU clock multiplier and the system bus frequency throughSetup! They did it!

However, trying to satisfy the needs of both ordinary users and overclockers at the same time, ASUSprovided its P3B-F with configuring dip-switches. To choose the way you prefer for setting CPU parameters,you need to set a special jumper. So, if you are an overclocker, you can deal with BIOS Setup, which alsolets you increase the processor core voltage. And if you belong to the army of average users and yoursystem was once configured by means of the switches, you won't have any access to the correspondingproperties in Setup.

Since hardware dip-switches configuring seems to be of no particular interest, let's pass overto JumperFree technology. The list of the supported FSB and PCI frequencies for ASUS P3B-F is givenbelow (it doesn't differ that much from what we saw in the latest P2B or P2B-F revisions):

FSB frequency, MHz 66 75 83 100 103 105 110
PCI frequency, MHz 33.4 37.5 41.6 33.4 34.3 35.0 36.7
FSB frequency, MHz 112 115 120 124 133 140 150
PCI frequency, MHz 37.3 38.3 40.0 31.0
41.3		 33.3
44.3		 35.0 37.5

In other words, the frequencies range is quite standard for today's situation. As for the clockmultipliers, the BIOS version of the mainboard tested allowed only the options lying between 2.0xand 8.5x.

However, i440BX chipset our mainboard is based on, supports only two AGP frequency dividers: 1 and2/3, either of which can be set by means of a special jumper. At the FSB frequencies over 100MHz AGPstarts working in overclocked regime, which can be quite harmful for some graphics cards. But, nothingto do with it - just to put up.

Besides, the mainboard also has a jumper, which lets you slightly increase the memory, chipset andAGP voltage from the standard 3.5V to 3.65V. Theoretically, this setting should be rather helpful forsystem overclocking though we haven't yet come across the conditions when it is vitally urgent.

Moreover, with JumperFree technology it is possible to increase the CPU core voltage to 2.4V with thestep of 0.05V. Well, this is an important feature, but we wish we could also decrease the voltage aswell - sometimes it may be helpful for overclocking. Besides, the voltage shouldn't grow higher thanby 10% otherwise it may lead to really serious consequences: the L2 cache of the processor can simplyget irretrievably broken. That is why we wouldn't recommend you to work at Vcore over 2.2V. Franklyspeaking, we are very surprised to find these values included into BIOS Setup.

If you are very curious about the JumperFree technology and want to check all the possible CPUsettings on practice, you may manage to set your system a regime, when it is unable to boot up.Then don't be desperate: you can restart the system, and all the settings you made will be erasedand P3B-F will automatically open the Setup. This means that ASUS eliminated the necessity to clearCMOS in such cases, especially keeping in mind that it is not an easy job for P3B-F - you will haveto short two solder points.

So, in general we can say that ASUS P3B-F is a good thing to overclock even inextreme conditions.

Performance

Actually, most of the today's mainboards perform on almost the same level. The main parameter,which should deserve extra attention, is the board's quality. And no one throws any doubt upon thequality provided by ASUS, which maintains partnership with Intel and provides Hewlett Packard withmainboards. But still, let's take a look at the benchmarks results shown by P3B-F. The testing systemwas configured as follows:

For benchmarks we utilized the following applications:

Here are the results:


Well, as we see the diagrams don't demonstrate anything unusual. As we have expected ASUS P3B-Fperformance appears somewhere at the mid-level in office applications as well as in gaming ones.

Conclusions

Well, summing up we may say that ASUS P3B-F is a unified mainboard with rich features for varioustastes and demands intended for both: average users and overclockers. And if we add here high stabilityand reliability of the device, P3B-F will turn a really good choice. However, if we were you, we would tryto wait till September, when the situation in the chipset market becomes clear after the expected launchingof the new chipsets: Intel 810e, Intel 820, VIA Apollo Pro133 and VIA Apollo Pro133A.

Highs

Lows

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