There were a lot of discussions about the Hyper-Threading technology support by various chipsets from Intel itself as well as third-party chipset developers, and, based on the words from Intel’s representatives, a lot of analysts stated that only the limited number of their core-logic products can take advantage of the innovative technology. Nevertheless, it now seems that in some cases both Intel and analysts were not completely correct. ASRock announced their P4I45D based on the antique i845D chipset and surprisingly among the other features of this strangest i845 B-Step-based mainboard is mentioned the Hyper-Threading technology support!

There are a lot of reasons why this mainboard is the strangest among all products of this kind. Firstly, besides the Hyper-Threading, ASRock installed a pair of 168-pin SDR SDRAM memory slots as well as a couple of 184-pin DDR SDRAM intended slots. Honestly speaking, I even do not remember mainboards on Intel’s chipsets that offered an option to install two different kinds of memory modules. Secondly, ASRock declares 533MHz Quad Pumped Bus support for the mainboard that is not officially provided by Intel’s specifications of the i845D. Thirdly, ASRock managed to get the totally outdated ICH2 I/O controllers somewhere and installed on the P4I45D. And that is not all, because finally ASRock builds this mainboard according to the latest guidelines, thus, the newcomer supports the Pentium 4 3.06GHz and above processors.

Take a look on the more detailed specifications of the product, or, if you prefer to view how does the device look, click here.

• Supports Socket 478 Pentium 4 / Celeron processors with 400/533MHz FSB, including 3.06GHz clock-speed and above;
• Can take advantage of the CPUs with the Hyper-Threading technology enabled;
• i845D MCH and ICH2;
• 2 184-pin DIMM slots for up to 2GB of PC1600 or PC2100 (533MHz FSB) memory;
  2 168-pin DIMM slots for up to 2GB of PC100 or PC133 (533MHz FSB) memory;
• 5 PCI and 1 AGP 4x slot;
• 2-channel ATA-100/66/33 integrated controller;
• 4 USB 2.0 ports via VT6202 controller from VIA Technologies;
• 10/100Mbit/s Ethernet adapter from Realtek;
• 6-channel audio solution;
• Supports ASRock U-COP technology;
• ATX Form Factor.

Like all mainboards from ASRock, this one should be relatively cheap, but presently there is no precise and official information about the cost. As for availability, they say that the product should be available soon.