by Anna Filatova
12/03/2001 | 06:13 AM
The closer we come to the day when i845 B-Step based mainboards will start selling in mass, the more details about this products emerge. For instance, today we received some info on the upcoming mainboards from ASUS.
The first solution called ASUS P4B266 will be not only built on the first Intel’s DDR chipset for Pentium 4 CPUs, but will be the first ASUS mainboard to sport an Integrated USB 2.0 controller. Here it is:
P4B266 will support Socket478 Pentium 4 processors based on Willamette core as well as on Northwood core. There will be three DIMM slots for up to 2GB PC1600/PC2100 DDR SDRAM without ECC. The board will be equipped with an AGP 4x slot, 6 PCI slots and a CNR slot. Besides, P4B266 will also have an integrated USB 2.0 controller from NEC supporting 4 USB 2.0 ports, and integrated 6-channel C-Media CMI8738 sound controller with an optional S/PDIF In and Out, and an optional 10/100Mbit Ethernet LAN controller from Intel. Speaking about the brand features of this solution, we should mention SFS (Stepless Frequency Selection), which allows increasing the FSB frequency with 1MHz increments, voice diagnostics system called Post Reporter, ASUS EZ Plug, which allows using ASUS P4B266 with older power supply units and the possibility to connect Smart Card Reader and Memory Stick Reader.
The second mainboard is called ASUS P4B266-M and will be targeted for OEM market in the first place, so it will be designed in MicroATX form-factor. Here it is:
The mainboard will support Socket478 Pentium 4 CPUs, will have 2 DIMM slots for PC1600/PC2100 DDR SDRAM without ECC, an AGP 4x slot, 3 PCI slots and 1 CNR slot. It will be equipped with an integrated 10/100Mbit Ethernet LAN controller from Realtek.
Both solutions will start shipping in the middle of December.