Product Name: Asus P4B533

Date: Tuesday, October 8, 2002

Author: Bob Bailey a.k.a: Rbreb13

Provided By: None

Page: 1 of 4

Introduction

The Asus P4B533 I'm reviewing here is my own personal workstation. The board is version 3.0 with the 1006 BIOS. Supports socket 478 P4 processors up to 2.2 GHz+ with enhanced 533MHz FSB.

As you can see the board is laid out very well. There is plenty of room for an aftermarket heatsink. It also has a Molex plug for those of us that don't have a P4 ready power supply. Asus calls this EZ Plug. There are 6 PCI slots, 1 AGP slot and 0 CNR slots. There is also no legacy support for AGP cards. Meaning an older video card could toast your mobo! There are 3 DDR dimm slots, which support up to a maximum of 4 banks of memory. Dimm 1 uses 2 banks and dimm 2 & 3 share the other 2 banks. If you have 2 double-sided sticks of RAM you must install one of them in slot 1. While the i845E chipset itself does not support anything above DDR 266, there should be no problem with PC2700 or more. I am currently running Xtreme DDR PC3000 with no problems whatsoever. The IDE connectors being on the edge of the board makes for a very clean installation, as far as wiring goes. Swapping the floppy and ATX connectors places would have made more sense and the DIMM slots are to close to the AGP slot (removal of the video card is required in order to swap RAM).

Ok now for some boring specifications!

What comes in the box:

• 1x Motherboard
• 1 x ATA100 IDE cable
• 1 x ATA 33 IDE cable
• 1 x FDD cable
• 1 x USB and game port bracket
• 1 x SPDIF I/O bracket
• 1 x User Manual
• 1 x Quick Setup Guide
• 1 x Quick Reference Card
• 1 x Motherboard Settings Sticker
• 1 x ATX back panel
• 1 x Asus Driver CD (Drivers, utilities, and PC-Cillin 2002 Anti-virus)

And from Asus's website:

P4B533 Series motherboards redefine high-performance for Pentium 4 with the Intel 845E chipset and DDR 266 support. Overall system operation is enhanced with a peak 2.1 GB/s bandwidth, while 533MHz FSB supports the latest Intel P4 processors. Available in a large variety of models, the ASUS P4B533 Series motherboard provides reliable and powerful solutions for all types of Pentium 4 systems.

Enhanced 533MHz Front-Side-Bus
The P4B533 supports all socket 478 P4 processors including Willamette and Northwood up to 2.2GHz+. The 533MHz FSB increases bandwidth and improves overall system performance.

DDR memory support
The ASUS P4B533 and the Intel 845E chipset unlock the value of Pentium 4 technology with high-bandwidth DDR SDRAM. Supporting up to 2GB of PC2100/PC1600 and a peak bandwidth of 2.1GB/s, the P4B533 enables enhanced performance in multimedia applications, video, audio, 3D games and more.

6-Channel Audio (optional)
The P4B533 uses an onboard C-Media audio controller, letting you enjoy 6-channel audio without having to buy advanced sound cards.

Ultra-fast USB 2.0 Support
The ASUS P4B533 features USB 2.0 support. USB 2.0 is the latest connectivity specification for peripheral devices and features transfer speeds of up to 480 Mb/s. Approximately forty times faster than conventional USB 1.1, USB 2.0 is backwards-compatible supporting all the USB devices of today and tomorrow.