ASUS P4R800-V Deluxe Review - Conclusion
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ASUS has put together quite a motherboard with the P4R800-V Deluxe. The ATi 9100IGP chipset support of dual channel memory, Hyper-Threading, 400/533/800MHz, Prescott, and Extreme Edition Pentium IVs make it quite a formidable chipset. I wasn't expecting to be able to play games with the 9100 IGP, as was my experience with the onboard video of an nForce2 and a Via Epia. I was surprised when I saw that I could, and very well, at that. Being able to add an AGP card down the road is great and shows some nice forethought on ATi's part. This looks like a motherboard that could last you for a long time, especially with Intel's Tejas chip being cancelled.
On top of the software bundle, ASUS even made up for the few shortcomings of the 9100 IGP. They added ICs on the motherboard to handle SATA, GigaBit LAN, RAID, additional USB 2.0 ports, FireWire, and decent onboard sound via the SoundMax solution. With the ability to support PATA and SATA RAID you could equip this system with a serious amount of storage making it a perfect for a file, mp3, or DiVX/DVD server.
On top of everything else, the board includes a full set of tweaking and overclocking options in the BIOS. I was slightly disappointed by the overclocking results, but I quickly recovered when I realized how much better this motherboard performed when compared to the Albatron nForce2 I used to use. Below is a screenshot of this motherboard running at 224MHz system bus. In no way was this overclock hampered by the CPU (capable of 277 MHz FSB) or memory (PC4000).
Based on reviews I've seen of other 9100 IGP based board, the 12% overclock I got out of the ASUS P4R800-V Deluxe is as-good-as or better than some of the other manufacturers' motherboards based on the same chipset.
Highs
- Great integrated video performance
- Overclocking options
- Tons of BIOS features (My favorite being the Post Reporter)
- Virtually every connection you'll need (USB 2.0, 1394, SATA, etc.)
- Amazing blundle
- SurroundView coming
- Upgradeability
- Price ($123.00 at NewEgg.com)
Lows
- No DVI output
- Limited overclocking performance
Overall, the ASUS P4R800-V looks to be a great entry-level, budget conscious, server, or HTPC motherboard. The performance is near what you would expect from Intel's i865 chipset and only slightly below that of the i875 chipset. I was very pleased with P4R800-V. In fact, I will be using this motherboard in my backup system that I use as server/software development/DVD player that I occasionally use to play Quake3 or UT2003.
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