An excellent, stable board
Written: Jul 23 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Jumperless configuration, excellent manual, very stable
Cons: poorly located floppy cable connector
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| Pavlovs_Fish's Full Review: Asus P3V4X |
I was getting ready to build a new computer and the only parts I needed were a motherboard and a processor. I consulted several hardware sites and some friends who had built computers before about what brands to consider for a motherboard and I settled on Asus. After debating what chipset to go with, I settled on an Apollo Pro 133A based board. I had seen some people complaining about poor AGP and memory performance with that chipset, but it seemed like those issues had been resolved by Via's latest 4-in-1 driver. I decided the P3V4X was probably my best bet and upon further research, the only complaint I found about it was that it's not that good for overclocking. I couldn't care less about that - all I wanted was a good, stable board for my new gaming system. I decided to go ahead and get a P3V4X.
Building the system around the P3V4X was quite painless. I have one gripe about the board layout - the connector for the floppy cable is poorly located, right under the AGP slot. If I ever have to take out my video card for an upgrade or just to re-seat it, I need to unplug the floppy cable first because it's in the way. Otherwise, I had no problems setting things up. The other connectors are all well located and it came with an excellent manual which explains not only how to set up all the hardware and where to plug in all the case leads, but what all of the BIOS settings are for. The board also features menu-driven configuration, which is great - jumpers and dip switches are such a tremendous pain.
It's been about a month since I got the board and assembled my system around it and I am very pleased with the results. I've got a Pentium III 866 MHz processor, Creative 3D Blaster Annihilator 2, Soundblaster Live! Value, Hauppage WinTV, a 20 GB hard drive, DVD-ROM, and Plextor CD-RW running on it under Windows 2000. The system has been getting some heavy use since I built it between all the 3D accelerated games I've been playing and running SETI@home 24 hours a day and I haven't had a single crash or lockup that I can't attribute to user error. I've been able to run the system for as long as five days straight without any hint of instability.
I am beyond pleased with this board, and I highly recommend it to anyone looking to build a system around a PIII.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 100
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Epinions.com ID:
Pavlovs_Fish
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Location: Herndon, VA
Reviews written: 15
Trusted by: 4 members
About Me:
Technology addict, movie buff, and above all, a gamer.
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