ASUS has always been known to produce high quality motherboards. This is one of the reasons why I wanted to review the ASUS P3V4X mainboard, which features the VIA Apollo Pro 133A chipset. Unlike ASUS, VIA hasn’t been known to manufacture high quality products. I wanted to see whether ASUS could provide a stable platform that is based on a chipset made by VIA. As VIA seem to be on a roll lately with their KX133 and the Apollo Pro 133A chipset, I also wanted to find out whether they can better their reputation as a chipset manufacturer.
Motherboard Specifications
As I mentioned earlier, the ASUS P3V4X board makes use of the VIA Apollo 133A chipset. With this chipset, the board offers an impressive array of features including ATA/66 hard drive support, 66/100/133MHz bus speeds, and AGP 4X support.
| ASUS P3V4X Apollo Pro 133A Motherboard Specifications | |
| Processor | Slot 1 Coppermine Pentium® III/II 300MHz~800+MHz or CeleronTM Processor (with ASUS® S370 Card Series) |
| Chipset | VIA® Apollo Pro133A VT82C694X 133MHz AGPset with VT82C596B South Bridge |
| System Memory | 4x 168-pin DIMMs Sockets Support 16MB to 2GB 3.3V PC133/100 SDRAM and Virtual Channel Memory (VCM) Support |
| Expansion Slots | 6 x 32-bit PCI, 1 x 32-bit AGP slot, 1 x 16-bit ISA slot |
| BIOS | Award® Medallion v6.00 |
| Bus Speeds | 66 / 68 / 75 / 80 / 85 / 90 / 95 / 100 / 103 / 105 / 110 /112 / 115 / 116 / 118 / 120 / 124 / 126 / 130 / 133 / 135 / 138 / 140 / 142 / 144 / 146 / 148 / 150 / 155 / 160 / 166 |
The first thing I noticed when I opened the box was that this board has done away with only 1 ISA slot. This is a boon for those who adbandoned most legacy hardware as the board adds an extra PCI slot to add up to a grand total of 6 PCI slots. None of those slots are crippled either. They all support bus mastering.
There are 4 DIMM slots available for use, which means you can run up to 2GB of SDRAM. I don’t think many of you will be running 2GB of SDRAM, but it’s nice knowing it’s possible. Although there’s some room for a large heatsink, there isn’t sufficient room for a heatsink the size of a meatlocker.
One of the most impressive features of the motherboard is its ability to run its memory at a different frequency than that of the FSB. The Apollo Pro 133A chipset lets you change the frequency the memory is running at by +/-33MHz. Building a system with a motherboard based on the VIA Apollo Pro 133A chipset is much cheaper than using a board based on the i820 because the Apollo Pro uses SDRAM while the i820 requires RDRAM. RDRAM is much too expensive right now for it to be feasible. To add insult to injury, RDRAM only offers a slight performance increase over SDRAM. Even better, with the VIA chipset, you can run the FSB at 133MHz while the memory is at 100MHz. With this feature, you can save even more money by using your old PC100 SDRAM instead of going out and buying a new stick of P133 SDRAM.
There is also support for AGP 4X. That line says it all. THERE IS AGP SUPPORT! Many mainboards with VIA chipset were often troubled with poor AGP support. But the Apollo Pro 133A chipset does not seem to have any problems with the AGP bus. I have read that the earlier revisions of the chipset had some AGP support problems, but mine ran without a hitch.
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