Asus P3B-F ATX Motherboard
Reviewed by CPU-ZILLA  (14 Nov 99)

Motherboard Specifications
Processor	Intel Celeron® Processor 266MHz-500MHz (66Mhz). Intel Pentium® II Processor 233MHz-333MHz (66Mhz). Intel Pentium® II Processor 350MHz-450MHz (100Mhz). Intel Pentium® III Processor 450MHz-600MHz (100Mhz). Supports 66/ 75/ 83/ 100/ 103/ 105/ 110/ 112/ 115/ 120/ 124/ 133/ 140/ 150 MHz System Clock Speed Setting Supports 3.0-8.0 Multiplier Setting Core voltage adjustment by +20%
Chipset	Intel 440BX chipset
Cache memory	CPU Built-in 128KB/256KB/512KB L2 cache for Celeron/Pentium II/III Processor
System Memory	4 x 168-pin 3.3v PC100 SDRAM DIMM support  Supports 8/16/32/64/128/256 MB DIMM Module  Supports 168-pin unbuffered PC100 SDRAM (Supports ECC, 1-bit Error Code Correct function)  Supports up to 1024MB of memory size
PCI IDE	2 X PCI Bus Master UDMA/33 IDE ports (up to 4 ATAPI Devices)  Supports for PIO Mode 0-4, UDMA/33 IDE & ATAPI CD-ROM
I/O Interface	1x floppy port (360KB-2.88MB)  2x serial ports (16550 high-speed)  1x parallel port (SPP/EPP/ECP)  PS/2 Keyboard  PS/2 Mouse  2x USB  1 IrDA-Compliant Infrared Module header
Expansion slot	6 x PCI 32-bit slots, PCI 2.2 compliant (one PCI/ISA shared) Supports 3.3V/5V PCI bus interface  1 x ISA 16-bit slots  1x AGP (1x & 2x Mode, 66/133MHz) slot (3.3v device support)
Power Management	Power On by Soft-Power Switch  Power Off by Windows® 95/98 Shut down & Soft-Power Switch  ACPI (Advanced Configuration and Power Interface) feature Suspent-To-RAM (STR) function
Form Factor	ATX Form Factor : 30.4cm(L) x 19.2cm(W) Fits into regular ATX case
BIOS	2 Mbit (256KB) FLASH memory Award PCI BIOS with Green, PnP, DMI and Anti-Virus Functions  LS120, ZIP, ATAPI CD-ROM, LAN, IDE #1, #2, #3, #4 bootable

<Introduction><The Good><The Test> <The Bad><Conclusion><Rating>

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Introduction

Many months ago, when I began upgrading my system, I noticed that I was running short of PCI slots on my motherboard. It was one of the most difficult thing to do, I had to choose which upgrade option to leave out. I guess not many of you out there are as crazy as I am, but there are people who feels that five PCI slots are not enough. I guess if James Bond thought that "The World is Not Enough", most of us would definitely think that "The PCI slots are not enough" too. Some of you may wonder how I managed to fill up all the slots. Well, it is very easy to do so, since there are so many different kinds of cards you can buy. I had a Sound Blaster Live, an Efficient Networks ATM LAN card, a 10/100Mbps Ethernet card, a video capture card and a SCSI card. You can easily fill up the other slot with an Ultra66 card, or an MPEG-2 Decoder card.

The Asus P3B-F is the answer to some of your problems as this flagship product comes with 6 PCI slots. That's more than enough for most users. In addition, this baby comes with voltage selection and a wide range of FSB for you to do your overclocking. It's definitely a power user's dream come true. Besides the generous amount of PCI slots, this board also comes with 4 DIMM slots that enable you to increase your system physical RAM up to a whopping 1GB!

The package comes with the standard items like the manual, CD-ROM with drivers and utilities, FDD/HDD cables and of course, the motherboard itself. Some versions of the P3B-F comes with only 5 PCI and 2 ISA slots, and another with 6 PCI slots without any ISA slot. I suggest you check the motherboard first before making the purchase.

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The Good

As mentioned above, the most attractive part of the motherboard is the amount of PCI slots available. The choices for expansion is what makes this motherboard a very attractive product indeed. Still, it does provide you with one ISA slot for those who want to re-use some of their older ISA cards. In addition to the extra PCI slot, this baby comes with an extra DIMM slot as well. This lets you increase your physical RAM size by another 256MB. Since we don't really see 256MB DIMMs readily available in the market yet, we can still pump the system up to 512MB of system memory. That's a lot of memory indeed. For those who want to save some cash, they will also find the extra DIMM slot attractive since they can use 4 pieces of 32MB DIMMs to make up 128MB (which is more than enough to run Windows comfortably). RAM prices have skyrocketed lately, and what better way to re-use older 32MB DIMMs instead of buying new ones.

Installation was very simple. Unlike its predecessor, the P2B, this baby comes with the option to use the Soft Menu to configure the multiplier and FSB clock. Although there's a huge DIP switch located on the motherboard, it can be disabled to use the Soft Menu. I guess Asus' rationale for keeping the DIP switch is probably for preventing normal users from acidentally changing the CPU clock settings. When I term "normal users", I meant those who buy systems off the shelves and knows nothing about computer hardware. I guess it is wiser to use jumper settings for these group of users, just to make it a little bit more "idiot proof", not that they are idiots. So, if you're going to build systems for these people, I suggest using the good old DIP switches to keep things simple.

What I like about ASUS is their originality and innovation. First of all, they are the first to come out with a 6 PCI slot motherboard. Second of all, they developed their own hardware monitoring ICs. Seldom do we see other motherboard manufacturers integrating their in-house designed ICs in their products. As far as I know, Asus is the only one that use their own hardware monitoring chip (I might be wrong), unlike the rest using the more well known Winbond chips. The Asus Probe utility that came with the motherboard is also a very useful utility. It comes with a lot of features, and it will definitely please the overclocking crowd. The Smart Fan control is one of the features that I find interesting which is seldom seen in other hardware monitoring softwares. It allows you to set limits to the temperature where it will allow the fan to kick in with more power. If it passes a certain temperature, the fan will run at its full speed, otherwise it runs at a reduced speed. Although the feature is neat, I only see its use on power limited systems like a notebook. Desktop systems hardly need such features since it does not depend on batteries. Nevertheless, it is an interesting feature

  

Screen shots of the ASUS PC Probe utility.

The Hardware Monitoring chip measures the CPU temperature by probing the temperature diode located on the silicon die itself. Thus, the temperature measurement should be extremely accurate. I find this method of measuring the CPU temperature much better than other motherboards where they use an external thermocouple to measure the temperature of the CPU heatsink. Although it does give you an accurate reading of the heatsink temperature, it does not tell you how hot your chip really is. This happened to me when I used my P!!!-450 which I've replaced with a Just Cooler heatsink/fan combo. The temperature before changing the heatsink was detected to be about 59°C. After the switch to a two fan/heatsink combo, I expected the temperature to be lower. However, this was not so. The temperature of the chip shot up to about 80°C!! I jumped out of my seat, panicked and was having cold sweat all over. The temperature of the chip was way out of the recommended operating temperature. But, surprisingly, the chip still worked. I then removed the heatsink, scraped out the silvery piece of sticker behind the heatsink, applied a fresh layer of thermal paste and plugged the CPU back into the motherboard. This time, I was relieved to see the temperature dropped to about 56°C. If it wasn't for the ASUS probe, my CPU would have fried without my knowledge since the heatsink temperature couldn't tell me more about the actual CPU temperature, although the heatsink was hot. Anyway, if you look at the Fan Control section, the maximum CPU temperature was set at 100°C and the CPU temperature threshold was at the default setting of 81°C. Since the utility temperature threshold was already at 81°C, I suppose the reading from my P!!!-450 was in the acceptable limit. Well, just imagine how much difference you can make if you have bad conduction between the CPU and heatsink. One lesson learnt here is, always tear the silvery patch of sticker from the heatsink. It does nothing but retards the conduction of heat to the heatsink.

Oh my gawsh!! It's Kentucky Fried CPU!!

And yes, talk about overclocking, the P3B-F comes with the option to raise your CPU core voltage to as much as 20% of the original voltage. What's more, it does come with a generous amount of FSBs for you to push your CPU to its limits. Although it doesn't have as many FSBs as the MS-6163Pro, it is however enough to wet my appetite. Seems like Asus has targeted this motherboard to power users, as well as overclockers.

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The Test

As usual, the common benchmarks were ran with the board and the scores were compared to other boards, such as the AOpen AX6BC Pro and the MS-6163Pro. I also did some overclocking on the board and it did manage to overclock pretty well. This didn't come as any surprise as Asus have always been well known in producing motherboards with exceptional quality. Well, let's boot 'em up and benchmark it, shall we?

Test Configuration
Processor(s):	Intel Pentium II-300 (o/c 450MHz) Intel Pentium II-333 Intel Pentium II-350
RAM:	1 x 128MB Mitsubishi PC100 SDRAM DIMM
Hard Drive(s):	IBM Deskstar 22GXP DJNA-370910
Video Card(s):	3dfx Voodoo3 2000 16MB
Bus Master Drivers:	Windows 98 Bus Mastering Drivers
Video Drivers:	3dfx Voodoo3 drivers 1.02.13 (Win98)
DirectX version:	6.1a
Operating System(s):	Windows 98 Second Edition (build 4.10.2222A)

Ziff-Davis Winbench 99 and Winstone 99 v1.1 Results (Windows 98)

Benchmark	Pentium II-333		Pentium II-300 (o/c 450)
	P3B-F	AX6BC Pro	P3B-F	MS-6163 Pro
CPU mark 99	25.7	25.6	35.0	35.0
FPU Winmark	1720	1710	2320	2320
Business Winstone 99	19	19.1	23.4	23.3

In the results above, there's very little difference in the performance between the various motherboards compared here. The BX motherboards have gone through quite a lot of revisions, and it is very hard to tell which is actually better. I guess it all boils down to which is more overclockable, and which has more features. The P3B-F did manage to overclock my fussy PII-300 to 450MHz without much problem. Some motherboards fail to overclock it at the default 2.0V, but the P3B-F did it beautifully.

Wintune 98 1.0.39 Benchmarks (Windows 98)

Benchmark	Pentium II-333			Pentium II-300 (o/c 450)
	P3B-F	AX6BC Pro		P3B-F	MS-6163 Pro
CPU Integer	971.3	969.5		1312.0	1310.6
CPU Floating Point	383.4	383.0		517.8	517.2
Video 2D	89.0	88.4		121.5	120.2
Direct 3D	168.7	169.2		168.9	169.2
Open GL	68.4	67.9		75.8	76.1
Memory	567.7	562.4		772.9	772.3

Once again, the benchmarked scores in Wintune 98 showed very little difference in performance as compared to other motherboards. However, we do see that the P3B-F performed a little faster in the CPU Integer and Floating Point benchmarks. However, the difference is very small and I think there's no reason why we should say the P3B-F is faster. Still, there's no doubt that the P3B-F performance is on par with the other Hardware Zone's 5-star motherboards.

Ziff-Davis Winbench 99 and Winstone 99 v1.1 Results (Windows NT)

Benchmark	Pentium II-333		Pentium II-350 (o/c 466)
	P3B-F	AX6BC Pro	P3B-F	AX6BC Pro
CPU mark 99	25.9	25.8	36.6	36.8
FPU Winmark	1720	1720	2400	2410
Business Winstone 99	25.6	25.1	31.0	31.1

Once again, the benchmarks in Windows NT showed similar performance. If you noticed, the Pentium II-350 was overclocked to 133MHz FSB to yield 466Mhz. There has been a lot of interests in 133Mhz FSB after the discovery of the recent batch of Pentium !!! 450 which can be overclocked to 600MHz. Well, we have shown here that both the P3B-F and AX6BC Pro could do 133MHz FSB with little problem using a Voodoo3 2000. Although the AGP divider was set at 2/3, the system didn't freeze, unlike other motherboards I've tested. I suppose this is one combination of hardware that you could use if you're desperate to get yourself into the 133MHz FSB arena. Once again, do note that overclocking does depend on a lot of luck, and what worked here may not work for you. Anyway, the P3B-F scores in the overclocking area, as we can see here.

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The Bad

There's actually nothing that's fatally bad about this motherboard. However, there's just one item that I like to comment. The floppy drive connector position is located between the 1st and 2nd PCI slot. This is a pretty weird location to place a floppy connector. If you have filled up all your slots with PCI cards, I suppose you will be pretty frustrated at the kind of inconvenience you'll encounter with the connector since there's a chance that the PCI cards may be obstructing the cable. Since the cable is flexible, you can always bend it to fit the tight space. On the other hand, you can always reposition your PCI cards so that smaller cards are fitted into the 1st and 2nd PCI slots.

Another letdown is the lack of FSB selection. Having more FSB selection between 90MHz to 100MHz with 1/3 PCI divider would make the board very attractive indeed. I suppose Celeron overclockers would be delighted to see such FSB settings.

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Conclusion

All in all, this flagship product from ASUS is really attractive in terms of performance, stability and features. I suppose the end of any product life should go off with a big bang. Since the BX chipset is about to reach the end of its product cycle, I guess the P3B-F is Asus' way of showing us what really lies in the future, or is it really going to be the last BX board from Asus?. Anyway, I am really impressed with the board, and there's very little reason why it shouldn't deserve a 5 star award. All I can say is, well done Asus!

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MOTHERBOARD RATING

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