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Asus P3B-F i440BX Motherboard Review
Asus P3B-F i440BX Motherboard Review - PCSTATS
For the last couple of years, the industry has been seen supporting a chipset like no other. Back in mid-1998, Intel had introduced their i440BX chipset which was the designated chipset for their Pentium II line of processors. Naturally, every mainboard manufacturer wholeheartedly accepted the chipset as at the time, as there were not any other chipsets on the market that could provide the support and stability as well as the 440BX did.
 90% Rating:   
Filed under: Motherboards Published:  Author: 
External Mfg. Website: ASUS Apr 12 2000   P. Masrani  
Home > Reviews > Motherboards > ASUS P3B-F

Testbed

Though I did get a memory upgrade recently, upping the total to 160MB, only 96MB was used in order to keep constant the test bed setup used in performance testing of motherboards reviewed in the past. Here are some more details of the hardware used to put the Asus P3B-F to the test...

System Configuration

Celeron 400 CPU
Asus P3B-F 440BX Motherboard
Soltek SL-02A++ Slocket Adapter
96MB PC100 SDRAM (CAS-2)
8.4GB Quantum Fireball CR

2 other motherboards were used to compare the Asus P3B-F with. These are...

- Azza PT-810DMC based upon the Intel 810 chipset
- Soltek SL-67KV based upon the VIA Apollo Pro 133A chipset (used with the Soltek SL-02A++ Slocket Adapter)

Winstone Performance

For this benchmark, Winstone 99 and Content Creation Winstone 2000 have been used to test the overall performance of the test bed setup. Winstone 99 (Business Winstone 99) v1.2 is used to test the overall business performance of the computer system by using applications such as MS Office 97, Lotus Smartsuite 97, etc. Content Creation Winstone 2000 is a system-level, application-based benchmark that measures a PC's overall performance when running today's Windows-based Internet content creation applications. The test focuses on top-selling Internet content creation applications.

Each test was run 3 times with the result being the average value of the 3 test runs. Higher numbers indicate better performance.

The first graph displayed shows the performance of the Celeron 400 CPU clocked in at its rated speed of 400MHz. The second graph below indicates performance of the 3 boards operating with an overclocked Celeron 400 at 83x6, or 500MHz.

Performance Analysis

Well here are the results. As you can clearly see, the Intel 440BX-based motherboard outperforms a similarly configured Intel 810 and VIA Apollo Pro 133A based offerings. By looking at both graphs, we can see that the performance differences between the 440BX and other boards are more pronounced at the higher clock speed of 500MHz.

Of course, these results are still in the preliminary stages as only two competitors are staged against the Asus P3B-F and shouldn't be taken as final. The point of this was to emphasize the point that although the BX has aged quite a bit, it still performs just as well (better in this case) as newer chipset designs that emerge from manufacturer's labs.

Yeah, fine! But exactly how stable is it? I think that it is well established fact that BX based boards are rock solid. Nevertheless, I had the pleasure of verifying that for myself, and for you as well! ;) So let's move on, shall we?

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Contents of Article: ASUS P3B-F
 Pg 1.  Asus P3B-F i440BX Motherboard Review
 Pg 2.  First Look and Installation
 Pg 3.  — Testbed
 Pg 4.  Overclocking and BIOS
 Pg 5.  Power Mangement and Conclusion

 
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