The arrival of Intel Pentium 4 3.06GHz CPUs with Hyper-Threading technology support brought about significant changes in the mainboard market. Now all the mainboards that support the new CPUs and the upcoming solutions from Intel Pentium 4 family will have to possess certain new features. Among them - Hyper-Threading technology support and compliance with the new FMB2 guidelines that specify the higher power consumption and heat dissipation of Socket478 processors.

So, the new generation mainboards (that is, the ones that can faultlessly support 3GHz+ CPUs) must be based on a Hyper-Threading chipset, have an appropriate BIOS version, and allow using CPUs with up to 82W thermal power and 70A maximum current drain.

We should keep in mind that many previously released mainboards don't support the above mentioned requirements. Thus, among the old chipsets, the Hyper-Threading technology is only supported by i850E and i845E chipsets, while a still smaller share of mainboards based on these chipsets comply with the new FMB2 guidelines. As a result, the user who wants to buy a Socket478 mainboard today has a very limited choice. Moreover, if one buys a mainboard for the future, he has to consider products based on new chipsets that were released along with Pentium 4 3.06GHz, first. That's exactly what we are going to do in our today's revieroundupw: compare specs, performance and reliability of these mainboards.

We were quick to pick up the products to be reviewed. They are mainboards based on the new i845PE chipset. There are two other chipsets - i845GE and Intel E7205 - that support Hyper-Threading, but we won't review them here. The first of them, i845GE is just an integrated variant of i845PE and is somewhat differently positioned, while E7205-based mainboards are yet to appear in stores. So the range of reviewed products turned to be rather close and we chose seven mainboards:

• ABIT BE7
• Albatron PX845PEV
• ASUS P4PE
• EPoX EP-4PEAE
• Gigabyte P4 Titan 667
• Intel D845PESV
• MSI 845PE Max2

Before dwelling on the mainboards and their specs, let's examine some features of the chipset they are based on.

Intel i845PE: the Last in i845 Dynasty

The chipset family under the common i845 name and with similar architecture has been in the market for a rather long time. It includes many various chipsets that differ by the supported memory type as well as by the availability of the integrated graphics core and AGP port. At different moments, among the most popular members of the family were i845D and then i845E supporting 533MHz bus. And now the latter is followed by i845PE, which is doomed to be a hit product till the second half of 2003. Then there will appear chipsets from the Springdale family, which will feature two DDR SDRAM channels as well as AGP 8x and SerialATA support. Let us remind you that the main innovation in i845PE is DDR333 SDRAM support, so i845PE-based systems will step closer to the performance level of platforms that use higher-bandwidth PC1066 RDRAM.

Here's the flow-chart for i845PE:

Judging by the scheme, one may think that i845PE is just an i845E with added DDR333 SDRAM support. That's not exactly so, as the pedigree of the new one is more complicated. The i845PE chipset is a "cut-down" version of the integrated i845GE chipset, which, in its turn, is the development of i845G, validated for the use of DDR333 SDRAM. The i845G chipset, as we wrote in our previous reviews, differs from i845E by the memory controller architecture. That's why the memory controller in i845PE is similar to the one in i845G rather than in i845E.

If the lengthy explanation in the previous paragraph isn't clear enough, let's get into details. Unlike i845E and like i845G, the new i845PE chipset doesn't support ECC and doesn't work with memory modules, which use x16-organized chips. Moreover, i845PE is pin-compatible with i845GE and i845G, but not with i845E.

In all other respects, i845EP specs are quite evident. It supports Socket478 CPUs of the Intel Pentium 4 and Celeron families with 400MHz and 533MHz bus frequencies, with or without Hyper-Threading technology, and one DDR SDRAM channel. Two double-side DDR DIMM modules are supported. Those mainboard makers, who equip their i845PE based products with three DIMM slots, count on using single-side DDR DIMM modules. You should also keep in mind that the chipset only allows using DDR200 and DDR266 SDRAM when the CPU bus is clocked at 400MHz, and DDR266 and DDR333 SDRAM - when it's clocked at 533MHz.

According to the official specs, the memory bus divisors in i845PE depend on the FSB frequency. They are 1:1 and 3:4 with 100MHz FSB and 1:1 and 4:5 with 133MHz FSB. Some mainboards may offer an interesting possibility of using 3:4 divisor with 133MHz FSB, which can be implemented by certain unspecified manipulations with chipset registers. In this case, the memory can be clocked at 355MHz and thus give some performance gain over DDR333 platforms. In order to estimate this advantage, we tested ASUS P4PE (one of those mainboards that allow liberties like that) in two modes: with memory clocked at 333MHz and 355MHz. You can see the results below:

As we see, the performance growth due to clocking the memory to 355MHz makes about 1-2% on average. So, the "DDR355 mode" support in some i845PE-based mainboards does make some sense.

As for AGP, i845PE supports the AGP 4x protocol and graphics cards with 1.5V signal voltage (the old 3.3V graphics cards don't work with i845PE). Although the AGP 3.0 specification was ready before the launch of i845PE, Intel decided not to re-design the chipset to implement AGP 8x support.

One more peculiarity of AGP and PCI buses support in i845PE is that they can be clocked absolutely independently of the FSB. A real joy for a hardcore overclocker! As a result, you can overclock the CPU at no risk for the graphics card, HDD and other devices. At the same time, overclockers will have the opportunity to speed up the AGP bus independently, for example.

The North Bridge in i845PE is connected with the South Bridge by means of 266MB/sec Hub Link 1.5. The South Bridge is the same ICH4 with ATA/100 and USB 2.0 support.

Now let's take a closer look at the today's testing participants.

Testing Participants

ABIT BE7 (BE7-RAID)

The ABIT Company, which tried to promote its new and revolutionary MAX design a while ago, now seems to have put the idea off for a while. So, the first i845PE-based mainboard from ABIT is free from any of MAX's "peculiarities". The only thing unusual in BE7 is the back panel where among all other things we see an SPDIF audio output. That's why the mainboard package includes a back panel bracket, which allows installing the mainboard in ordinary system cases.

As we see, although i845PE only supports two double-side memory modules, ABIT placed three DDR DIMM slots onboard in case single-side ones will be used. Whatever the cause was, BE7 turned to be very unstable when there were more than one memory module installed. Moreover, the mainboard didn't power up at all with some pairs of modules, so one memory module turned to be the only suitable solution for it.

Among the integrated features of ABIT BE7 there are Realtek ALC650 AC'97 audio controller that supports six-channel output and SPDIF and also a Realtek RTL8100B 10/100Mbit/sec network controller.

The mainboard may also come as BE7-RAID modification (based on the same PCB). As its name suggests, the piece features an integrated IDE RAID controller. It's a HighPoint HPT372 chip that allows building 0, 1 and 0+1 RAID arrays. Well, many mainboard makers choose Promise, but most often they use chips that, unlike HPT372, don't support 0+1 arrays.

The only complaint about the design of ABIT BE7 is the unhandy FDD connector placement. Luckily, the IDE and ATX power supply connectors are situated on the PCB in such a way that the connected cables won't hinder the airflow inside the case. Thanks to BE7 having only five PCI slots, the AGP 4x slot is a little shifted from the memory slots and the installed graphics card doesn't block the DIMM slots clips.

The mainboard features three-phase CPU power supply regulator, which is better than two-phase ones. At the same time, BE7 requires an ATX 2.03-compatible power supply unit with an extra 12V connector.

Although ABIT positions its mainboard as an overclocking friendly product, it offers fewer overclocking options compared to competitor products. For example, there is no way to increase the AGP voltage in BIOS Setup. The rest of the options are here, though. The FSB frequency can be changed from 100MHz to 250MHz with 1MHz increment. The CPU multiplier can be adjusted (for CPUs with the unlocked multiplier). Moreover, you can increase core voltage by 5, 10 or 15% over the nominal value and increase memory voltage by 0.1, 0.2 or 0.3V.

The mainboard supports the unspecified DDR355 memory mode, but has poor options for AGP/PCI frequency clocking. Although in theory you can set any value from the range, BE7 offers only three fixed clock-rate options: 66, 74 and 88MHz, and two relative ones, when the AGP/PCI frequency is set as 1:2 or 2:3 of the FSB frequency.

The same rather scanty offer exists with the memory timings. There are standard options available: CAS Latency, RAS to CAS Delay, RAS Precharge Delay and Active to Precharge Delay.

If the system doesn't start up after a few changes have been made in BIOS, there is a possibility to reset CPU and memory settings by holding INS key down on powering up the mainboard.

Albatron PX845PEV (PX845PEV Pro)

Right after the i845PE chipset was announced, Albatron offered its product: PX845PEV. The company is new to the mainboard manufacturing and decided not to "load" its device with a lot of extra features, like others do, but make a quality, simple and low cost i845PE-based mainboard.

Although Albatron mainboard lacks a lot of features, which the others do have, PX845PEV is equipped with three DIMM slots. Let me once again remind you that these slots can be used simultaneously if there are at least two single-side memory modules installed.

As for any integrated stuff, I only find here a lonely AC'97 six-channel audio controller from Realtek aka ALC650.

There also exist modifications of the board aka Albatron PX845PEV Pro, which feature 10/100Mb/sec Ethernet support. These mainboards are equipped with an onboard 3Com 3C910-A01 controller.

There are no other additional chips on the Albatron mainboard, which allowed the developers to make its PCB somewhat smaller than that of a usual ATX mainboard. Well, sparing some textolite also has its reverse side: the mainboard design cannot be called a success. The IDE connectors are placed in front of the PCI slots. The ATX connector, though placed quite far from the DIMM slots, which is good, is moved too close to the AGP slot, so that the ATX cable will hang over the components that require efficient cooling. Although PX845PEV has only five PCI slots, the AGP 4x slot is so close to the DIMM slots that installing or uninstalling memory modules is simply impossible if the graphics card is in its place. Moreover, you should be really careful when installing some graphics cards as you may break off some electronic components of the card, something like uncased capacitor, by hitting the DIMM slot clip. But the most inexplicable thing of all is the FDD connector, which is placed right after the last PCI slot. As a result, the FDD cable will trail all the way through the case.

The back panel of the mainboard follows classical examples and has two USB ports. So, another four USB ports the mainboard supports are implemented via onboard connectors. At the same time, the shipment package doesn't include any brackets with USB ports, so after buying a PX845PEV, you will have to put up with two USB ports only.

The mainboard is equipped with a two-phase CPU voltage regulator and requires ATX 2.03 power supply units, that is, the ones with an additional 12V cable.

Although this mainboard is far from being extraordinary, the developers paid special attention to its overclocking capabilities. BIOS Setup allows adjusting FSB and AGP/PCI frequencies and vary different voltages. The supported FSB clock-rates range from 100MHz to 248MHz with 1MHz increment. Core voltage can be set at any value from 1.1V to 1.85V with 0.025V increment. DIMM slots voltage can be set to 2.5V, 2.6V, 2.7V and 2.8V. The AGP bus voltage can be either 1.5V or 1.6V. We should also note that Albatron PX845PEV is one of the few mainboards that allow not only increasing the CPU Vcore, but also decreasing it. The last thing can come in handy in certain cases. Also note: as we saw in practice, the mainboard supplies the CPU with a little lower voltage (by about 0.025V) than specified in BIOS Setup.

The allowed range of the AGP/PCI bus frequencies is rather narrow. The user can choose from the fixed 66MHz and the divisors of 1:2, 2:3 and 2:5. There is no way to change the CPU multiplier (for CPUs with the unlocked multiplier).

The mainboard supports the unofficial DDR355 memory frequency and has standard settings for memory timings: CAS Latency, RAS to CAS Delay, RAS Precharge Delay and Active to Precharge Delay. There is also an option for manual Refresh Rate modification.

If the changes made in BIOS Setup prevented the mainboard from starting up properly, the settings will be reset automatically on the next reload.

ASUS P4PE

ASUS products are traditionally targeted for enthusiastic users. That's why their offer is usually costly, but fully-fledged. ASUS P4PE is no exception. This mainboard has the widest range of features among all the products reviewed here.

As we see, the design of P4PE follows the design of the KT400 based A7V8X mainboard targeted for the Socket A platform. ASUS P4PE is also equipped with three DIMM slots, although only two of them can be used with double-side modules.

The set of integrated features in P4PE is similar to those of A7V8X, too. First, we would like to point out the Promise PDC20376 controller. This chip supports ATA/133 and SerialATA-150 protocols as well as RAID arrays. The mainboard has two SerialATA connectors and one ATA/133 connector that refer to the controller. In general, these connectors can accommodate three extra hard drives, besides the four ATA/100 ones the South Bridge ICH4 supports. The peculiarity of the PDC20376 controller implies that its Parallel ATA connector allows using only one Master drive. All the three hard drives connected to PDC20376 can be united into 0 or 1 RAID arrays.

Among other non-standard features of ASUS P4PE we can mention two Firewire ports. They are supported by an extra VIA VT6307 controller. A pleasant detail: the package includes a back panel bracket with IEEE1394 ports as well as a 10-to-6 pin IEEE1394 cable.

ASUS made sure that the user can easily use all six USB 2.0 ports supported by the mainboard. Four of them are laid out on the back panel of the mainboard; the other two are placed on a back panel bracket attached to a special connector on the PCB.

P4PE also boasts a network controller. Moreover, ASUS, among few other makers, offers Gigabit Ethernet controllers in its products instead of the widely spread Fast Ethernet. Such powerful integrated solution may remain uncalled for today, but the ability to build a network working at 1Gbit/sec may come in handy later on. The chip used is Broadcom BCM5702. Well, there are also mainboard modifications with Broadcom BCM4401 chip that offers only 10/100Mbit/sec Ethernet.

The six-channel ADI AD1980 AC'97 controller is responsible for the sound implementation on the mainboard. Although this chip is rather expensive, it provides best quality and features of all available AC'97 solutions. Among other things, the controller supports SPDIF output. There is a special module in the P4PE package that's installed into the back panel of the system case instead of an expansion card.

ASUS P4PE boasts some extra features. Among them: voice diagnostics system, protection gainst installing 3.3V graphics cards (a warning LED) and Q-Fan technology. The point of the last one is to reduce CPU fan voltage when the CPU temperature gets below certain value, thus reducing the noise produced.

One of the PCI slots also deserves a closer look. You can see in the snapshot that the last PCI slot in P4PE is colored blue. It's not for nothing. The slot allows installing ordinary PCI expansion cards, but ASUS intended it for better purpose. Namely, it suits to install a special card from ASUS, which supports all present-day wireless network standards: Bluetooth, 802.11a and 802.11b. The Wireless LAN card isn't included into the mainboard package, though, and should be purchased separately.

With all this stuff onboard, it's no wonder that the PCB is overloaded with various connectors and chips. Added the six PCI slots, the engineers had a daunting task creating the layout for P4PE. And that's why the design of the mainboard is far from ideal. Although IDE and FDD connectors are placed rather conveniently, the power supply connector and RAID controller connectors are not in their proper place. P4PE couldn't also avoid the typical problem of AGP 4x slot and DIMM slots being too close to each other.

The mainboard has a two-phase CPU voltage regulator and doesn't require an ATX 2.03 power supply unit. For better stability, the mainboard is equipped with the ordinary 12V connector that can be used alongside with the ATX 2.03. Traditionally, like many other mainboards from ASUS, P4PE supplies the CPU with voltage, which is about 0.05V above the nominal. The clock frequency are also 1.5-2MHz higher, so that P4PE outperforms other mainboards in most benchmarks.

As for CPU overclocking, ASUS doesn't set any restrictions. The only sad thing is the rather small range of supported FSB frequencies. It's "only" from 100MHz to 200MHz with 1MHz increment. The mainboard also allows changing the CPU frequency multiplier (for CPUs with unlocked multipliers). The three voltages can also be adjusted: CPU Vcore - from 1.55V to 1.85V with 0.025V increment, Vdimm - from 2.5V to 2.9V with 0.1V increment and Vagp - from 1.5V to 1.7V with 0.1V increment. All these settings can be chnaged in BIOS Setup.

ASUS P4PE allows flexible memory configuration to your taste. Of course, it supports the unofficial "DDR355 mode". BIOS Setup offers options not only for the typical timings, such as CAS Latency, RAS to CAS Delay, RAS Precharge Delay and Active to Precharge Delay, but also for Idle Timer, Burst Length and Refresh Rate. Among the options we found a mysterious Memory Turbo Mode, which did improve memory performance a little.

ASUS also made all overclocking quite comfortable. If the CPU gets over-overclocked, the mainboard BIOS automatically resets CPU and memory timings options to default values on the next start-up.

EPoX EP-4PEAE

EPoX, like Albatron, chose not to overload its i845PE-based mainboard with a lot of extra stuff. Although the standard mainboard modification still features an onboard LAN controller. Actually, EPoX has a full line of i845PE-based products with top-end models in it, which are yet to appear in stores.

The mainboard from EPoX differs a lot from the competitor products by its exterior due to the somewhat strangely placed fan: it is located above the CPU voltage regulator. While most i845PE-based mainboards don't have active chipset cooling at all, EPoX engineers managed to "stick" it to their product. "Stick" is the right word here, as the way this fan is fastened leaves much to be desired. It holds onto one plastic pole, which isn't stiff enough, so the fan may vibrate and become very noisy. If you don't like it, just dismount the fan! The voltage regulator in EP-4PEAE heats up not that much, so that to require active cooling. We may only advise EPoX to cool the transistors with regular heatsinks instead of the eccentric air-cooling they introduced.

The queer fan is not the only peculiarity of the EP-4PEAE mainboard. The thing doesn't support Hyper-Threading in its current BIOS version. Although there is an option in BIOS Setup to turn this technology on or off, the operating system doesn't see the second logical processor if you use Pentium 4 3.06GHz with this mainboard. Well, we hope this problem will be solved in the future BIOS versions.

There are only two DDR DIMM slots onboard, which fully complies with the abilities of the i845PE chipset. At the same time, the mainboard doesn't support the unofficial "355MHz" memory mode. This may turn to be a real disadvantage if you are choosing the fastest platform for Socket478 CPUs.

EP-4PEAE has a popular integrated Realtek ALC650 six-channel AC'97 codec and a 10/100Mbit VIA VT6105 network controller onboard. The extra features of this mainboard end here.

The back panel of EP-4PEAE looks traditionally with only two USB 2.0 ports. The remaining four USB ports supported by the mainboard are implemented as additional connectors on the PCB. The mainboard package doesn't include any modules for using those connectors, though.

Moreover, EPoX uses the same PCB for mainboards based on i845PE and i845GE, so the back panel of EP-4PEAE has only one COM-port. The place of the second port is empty by EP-4PEAE, but by the integrated model of the board the VGA-connector fits there. That's why in the mainboard package you can find a panel with a COM-port, which fits into the vacant spot of an expansion card in the rear side of the PC case.

As for the design of the mainboard, the word "weird" seems to suit best to describe it. Thus, although there are few extra chips and connectors, the PCB is rather large. But this didn't help EPoX engineers to locate all the components correctly. There is no PCI slot next to the AGP one, so the total number of PCI slots is five. Practically all the connectors, including FDD, IDE and ATX, are placed in such a way that the connected cables will hinder airflow inside the case and turn in the way during the system assembly. A separate word should be said about the CPU cooler connector. It's fitted into a tiny space between the DIMM slots and the CPU socket, so that you need to undertake a real lot of effort to reach it.

The CPU voltage regulator is a two-phase one (, which could have pushed the company engineers to use active cooling). Old power supply units that don't have additional 12V cables to connect to the mainboard are not supported by EP-3PEAE.

It is quite possible that the developers wanted to make EPoX EP-4PEAE interesting for overclockers. Yeah, the mainboard's BIOS Setup allows fine-tuning of various voltages. Vcore can be adjusted from 1.45V to 1.90V with 0.025V increment. Vdimm - from 2.5V to 3.2V with 0.1V increment. AGP voltage - from 1.5V to 2.2V with 0.1V increment. At the same time, the FSB frequency can only be changed from 90MHz to 200MHz with 1MHz increment and there is no way to change the CPU multiplier at all. The mainboard offers wide opportunities for the modification of AGP/PCI bus frequency. Besides setting the 1:2 divisor for the AGP frequency, you can select a fixed frequency from the interval between 50MHz and 80MHz with 1MHz increment.

The memory timings options are standard. BIOS Setup allows setting CAS Latency, RAS to CAS Delay, RAS Precharge Delay and Active to Precharge Delay. If the system gets over-overclocked, the mainboard can automatically reset CPU and memory settings on the next start-up.

Gigabyte GA-8PE667

The mainboard from Gigabyte, which we have got into our test lab followed the minimalism style. But Gigabyte will also offer products with richer features list, which should be available later on. The most advanced i845PE-based mainboard from Gigabyte is P4 Titan 667 Ultra, while we are going to review the low-end model of the line, P4 Titan 667, which can boast a unique PCB design.

Before we pass over to the detailed description of 8PE667 (aka P4 Titan 667), let us recall a curious fact. When announcing the Titan 667 mainboard family, Gigabyte emphasized the alleged compatibility of these mainboards with the future Prescott processors with 667MHz system bus, which are to appear in about a year. We had serious doubts about these claims then and now our doubts have been fully confirmed. Intel has changed its plans and put off 667MHz bus altogether. Prescott is going to use 800MHz bus, while Gigabyte turns to have been a little hasty in its marketing declarations.

Now let's pass over to the mainboard. Gigabyte 8PE667 is equipped with three DDR DIMM slots, which support two double-side modules plus one single-side module or two single-side ones. The chipset is the one that imposes some limitations here. Well, three memory slots look a bit excessive, as this mainboard gets "fretful" even with two memory modules installed. In this case you should disable the Top Performance option in BIOS Setup, which results in inevitable performance drop.

Among the integrated features, we can point out only a six-channel Realtek ALC650audio codec.

As for the mainboard design, there are hardly too many good comments about it. Striving to make 8PE667 as low-cost as possible, the engineers spared some textolite, which certainly resulted into inconvenient placement of some components. First thing to grumble about is that all the expansion card slots are moved very close to DIMM slots, although there is enough free space on the left of the PCB and there are only five PCI slots. As a result, the installed graphics card blocks DIMM slot clips. Moreover, the DIMM slots themselves are placed too close to each other (usually, there is some space between them). So, if you install two or three DIMM modules with heatsinks, they will be actually pressed tightly against each other. We can't say that it will be the best possible thermal environment for the memory chips. Moreover, the IDE connectors are moved to the left side of the mainboard and IDE cables will certainly hinder proper air circulation inside the case.

The back panel of the mainboard features classical design with two USB 2.0 ports. Fortunately, we found a back panel bracket with two additional USB ports in the mainboard package. The remaining two USB ports (the ICH4 supports six of them) are implemented via an onboard connector.

The CPU voltage regulator is a three-phase one. The board doesn't support old power supply units, so that 8PE667 simply won't start up without the additional 12V power cable connected. Note, that the mainboard from Gigabyte features protection system against the use of old 3.3V graphics cards, which can crash products based on the new Intel chipsets through incompatibility. There is a yellow LED next to the AGP slot that lights up if a "wrong" graphics card has been installed.

We have already listed quite many things about the PCB design that need to be revised, however, the worst impression makes the BIOS Setup. It doesn't allow configuring memory subsystem timings manually. No way. The only option here is the Top Performance option with two settings: Enabled and Disabled. We have already explained above how it works. Of course, there is no mention of any DDR355 support here. However, you can still access some memory timings parameters by pressing and holding Ctrl-F1 on boot-up instead of the usual DEL key. This way Gigabyte engineers tried to hide the major configuration options from the unsophisticated users.

As for overclocking options in BIOS Setup, they are available by default, unlike the memory settings. Some time ago Gigabyte changed its attitude towards overclockers and now the mainboards from this manufacturer come with the appropriate BIOS. In this case, however, Gigabyte first wanted to shock the community with the available range of the FSB frequencies. 8PE667 supports all values from 100MHz to 355MHz with 1MHz increment. Of course, the practical value of such a high upper limit equals zero, but this may impress some easy-believers. The mainboard also allows changing voltages, though their ranges are quite normal. Vcore can be set from 1.55 to 1.775V with 0.025V increment, Vdimm - from 2.5V to 2.7V with 0.1V increment, and Vagp - from 1.5V to 1.8V with 0.1V increment. No option for CPU multiplier modification (for CPUs with unlocked frequency multiplier). The AGP/PCI bus frequency is set independently of the FSB frequency and ranges from 66MHz to 100MHz with 1MHz increment.

A little check showed that the FSB frequency and CPU Vcore are a little increased in 8PE667 over the nominal value. Seems like Gigabyte engineers wanted to raise the performance level of their product in such a way. We will see later on whether it works or not.

If over-overclocked, 8PE667 refuses to start up and the only way to reset the BIOS Setup settings is the Clear CMOS jumper.