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Intel in trying to keep a viable market for RAMBUS introduced us to the i850E chipset earlier this year adding support for the faster PC1066 which was geared at replacing the aging PC800 barrier. Featuring a 400/533MHz FSB and supporting the Intel Socket 478 Celeron and P4 line up to 3.06GHz. The P4T533 supports the new 3.06GHz chips that support Hyper-Threading after a quick BIOS update.
The board has two 232-pin 32-bit RIMM slots supporting a total of 2GB of PC800 RIMM3200 (800MHz) / RIMM4200 (1066MHz) ECC / non-ECC RAMBUS memory. Dual channel RAMBUS architecture provides a maximum of 4.2GB/s total bandwidth. RAMBUS memory is good for moving big blocks of information faster than its DDR cousin but most applications you and I use in our day to day life will not take advantage of this key RAMBUS feature. Remember PC1066 requires a 533MHz FSB to function properly.
RAMBUS can be beneficial to those doing film editing or intense graphic rendering that requires very large file transfers. If these things are your business than RAMBUS may be helpful in your work environment but for gaming, music and some Photoshop editing you will not be getting a real advantage using it and DDR is a cheaper solution anyways. The memory design on this board however is still done quite well as it is placed well away from the AGP slot and allowing easy removal of your video solution without memory interference.
Lack of a Northridge active cooler is slightly a bummer as I expected more from ASUS but the official word between the motherboard makers is this is an obsolete thing. This is something I and most enthusiasts would disagree with as a good NB cooler definitely improves the chance for stable overclocking as heat is the enemy and any additional cooling is always a good thing. Finding a suitable case should not pose a problem as its ATX form factor, 12" x 9.6" (30.5cm x 24.5cm), should fit almost any standard size enclosure. The board does come with its own rear I/O shield for compatibility and a correct fit.
Video is supported by a 4X AGP pro slot that supports all 1.5V 2X/4X AGP cards. There are six available 32-bit PCI slots available which is more than ample for most users needs. I have no complaints as far as the board's layout is concerned as it is a very good design that is ergonomic and user oriented. IDE support comes in two forms; the first is by way of a pair of ATA133 connectors, the other via the Promise PDC20276 ATA133 RAID chip which provides RAID 0 and RAID 1 array support via its dual controllers. Serial ATA150 SATA is not supported on this board but that is not a big deal currently as no SATA drives are available anyways as they are still having trouble getting them to run stable, go figure.
There was no on-board LAN solution on my version of this board but on-board sound was ever present this time by the C-Media 8738-MX 6-channel audio chip that came with an SPDIF connector for connecting your audio to a true digital source device or compatible speakers. USB 2.0 support is also present thanks to the NEC chip. The P4T233 has eight total available USB ports, there are two 1.1/ two 2.0 ports on the rear I/O, two 2.0 ports on the game port bracket and two more by an additional bracket. That about wraps up what the board has to offer hardware wise other than the BIOS features of which I will discuss in the setup and overclocking section of this review. Let us move on and see what else the P4T555 has to offer.
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