P3V133 - Civilized Barbarian?
Written: Jan 31 '01 (Updated Jan 31 '01)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Stability, Features
Cons: Jumpers
The Bottom Line: Awesome board.
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| cptsulu's Full Review: Asus P3V4X |
This is actually an review of the P3V133. This motherboard is a step down from the P3V4X. I actually made a mistake and purchased the P3V133 instead of the P3V4X. The price difference was so minimal that I couldn't really tell which one was what.
Anyway... the P3V133 is basically the same motherboard as the P3V4X. The only real difference is that the P3V133 has four PCI slots, three ISA slots, a 2X AGP slot, 3 memory slots, and uses jumpers to mandate clock speed instead of the BIOS.
The P3V133 is probably better off for people who need a lot of legacy support. The PC industry has pretty much phased out ISA. It's very rare to find a motherboard with at least one ISA slot. The P3V4X has one ISA slot. Boasting a plentiful three ISA slots, the P3V133 that need to use those legacy ISA cards. I doubt you would be using more than the three already featured. Afterall, you wouldn't be taking complete advantage of the motherboard if you didn't use the AGP and PCI slots as well.
Continuing on with legacy, the Slot 1 CPUs are being phased out as well. It's pretty hard to find a motherboard featuring new technology and still uses a Slot 1 interface. The only one I've seen is the Abit SH6, which features the new 815 chipset and uses a Slot 1 interface. However, the SH6 doesn't have ISA. So if you need legacy support, you're going to have to stick with the P3V133.
Performance-wise, this motherboard isn't the king of the hill. Compared to newer boards, feautring an Intel 815 chipset, like the Asus CUSL2 and Abit SH6, the P3V133 isn't exactly doing things in the blink of an eye. However, it's close resemblance to the P3V4X probably make it perform at almost the same level as the P3V4X. Back in that day, the P3V4X was the fastest Via ApolloPro based motherboard around. I'm guessing the same performance level inherent in the P3V133. So it may not be an 815, but it will more than suffice.
Also, stability-wise, Asus is usually ranked in the top of the field. There is no exception with the P3V133. The P3V133 has never shown any signs of instability, even when I ran it at it's maximum 150mhz bus and bumped the voltage slightly -- all on stock cooling and no heatsink on the northbridge.
There are really only two problems with this motherboard. Nowadays, setting a CPUs frequency through jumpers is considered barbaric. That's right, you have to set the front-side bus settings, multiplier, and voltages through setting jumpers. You cannot do it in the BIOS like the P3V4X. I guess if you want to be a "man" and do it the hard way, it's okay. But there is another problem, there is pretty much no flexibility in setting voltages. There is an option for test and that's it. The test setting merely bumps the voltage up by .1. If you're overclocking, then the jumper and voltage thing doesn't really have to matter. But I'd probably not recommend this to overclockers unless they are real "men." But if one can overcome these little non-luxuries, the board overclocks quite well.
Other than that, the board suites people that need legacy support.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 140
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Epinions.com ID:
cptsulu
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Member: Ryan Samiley
Location: University of California, Irvine
Reviews written: 33
Trusted by: 15 members
About Me:
Third year Information and Computer Science major at UCI.
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