The Asus P4B266 is up next and
it is nothing to sneeze at.
A
Closer Look At The Asus P4B266
(click images for full view)
Although the
P4B266 is short one less USB connector on the board itself,
versus the BD7-RAID, it does come with an on board USB 2.0
controller from NEC and a wiring/connector plate to bring
the connections out in an available card slot in your case.
Also, while the Abit board uses the AC '97 CODEC approach to
sound, the P4B266 incorporates the C-Media CMI8738 HRTF
Audio Controller for it's audio and it can serve up 6
channel surround sound, if you fancy.
Let's set them
up and see what makes them tick.
|
| Installation
/ Setup
Of The Abit
BD7-RAID and Asus P4B266 |
|
The i845D with just the right
tweaks |
|
Abit's Softmenu III In
The BD7-RAID
|
CPU
FSB Setup
|
CPU
Voltage
|
|
DDR
SDRAM Mode Select
|
SDRAM
Timing
|
Asus' P4B266 BIOS
Setup
|
CPU
FSB Setup
|
CPU
Voltage
|
|
SDRAM
Timing
|
Health Monitoring
|
Both these boards have the
ability to dial in lots of different settings for CPU overclocking and SDRAM timing optimizations. The
BD7-RAID is a little more convenient with the ability to
just type in any whole number up to 250MHz. versus the Asus
drop down menu approach. However, the Asus P4B266 has
the ability to set the CPU core voltage up to 1.775 volts
for our test chip Pentium 4 Northwood CPU. The Abit
BD7-RAID only has the ability to set the core votlage up to
1.625V, at this point in time. However, we have been
working with Abit on this and they are actually working on a
new BIOS revision that will allow higher voltage settings on
Northwood CPUs. That will give the BD7-RAID a lot more
overclocking head-room, when it comes out. However for
now, we have to base this review on the currently shipping
retail version of the BIOS, which only allows for voltages
set up to 1.625V.
So then, how about a few
benchmarks?
Overclocking and
Sandra
| 
