Asus P4T533 in the test: Next-Generation Rambus

Features

With the P4T533, Asus also puts all the important connections on the edge of the mainboard, so that cable routing is as easy as possible. The only criticism is the location of the 2x2-pin 12 volt plug, which is between the heat sink and the AGP port. Therefore you should install the 12 volt plug in front of the graphics card or the cooler, as this is hardly possible if both the cooler and the AGP graphics card are installed in the system.

Since the P4T533 uses 32-bit Rambus, theBoard only two RIMM slots installed. These correspond to four 16-bit slots, so that you cannot use less Rambus, even if this impression is given visually first.

With the NEC USB2.0 controller, the P4T533 is equipped with USB2.0 despite ICH2 . Two USB2.0 ports are led directly to the outside, another two can be put into operation together with the game port via a supplied slot cover.

figcaption> P4T533 IDE_NB

During our review of the P4T533-C we were asked several times whether or when it was from Asus Rambus board with 533MHz FSB and RAID will give. Asus promptly provides the answer to this question with the P4T533 and uses a Promise ATA133 RAID controller, which enables RAID 0 and 1 arrays to be set up.

Asus does not provide the 6-channel sound via the integrated AC “97 codec of the ICH2 to the outside world, but instead uses the already well-known C-Media CMI8738 sound chip. This saves the CPU from having to calculate the sound in the software and prevents any performance drops. Asus implements the digital SPDIF input and output via an additional slot cover. The connections for this are again gold-plated, but you have to do without an optical solution.

Of course, the P4T533 is also equipped with the Asus-typical features such as EZ Plug, EZ Flash, POST Reporter, MyLogo2, Q-FAN and Multi-Language BIOS, but we will forego a detailed description at this point , as we have already discussed this more often in the last reviews of boards from Asus (see: P4B266-E and P4S333 , P4T533-C versus Intel's D850EMV2 , P4B533-E and Intel D845GBV ).

You have to do without ever more popular delicacies such as FireWire and Bluetooth and unfortunately also onboard LAN, but otherwise the P4T533 offers everything you need at the moment .

At this point we would like to briefly go into the new RIMM4200 memory. In direct comparison to the PC800 and PC1066, the double thickness and the higher number of pins are immediately noticeable. The plug connections of the modules are not identical, so that you can neither use the new modules in old boards nor the old generation in boards of the new generation. In the pictures you can clearly see that the recess of the RIMM4200 is slightly larger than that of the PC1066/800 and that there is only one such recess. The lower C-RIMM module belongs to the new RIMM4200 generation, which can be seen from the terminating resistors on the board. These foundis still on the mainboard with 16-Bit Rambus.

On the next page: Stability