Asus P4S800D-E (SiS 655TX) Motherboard Review
Asus P4S800D-E Board Features
The PCB design didn't bring much trouble to the PC assembly operators: the way the main power connector is fitted is almost ideal, the DIMM slot latches are at quite a distance from the AGP slot, and between the IDE connectors there are gaps for connecting the cables more comfortably.
The additional 4-pin power connector is positioned near the chipset, closer to the socket. There is almost nothing to tell about the processor socket itself, except that the fan connectors are too close.
The processor cooler is plugged in to the CPU_FAN1 connector. This connector is supported by the Q-Fan feature which allows varying the fan's rotational speed depending on the processor temperature. Close to it there is the PWR_FAN1 connector; there is also one CHA_FAN1 connector positioned in the bottom-left corner of the board.
To cool the chipset, a passive mid-sized radiator is used. During the tests with the housing fully opened it was heating immensely (too hot to touch :), so it is strongly recommended that computers with poor ventilation (or overclocked systems) be equipped with active cooling of the chipset.
On board the P4S800D-E, there are four DIMM slots separated with a gap into two pairs. The slots are colored blue and black to facilitate installation of the modules :).
Maximum memory capacity makes up 4 GB.
The slots are not numbered from the socket, so it is recommended to install memory modules in precisely the order used for i865PEi875P motherboards. If one memory module is installed, the system will run in the single-channel mode. With three modules installed, only modules in the same type and capacity will run in the dual-channel mode.
It is appropriate to mention here that SiS 655 (FX/TX) chipsets offer two dual-channel modes: the "dual-channel 64-bit" and the "single-channel 128-bit". For more details on them, read the review on the SiS655 chipset, but there isn't any essential difference between them at the operation speed. The specific feature of the SiS 655TX chipset is the modified memory controller that supports the Advanced Hyper Streaming Engine (some sort of analog to the PAT in i865PEi875P).
Once power is applied to the board, a big green LED positioned near the WiFi slot immediately lights up.
As regards the AGP slot, only 1.5V (or 0.8V) AGP 4x/8x video cards are allowed into the slot.
Besides it, on the Asus P4S800D-E board there are five PCI slots and one WiFi slot to install a wireless communication module (support for the 802.11b).
Considering the presence of an additional P-ATA/S-ATA RAID controller, integrated support for SerialATA, support for the Firewire/USB 2.0, integrated audio and LAN, we can say that the five PCI slots are quite enough for the vast majority of configurations.
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