ASUS P4P800S-E: Standing Out in the Crowd

With IDF coming up this week and the SARS-delayed Computex scheduled for the last week of September, there are tons of companies waiting in line to introduce their latest technology and products. Computex will have the most enthusiast-oriented product announcements later this month, with a big emphasis on Taiwanese manufacturers (motherboard makers, chipset makers, etc.). ASUS will be one of the many companies ready to introduce their latest products, in hopes of getting the media excited about their latest products to drive sales as high as possible. Depending on how the announcement is coordinated, companies can derive a sizable portion of sales by introducing something new or unexpected at a big event like Computex. This is what ASUS and other manufacturers hope to accomplish later this month.

ASUS announced their 848P motherboard in the middle of last month to a rather neutral reception. Intel’s 848P chipset went relatively unnoticed when it was introduced the weeks prior to ASUS’ 848P motherboard press release, so users were understandably unexcited when they heard about an 848P motherboard. However, this wasn’t too surprising, considering the 848P’s specs; a single channel DDR400 chipset aimed at the value market. This chipset, unlike older single channel DDR motherboards based on the 845PE chipset, supports 800MHz FSB Pentium 4 processors. Essentially, the 848P chipset is an 865PE chipset with one channel disabled. Not too many enthusiasts of any market segment would seemingly be interested in a product like this. However, from what we’ve gathered so far, 848P motherboards will be specifically built as cheap products with tremendous price/performance value. Indeed, this is what we have seen with the ASUS P4P800S-E and why we are reviewing it today.

Read on to learn more about how the ASUS P4P800S-E stands out in a sea of clone desktop motherboards…