Overclocking

The marketing slogan for the PX875P is 1200MHz, but the reality is your choice of CPU and cooling is going to make or break what this board is capable of. Armed with our trusty 2.4C and Koolance EXOS-Al, we pushed our CPU to an amazing 293FSB.

We didn't quite reach 1200MHz, but 1174.37 isn't too shabby either. This was done running our CPU at default + 0.2v, and our results did not improve by bumping it to 0.3v. I should also point out that the system was far from being stable at this speed, as any attempt to benchmark would result in a system reboot. The FSB needed to be lowered to 288FSB before some stability returned. We did manage a system POST at 301FSB, but the system would then hang and reboot as it loaded Windows, so this is going to be one of those your mileage may vary situations.

I do want to reiterate how great the Watch Dog Timer was during these tests, as we ran into a lot of situations where we didn't configure the right overclock. Normally, you'd need to switch a jumper, and redo your BIOS settings, but the PX875P Pro would just revert to the default speeds on failure.

Final Words

The Albatron PX875P Pro proved to be a very fast and reliable board and the overclocking ability was quite impressive. Performance is on par, if not faster than other Pentium 4 boards we've tested recently. CPU support covers all of Intel's current processors, including the Prescott. The PX875P Pro handled all our ram modules, including our Corsair PC4400, so if you're looking for a board to pair some high speed ram with, this would be a good candidate. All you need is proper cooling and an overclockable CPU.

Speaking of cooling, the passive North Bridge cooling is one criticism we have with the board. The heatsink was quite warm at our overclocks above 275FSB, and the large size may limit your CPU heatsink options as well. Although the 1.2GHz marketing claim is a theoretical maximum, getting to that number was no easy task. Changing the North Bridge cooler to an active solution should certainly be on the menu if you're looking at 280 to 300FSB overclocks. We found 285FSB to 288FSB about the highest stable overclock given our setup. 300FSB is certainly attainable, but we were not able to have much success keeping the system stable at those speeds.

The BIOS options are quite extensive, leaving very little to be desired. I wasn't terribly pleased with my voltage options though, and adding a bit more of a ceiling, as well as more in-between options such as 0.025v would be a nice improvement. Granted, the board never exhibited the instability that only a voltage adjustment would correct, but I would have liked to have had more choices.

The board features a decent variety of onboard peripherals, but nothing that really screams cutting edge. I question why Albatron went with a 3Com NIC, rather than making use of Intel's CSA as that particular 3Com NIC has notoriously high CPU usage, let alone only 10/100 performance. The onboard audio was acceptable, but no replacement for a quality sound card if recording and music playback is of importance to you. IDE and SATA performance was quite good, but forget about setting up RAID as there is no 3rd party controller or ICH5R. At about , the board is likely targeted towards the enthusiast on a budget as many hardcore enthusiasts will probably wish to use multiple drives.

The board was very stable during testing, and never crashed once. Although it hung a few times during Windows startup, it was because we were running at an overclock the board wasn't happy with. It never hanged during POST during our overclocking tests, and when the board didn't like the OC, it simply rebooted to a safe setting thanks to the Watch Dog Timer. I'll have to admit that this feature was a huge time saver, and combined with its decent price, performance, and being Prescott ready, it makes this board hard to ignore.

Pros: Excellent stability, great performance, good overclocking potential, Watch Dog Timer, well priced.

Cons: Passive North Bridge cooler, no RAID, no Gigabit NIC, so-so voltage options.

Bottom Line: With the exception of the lack of RAID, 10/100 networking, and a passive North Bridge cooler, it's tough to ignore the performance and stability of the PX875P Pro. If you're in the market for a Pentium 4 motherboard, and don't need all the frills some high-end boards may provide, this board is certainly worthy of being on your short-list given its cost.