Hard Drive Performance
The maximum read speed with the Seagate SATA drive was about 56MB/sec, with 45MB/sec being the average. CPU usage was low at 2.7%, which is in line with other Intel based SATA interfaces I've tested. The numbers are a slight improvement over the IC7, but not by much.
Network Performance
We used to test the networking speed, and Windows Task Manager for CPU usage. We copied a variety of install files, totalling 752 MB, varying in sizes of 300kb to as much as 450MB per file from the P4C800-E Deluxe machine, to our IC7-MAX3 box, which uses the same NIC. Both systems were connected via a Cat-5E crossover cable, which should prevent any bottlenecks that would arise with our standard 10/100 router.
Download speeds averaged about 29.28MB/sec, and CPU utilization averaged about 28%, with 24% being the low mark.
Uploading the same files averaged about 49.21MB/sec, and CPU utilization averaged about 32%, with 26% being the low mark.
These numbers are in a best case scenario, using Gigabit networking. A quick test of an FTP upload and download of 30 MB resulted with an average of 72kb/sec up and 411kB/sec. This was through a 10/100 router and 10/100 cable modem.
I should point out that the Ethernet implementation by ASUS was a bit speedier that the IC7-MAX3 previously reviewed, but CPU utilization was a little higher.
Final Words
ASUS did a lot of things right with the P4C800-E Deluxe. The board was very fast, and extremely stable. They don't include a whole lot of frills and extras, but the end result is a cheaper priced board. A nice upgrade from their P4C800 is adding the ICH5R and allowing more vCore voltage (the vCore bump was added in BIOS v1006).
The BIOS is well suited for tweakers, though the AMIBIOS isn't something many people are going to be familiar with. All your options are there, but it'll take some digging to find all of them. I do think a higher DDR voltage of 2.9v and up would have been a good idea, as some ram modules could use a bit more than the 2,85v the ASUS board tops out at.
Performance-wise, the P4C800-E is a rocket. Though the performance trailed slightly behind the IC7-MAX3, most of us won't notice that in day-to-day work/gaming. Stability was rock solid. The board never crashed throughout testing, and to this day, I still use it extensively when torture testing ram. Speaking of which, out of the box, we had no problems with any of our PC4000 ram modules. This was not the case with all our previous ABIT boards that required BIOS updates to overclock past 250FSB. That isn't to say that an ABIT board you buy today will have problems, but this particular ASUS board worked problem free for us right from the start.
Overclocking was very strong, and only got a bit shakey once we passed 270FSB, 1:1, with certain ram modules. A couple of Corsair ProSeries ran super, though we still never cracked past 285FSB, 1:1. Running with more conservative settings, we bumped up to 295FSB, but that was it. Still, a good show by ASUS.
At , the board is still fairly pricey in my opinion, but it falls in line with the cost of most Canterwood based boards. Those of you who do pony up the dough will be quite happy with it.
Pros: Excellent performance and stability.
Cons: DDR voltage could use a higher ceiling, expensive.
Bottom Line: A well engineered board, with very few flaws. Performance was excellent, and if stability is also a requirement, as it should be, it's tough to go wrong with the P4C800-E Deluxe.
If you got any comments, be sure to hit us up in our forums.
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