ASUS P3V4X Apollo Pro 133A Slot-1 ATX

The Bad

When we first looked at the P3V4X in our first VIA Apollo Pro 133/133A Motherboard Roundup, we found that the ASUS performed horribly in gaming situations. It was eventually discovered all over the web that the secret was the VIA 4-in-1 v4.20 driver pack that we used in our testing. As Tom's Hardware has illustrated, simply dropping back to version 4.17 of the VIA 4-in-1 driver package brings the ASUS right back to within 1% of the top performing 133A board, the Gigabyte GA-6VX-4X. It turns out that the issue is actually with the VIA's 4.00 AGP GART driver in the v4.20 package. However, the prospect of being stuck with an old version of the VIA GART driver just doesn't sit too well with us as you never know when VIA will introduce an important feature or fix.

We had assumed that ASUS would provide a BIOS update to fix the issue, but we've now moved from version 1001, which was on our original board, to 1002 and now 1003, but performance has not improved when the 4.00 AGP GART driver is in use. After discussing this issue with ASUS engineers at length, it appears that this will not be corrected with a BIOS update. The exact problem is still unclear. Fortunately, it seems that VIA is writing an updated version of the AGP GART driver that should fix the problem on the P3V4X. However, until that actually happens, we remain a bit skeptical of the whole situation.

Update 5/17/00 - On May 12, 2000, VIA released version 4.02 of their AGP GART driver that corrects the performance issues we observed with the P3V4X under Quake 3. See our ASUS P3V4X / VIA AGP GART Performance Explored article for all the details. This was by far the biggest complaint we had about the board and this solution is certainly much more satisfactory than using an old GART driver. The conclusion and ratings section of this article have been updated accordingly.

The layout of the P3V4X isn't quite optimal. The floppy drive connector is located out in front of the expansion slots, but at least it's turned sideways to minimize interference with expansion cards. The ATX power connector is also located at the back of the board, which means you'll have to run that cable over the memory and CPU, which increases the cable clutter in the case.

Although 4 DIMM slots are provided, the PC133 spec currently only recommends 3 DIMM slots when running at 133 MHz. While we didn't encounter any issues in our testing, it is something to be aware of.

By passing on the highly integrated 686A Super South Bridge, ASUS passed on the option for 2 more USB ports, integrated hardware monitoring, and integrated basic I/O support. The additional hardware monitoring and basic I/O chips take up more space on the PCB and ever so slightly raise the cost of the P3V4X. ASUS has typically priced their boards slightly above average and the P3V4X is no exception. In this case, we'd say it's justified for this level of quality.

Although it is normal among today's motherboards, it should be noted that PCI slots 3 & 6 share an IRQ, as do 4 & 5. Since most PCI devices work just fine while sharing an IRQ, this shouldn't cause any trouble.

USB Compatibility

• Number of Front Universal Serial Bus Root Ports: 0

• Number of Rear Universal Serial Bus Root Ports: 2

• USB IRQ Enable/Disable in BIOS: Yes

• USB Keyboard Support in BIOS: Yes

Recommended SDRAM

Recommended SDRAM: 1 x 128MB Corsair PC133 SDRAM; 1 x 128MB Mushkin PC133 SDRAM

SDRAM Tested: 1 x 128MB Corsair PC133 SDRAM; 1 x 128MB Mushkin PC133 SDRAM

Manufacturer: Corsair
Purchase Website: http://www.corsairmicro.com

Manufacturer: Mushkin
Purchase Website: http://www.mushkin.com