Via P4PB Board Wrapped in Posh Design

To create the chipset, VIA combined the Apollo P4X400 North Bridge and VT8235 South Bridge. The most noteworthy feature of the P4X400 chipset is the added support for 533MHz frontside bus (FSB) Pentium 4 processors.

DDR400/333 SDRAM enables the P4 with 533MHz FSB to perform at full capacity, but VIA suggests using JEDEC-ratified DDR333 SDRAM for optimal performance. DDR333 demonstrates superior cache latency timing and stability over DDR400, said VIA representatives, adding that DDR400 SDRAM is a relatively immature technology that's open to different interpretations of the specification.

"The P4PB is the only board on the market that can support DDR400 memory and 8X VGA, which makes it so special," said Jim Liang, national marketing director at Leadman Electronics USA, a Santa Clara, Calif.-based systems builder.

The motherboard was installed in a P4-based system with a 30-Gbyte hard drive, 512 Mbytes of DDR400/333 SDRAM and an nVidia GeForce4 graphics card.

The board's design is uncluttered and well-thought-out. The DIMM connectors, for example, are placed far enough away from the AGP port to allow for some fiddling with components. Installing the heat sink presented no problems because there's nothing blocking the mounting bracket.

The P4PB's connectivity features include integrated USB 2.0/1.1, IDE ATA/133, onboard IEEE 1394 and 10/100 LAN. The board is also bundled with Flite-

Deck, a management suite that enables advanced features such as overclocking, system monitoring and BIOS updates, and supports AGP 8X, USB 2.0 and 533MHz FSB.

In addition, built-in support for DDR400 increases the P4PB's value and extends its life.

• PRODUCT: P4PB 400-FL board
• PRICE: MSRP $139
• AUTHORIZATION REQUIREMENTS: None
• DISTRIBUTORS/INTEGRATORS: Agama Systems, Eastern Data, Ingram Micro, Max Group, Northern Computer Technologies, RLM Group
• COMPANY: VIA Technologies
  Fremont, Calif.
  (510) 683-3300