Pentium 4 DDR motherboards (Aopen, Asus, MSI, Soltek, Transcend)
When Intel originally launched the Pentium 4 processor, the market was slow to embrace the new chip. Processor prices were relatively high and the new processor required an entirely new platform. Components all the way down to the power supply had to be replaced.
Compounding the situation was the new processor’s reliance on expensive Rambus memory. But with the arrival of the 845 chipset based on PC-133 SDRAM and Intel’s competitive pricing for the P4, it began to make inroads into the two market segments that in its previous guise it just couldn’t compete in - value and business. The downside of the 845 was its performance - a leap backwards because of the bandwidth restriction of SDRAM. The one thing that the P4 has cried out for since its conception is a relatively cheap, wide bandwidth memory solution - DDR.
While Intel was working on the new 845D chipset, SIS stepped out of the shadows with the first ‘legal’ DDR P4 chipset - the 645. Not only did it give the P4 DDR support but it went much further than the 845D, offering support for the latest standard for DDR in the shape of 333MHz or PC-2700.
We’ve chosen a selection of boards that support the P4 and DDR memory, along with two of the latest SIS 645-based boards. These latest boards offer a whole host of features, from USB 2.0 to ATA133, and some even have onboard RAID controllers. All offer support for staggering amounts of memory - at least 2GB - and all feature good onboard sound with some even offering integrated 5.1 channel support.