ASUS P4B266 DDR P4 Motherboard

Intel isn't officially condoning the use of its i845D chipset until next year (soon upon us anyway), but that isn't stopping a number of motherboard vendors from releasing boards that use the chipset. Consider it the spirit of the holidays, I guess. One of the new DDR boards comes from ASUS, with the announcement of its new P4B266 motherboard for Socket 478 P4 processors. The P4B266 supports up to 2GB of PC2100/PC1600 DDR SDRAM and a peak bandwidth of 2.1GB/s, along with optional USB 2.0 support for transfer speeds of up to 480 Mb/s. It also includes an onboard speech IC chip and ASUS POST Reporter to give you explanations of system errors, an ASUS EZ Plug power connector that lets you avoid buying a special ATX 12V power supply to support your P4 CPU, and media support for smartcards, SD, and Memory Stick. An SPDIF-out interface enables connection to 5.1 speaker systems and 6 standard PCI interfaces are along for the ride, as are connections for two USB 1.1 ports and up to four USB 2.0 ports, CNR interface, and an AGP4X slot. Optional features include onboard 6-channel audio and Intel 10/100 Mbps Ethernet LAN controller.