Crazyhorse bracht ons op de hoogte van deze Asus P3C-E review van Sharky Extreme. De P3C-E is de Rambus versie van het Asus i820 plankje en heeft een jumperless BIOS CPU setup met ondersteuning voor 15 busspeeds en de mogelijkheid tot voltage tweaking. Sharky Extreme onderzocht in hoeverre de i820 chipset overgeklokt kan worden. Enderzijds heeft de i820 als voordeel de 1/2 AGP divider, aan de andere kant kunnen er problemen ontstaan met instabiele Rambus RIMMetjes, die onder normale omstandigheden al op een erg hoge kloksnelheid van 400Mhz draaien:
Initially thought to be the answer to the overclocker's late-night prayers (due to a 1/2 AGP divider), the P3C-E introduces a new factor into the equation. With the Rambus new memory technology running at 400MHz (already requiring a heatsink), we have found RDRAM to be fairly sensitive to frequency shifts. Needless to say, we were a little skeptical about the capabilities of the P3C-E in the overclocking realm.[...] First, we timidly tested the 138MHz FSB, unsure if our RDRAM would accept the 15MHz jump that comes with raising the FSB by 5MHz. After we discovered the same complete stability we had achieved with 133MHz, we cautiously moved to 142MHz (with the RAM at 426MHz) and discovered the same unwavering performance. 146Mhz followed suit, and finally, we were able to reach 150MHz (PC900!) with no problem. ASUS has built up a reputation of quality. We have found that, not only are their graphics cards excellent, but their motherboards run with the highest performance and most stability of any brand.