ASUS has rotated the CPU 90 degrees from the Intel spec, claiming that this lets the power supply fan draw away additional processor and memory heat. ASUS also placed the four RIMM slots at the top of the board, also perpendicular from the norm, under where the power supply normally sits. This is an odd layout only made feasible by ASUS using their custom baseboard. We must admit, when companies stray this far from the reference design, it does make us a little bit nervous.

Loosely packed capacitors surround the Socket 423 connector but there is enough space to mount the processor and normal cooling. With the large size of the stock heat sink, those going for more aggressive cooling should also have plenty of space in which to work.

The P4T has a new port layout. The USB headers are shifted to the far right of the ATX port opening instead of being near the left. The rest of the ports are then shifted over to take up the same space. We're guessing that this move was made due to the layout requirements of the rotated CPU and memory. Either way, the standard ATX port cover plate will not cover the ports, but ASUS includes their own metal cover plate to make up for that. There is also a USB riser card with an extra two USB ports, which will fit in any free case slot opening.

The main power header is easy to reach if you have a slide out tray, but since they are at the right edge of the board, under where your hard drives will likely be, they might not be easy for you to plug in. Overall, the board layout is functional and innovative..

The P4T includes a few other bits to help with your Pentium 4 experience. There are two RDRAM continuity modules. All four of the RDRAM ports must be filled, and RAM has to be added in pairs. The continuity modules allow you to buy two pieces of RDRAM instead of four. Hey, there must be tradeoffs if you want 3.2GBps of memory bandwidth!

ASUS' PC Probe or Intel's LCDM software is also included with the P4T. This software uses hardware monitoring to warn of an impeding hardware crash. There is also a copy of PC-cillin 98 virus-checking software.