.2 FEAPerformance TURES

2.FEATURES

2.1.2Special Features

•ACPI Ready: Advanced Configuration Power Interface (ACPI) provides more Energy Saving Features for operating systems that support OS Direct Power Management (OSPM) functionality. With these features implemented in the OS, PCs can be ready around the clock, yet satisfy all the energy saving standards. To fully utilize the benefits of ACPI, an ACPI-supported OS, such as Windows 98 must be used.

•Easy Installation: Incorporates BIOS that supports autodetection of hard disk drives, PS/2 mouse, and Plug and Play devices to make the setup of hard disk drives, expansion cards, and other devices virtually automatic.

•Suspend and Go: Suspend-to-RAM (STR) provides maximum power savings

as an alternative to leaving the computer ON and QuickStart™ so that you do not have to wait for a long time for system bootup.

•New Compliancy: Both the BIOS and hardware levels of this motherboard meet the stringent requirements for PC 99 certification The new PC 99 requirements for systems and components are based on the following high-level goals: Sup- port for Plug and Play compatibility and power management for configuring and managing all system components, and 32-bit device drivers and installation procedures for Windows95/98/NT . Color-coded connectors and descriptive icons make identification easy as required by PC 99.

•Symbios SCSI BIOS: Supports optional ASUS SCSI controller cards through the onboard SYMBIOS firmware.

2.1.3 Performance Features

•Concurrent PCI: Concurrent PCI allows multiple PCI transfers from PCI mas- ter busses to the memory and processor.

•High-Speed Data Transfer Interface: IDE transfers using UltraDMA/33 Bus Master IDE can handle rates up to 33MB/s. This motherboard with its chipset and support for UltraDMA/66 doubles the data transfer rate to 66.6MB/s. UltraDMA/66 is backward compatible with DMA/33, and DMA and with exist- ing DMA devices and systems so there is no need to upgrade current EIDE/IDE drives and host systems. (UltraDMA/66 requires a 40-pin80-conductor cable to be enabled.)

•VCM/SDRAM Optimized Performance: This motherboard supports a new gen- eration memory, NEC’s 64Mb Virtual Channel Memory (VCM) Synchronous Dy- namic Random Access Memory (SDRAM), which is compatible to the industry standard SDRAM. The VCM’s core design provides up to 50% higher SDRAM speed at reduced power consumption of about 30%. This motherboard also supports standard SDRAM, which increases the data transfer rate (1.064GB/s max using PC133-compliant SDRAMs and 800MB/s max using PC100-compliant SDRAMs).

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ASUS A7PRO User’s Manual