The BIOS and the goodies
I'm going to talk about the BIOS in passing, because the P4PB Ultra's is (1) pretty standard for a BIOS, and (2) has just about everything an enthusiast would want. The BIOS has RAM timing settings in abundance, including CAS latency, interleave, command rate, and Trp, Tras and Trcd settings. You can also choose from 200MHz, 266MHz, 333MHz or 400MHz memory speeds.

In terms of overclocking options, the P4PB Ultra delivers. There is a multiplier setting, but that means little since unlocked Pentium 4's are about as common as winning Powerball tickets. More importantly, the front-side bus can be set in 1MHz increments up to 200MHz. If you'd like to pump up some voltages in hopes of raising that front-side bus even higher, no problem: The P4PB Ultra allows adjustment of AGP, DIMM and CPU voltages.

I mentioned previously that some of the nifty features of the P4PB Ultra weren't even on the board, so now we'll talk about the bundled accessories. A picture is worth a thousand words (or so I'm told), so here you go:

If you're really paying attention, you might notice that the I/O shield in the picture looks like it won't fit the port cluster properly. Don't worry, though; there's a knock-out plate filling the hole for the Ethernet port, but it's easily removed.

We've already talked about the backplate with the four additional USB 2.0 ports, but what about that other stuff? First up are rounded cables for both the floppy drive and hard drive. The IDE cable actually supports two devices, but you probably don't want to run it that way, of course. The power adapter can act as a useful ATX extension cable of sorts if the reach from your power supply is a little tight, but it's main purpose is to add a 4-pin "P4" power connector to a power supply that doesn't have one. If you're one of those people who bought a killer PSU before the advent of the new connector, you'll be happy to see an adapter like this.

There's one more nifty inclusion that isn't in the photo above, because it really deserves a photo of its own:

As you can probably guess, this is a media reader similar to the ones that Soyo includes with its DRAGON boards. Obviously it will allow data transfer from Memory Sticks or Secure Digital cards. The third port is a smart card reader, a feature I first saw included with Soyo's K7V DRAGON Plus board. At the time I reviewed that board, I had difficulty coming up with a use for the smart card reader, and frankly I haven't heard of a use since. Perhaps this feature is more useful in Europe or Asia; I'd be interested in hearing from anyone who has some input on this subject.

The media reader fits in a 3.5" bay, and unlike Soyo's readers, a 5.25" adapter isn't included. Three proprietary cables (one for each slot) connect the reader to three proprietary ports on the motherboard. The good news here is that the reader doesn't take up any of the free USB 2.0 headers.

The even better news is that, if you're feeling jaunty, you can purchase Soyo's latest reader that is also bundled with the KT400 DRAGON board. Install these two boxes together, and you'll have two USB 2.0 ports and Compact Flash, Smart Media, Memory Stick and Secure Digital readers. You'd have the flash memory Rosetta Stone.