Socket 939 Roundup: Battle at the Top
by Wesley Fink on July 30, 2004 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Asus A8V Deluxe: Features and Layout
| Asus A8V Deluxe - Revision 2.0 Motherboard Specifications |
|
| CPU Interface | Socket 939 Athlon 64 |
| Chipset | VIA K8T800 PRO/VT8237 |
| Bus Speeds | 200MHz to 300MHz (in 1MHz increments) |
| CPU Ratios | 4x - 20x in 0.5x increments |
| PCI/AGP Speeds | Auto, 66.66/33.33, 75.4/37.7 |
| HyperTransport | Auto, 200MHz to 1GHz (1x-5x) |
| Core Voltage | 0.80V to 1.80V in 0.025V increments |
| DRAM Voltage | Auto, 2.5V to 2.8V in 0.1V increments |
| AGP Voltage | 1.5V, 1.6V |
| V-Link Voltage | 2.5V, 2.6V |
| Memory Slots | Four 184-pin DDR DIMM Slots Dual-Channel Unbuffered Memory to 4GB |
| Expansion Slots | 1 AGP 8X Slot 5 PCI Slots |
| Onboard SATA/IDE RAID | 2 SATA 150 drives by VIA VT8237 Can be combined in RAID 0, 1, JBOD PLUS 2 SATA by Promise 20378 |
| Onboard IDE | Two Standard VIA ATA133/100/66 (4 drives) PLUS 1 IDE 133/100/66 by Promise 20378 |
| Onboard USB 2.0/IEEE-1394 | 8 USB 2.0 ports supported by VIA VT8237 2 IEEE 1394 FireWire Ports by VIA VT6307 |
| Onboard LAN | Gigabit Ethernet by Marvell 88E8001 |
| Onboard Audio | Realtek ALC850 8-Channel with SPDIF |
| Tested BIOS | 1006 Beta 2 |
When Asus first introduced the A8V Deluxe it was the only Socket 939 board we had received with no AGP/PCI lock. Asus did not advertise an AGP/PCI lock and, in fact, it was not even listed as an option. When we talked with Asus about why they would leave out such a key feature of the VIA K8T800 PRO chipset, we were told Asus had concerns about the stability of the feature, and would not release a board with a lock until they were confident of the stable operation of the feature. While we did receive several prototypes with impressive performance and a working lock, Asus US did not give us the go-ahead that these interim designs would ever become production boards. For that reason, we did not believe it was fair to AnandTech readers to review an excellent design that they might never see in production.
Several weeks ago, Asus advised that they had completed a new Revision 2.0 with a number of board refinements and a working PCI/AGP lock that would soon be released. We had been very pleased with the revisions of the A8V we had evaluated, so we had great expectations of Revision 2.0. As you will see in the performance numbers and overclocking of the Asus A8V we were not disappointed.
The A8V Deluxe is the top-of-the-line Asus board for Socket 939, as you see reflected in the feature set. The A8V can be considered an update of the successful Asus K8V with the significant addition of the VIA K8T800 PRO chipset with, finally, a working PCI/AGP lock. Asus tells us that Revision 2.0 is more than just the addition of a production PCI/AGP lock, as they also used the update as an opportunity to refine the design.
As the Asus flagship Socket 939 the A8V Deluxe provides all the expected VIA K8T800 PRO/VT8237 features like 2-drive SATA RAID, 8 USB ports, and Hyper Transport to 1GHz. In addition Asus adds Marvell Gigabit LAN, The Promise PDC20378 RAID controller supporting 2 more SATA drives plus an additional IDE connector, Firewire, and the Realtec ALC850 8-channel codec. Asus calls their top boards AI, and the A8V includes a long list of proprietary Asus AI features like C.P.R., AI Net, AI BIOS, EZ Flash BIOS, and Q-Fan 2 fan-speed controls. The A8V also fully supports AMD Cool'n'Quiet.
Too often, we forget to mention that Asus is a huge proponent of Wi-Fi, and most of their boards include Wi-Fi capabilities. The A8V Deluxe is another Wi-Fi Home board, but the included adapter is now the higher-speed Wi-Fi G instead of the older and slower B standard. Asus even includes a desktop antenna to ease your communication with a wireless router or to serve as host for other Wi-Fi computers.
The overclocking controls are excellent in their range as we have come to expect on Asus boards. Noteworthy are the ratios in fine 0.5x ratios which makes OC fine-tuning that much easier on 939 CPUs. The CPU voltage also covers a very wide range from 0.8V to 1.80 volts. Our only complaint here is that 300 CPU Clock is a little short for a board that can do 289 at 1:1 memory, and the memory voltage controls are really limited at a top of 2.8V when we have performance memory warranted to 3.0V. Otherwise the variety and range of BIOS adjustments is excellent.
The layout of the A8V Deluxe is excellent. Both the 20-pin ATX and the 4-pin 12V connectors are on board edges and don't interfere with the CPU. The IDE connectors are in our preferred upper right edge of the board. Some will hate the floppy edge connector, but we liked getting it out of the way, and the floppy is also a connector many users don't use any way. The 4-dimm connectors, for up to 4GB of Dual-Channel memory, are well clear of the AGP 8X slot when changing memory. Asus is an advocate of quiet, failure-free passive chipset cooling, and you will see that in the massive heatsink used on the Northbridge. There's little to complain about in the layout of the Asus A8V Deluxe Rev.2.
Rear panel I/O is also very complete, including 6 audio mini jacks, both optical and coaxial SPDIF outputs, 4 USB, LAN, Firewire, 1 serial port, parallel port, and the usual PS2 keyboard and mouse ports. We were particularly pleased to see easily accessible optical and coax SPDIF ports and wish other manufacturers paid as much attention to this feature as Asus has in their recent board designs.
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jrphoenix - Friday, July 30, 2004 - link
I am using the Gigabyte 939 NF3 board for the past week now. It appears that their are two lan connections listed as Marvell (lan 1) and Nvidia (lan 2). I have been using the Nvidia one?To get the firewall to function with the Gigabyte board all you have to do is download the Nvidia 4 in 1's after installing the Gigabyte drivers.
Of course I'm a noob.
Wesley Fink - Friday, July 30, 2004 - link
#70 - The nVidia fiewall is a port on the chipset that allows for direct communication with the Gigabit chip PHY layer. It is therefore very difficult to determine if the on-chip port is being used just from looking at the specifications.Earlier this week we asked nVidia for help in identifying which motherboards were using the on-chip gigabit port. nVidia is looking into the list of boards we supplied and said they would be providing us with updated information soon. When we receive that info we will post it.
Anemone - Friday, July 30, 2004 - link
Any chance to have tested the OCZ 4000 gold rev 2, with the 2.5-3-3 latencies and compare that to the 3700 EB?Curious as I narrow down things.
Any news on Pci-e for AMD64's?
Thanks!
REMF - Friday, July 30, 2004 - link
i too would like to know whether the Gigabyte NF3 board uses the nVidia NIC/firewall, and if not not, why anandtech failed to mention the fact?geogecko - Thursday, July 29, 2004 - link
What is the noise difference in the retail packaged CPU fans in this class (S-939), and the Thermaltake Silent Boost K8 used in the reviews.I notice that Thermaltake also has another CPU cooler using heatpipes, the SilentTower 4-in-1 CPU Cooler. Have you guys tested this out?
My current PC (AMD XP 1800+ with the equivalent of a Volcano 9) gets too loud for me when it gets warmed up, and that's with it sitting on the floor next to my desk.
Staples - Tuesday, July 27, 2004 - link
#62, you must have read the post incorrectly. I was hoping you would have used the same CPU, which you did not. Somehow you read the opposite. I figure in comparing the chipset to the other, using a different CPU throws in a ton of extra variables. Now if you are looking at it from a prospective of which is faster, then your setup is fair. Of course most people would buy the Northwood on the 875 but it becomes more of a platform benchmark rather than anything that could be called a chipset competition.About the FX53, one reason I do not like you using it is because it is AMD's flagship product and at least from what I remember, the Presscott that you used was not an EE. Even so, the biggest bother is that the FX53 will always cost more than $500 and very few people will actually ever buy it when they can get so much more band for their month with just a regular class AMD64. This is the case with the EE too, they will always cost an arm and a leg so I'd say only about 5% of people will be buying the FX and the EE series chips. By an overwhelming majority, most consumers will be buying the non-enthusiast parts.
bigtoe33 - Tuesday, July 27, 2004 - link
Please take this as the official responce to the rumours about 3500 and 3700EB.We have NOT stopped production of these modules, it sells quicker than we can produce it..that is the only real issue.
We have just shipped another huge order so please go bug your favourite stores to stock it..
EB is here to stay at least for the time being.
Tony
expletive - Monday, July 26, 2004 - link
Also, has the performance discrepancy with Halo and the nforce boards ben figured out yet? If it somehting that may resurface in other games ill get an nforce board. If it is fixable or just a one off with halo, i can save a few $ and get a via board while i am waiting for PCIx...John
expletive - Monday, July 26, 2004 - link
Does the Gigabyte board use the Nvidia LAN as well? I see it says marvel but after the last series of posts with the marvell/nvidia chipset i am confused now...Anemone - Monday, July 26, 2004 - link
Thank you for enlightening on the LAN issue with the NF3 ultra - for me I'm getting and FX.Since this article is getting referenced a lot with people I talk with and such, can we keep a front page link to it for a while?
Also looking forward to memory reviews as well. Rather sad the 3700EB has been discontinued :(
Hopefully OCZ will have something better to take its place in not too long, but that might be impossible.