Asus A8R-MVP: Mainstream Rocket
by Wesley Fink on November 23, 2005 1:15 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Final Words
Users were more disturbed than ATI may have thought with the limitations of the SB450 south bridge. In practical terms, it made no real difference at all in performance, since SATA2 is not really faster than SATA1 with current drives, and most USB transfers don't come even fractionally close to taxing the transfer capabilities of USB 2.0. However, for most users, competitive USB and SATA2 are options that don't need their performance to be explained - they are check list items that should perform exactly as users expect - not items with sub-par performance or missing from the check list.
The Asus A8R-MVP is the first motherboard that we have tested to use the ULi M1575 instead. The M1575 does provide competitive USB 2.0 performance and the SATA2 ports that are missing on the ATI SB450. We will also see the ULi M1575 on the MSI and Abit ATI chipset motherboards, as well as others coming down the pike. The performance of the ULi M1575 proves that Asus and others made a good choice in this south bridge.
The most important thing that the Asus A8R-MVP brings us, however, is not the competitive USB and SATA2 capabilities - they are just icing on the cake. The A8R-MVP is a monster of an overclocker - a mainstream board that proves that you don't have to spend a fortune to get incredible flexibility in pushing your system performance to new levels. This is the kind of board that serious overclockers love - a value-priced board that can be coupled to a value-priced AMD Socket 939 Opteron, for example, to get beyond top-of-the-line performance.
UPDATE: After further testing on shipping retail boards, we have concluded that a 2T Command Rate is needed for Clock frequencies above 260-265. We did not realize that the board we initially tested was actually reset to 2T in our benchmark tests at 325. However, the Asus A8R-MVP at 2T is often as fast as other board at 1T since the memory timings on this board are very agressive. The good news is that 320+ was in reach at 2T using good TCCD memory on all of the shipping retail boards we tested, and the performance at 2T was very competetive with other boards at the same speed at 1T Command Rate.
Asus tells us the Engineer responsible for this board design is a young professional, well-regarded for his creativity and promising design skills. Perhaps this is the first of many such surprises from this young Engineer.
In the end, the Asus A8R-MVP is definitely not what we expected. It is not top-end, expensive, 8-phase, or designed for the top overclock that anyone will ever achieve. It is really much more than any of those expectations. The A8R-MVP is a reasonably-priced, full-featured board that is not really missing any important features. Instead of the limitations of SB450, it has the advantages of ULi M1575. And this value-priced board produced the highest overclocks that we have ever seen with our OCZ Rev.2 Platinum memory and our 4000+ CPU.
As we said, it's a good thing that we actually test motherboards instead of relying on first impressions. The Asus A8R-MVP is exactly what many of you are looking for, and it is probably the best thing that could happen to the ATI AMD chipsets. A reasonably priced board that has all the check marks, is very fast at stock, and can overclock like a banshee is always a good thing.
Users were more disturbed than ATI may have thought with the limitations of the SB450 south bridge. In practical terms, it made no real difference at all in performance, since SATA2 is not really faster than SATA1 with current drives, and most USB transfers don't come even fractionally close to taxing the transfer capabilities of USB 2.0. However, for most users, competitive USB and SATA2 are options that don't need their performance to be explained - they are check list items that should perform exactly as users expect - not items with sub-par performance or missing from the check list.
The Asus A8R-MVP is the first motherboard that we have tested to use the ULi M1575 instead. The M1575 does provide competitive USB 2.0 performance and the SATA2 ports that are missing on the ATI SB450. We will also see the ULi M1575 on the MSI and Abit ATI chipset motherboards, as well as others coming down the pike. The performance of the ULi M1575 proves that Asus and others made a good choice in this south bridge.
The most important thing that the Asus A8R-MVP brings us, however, is not the competitive USB and SATA2 capabilities - they are just icing on the cake. The A8R-MVP is a monster of an overclocker - a mainstream board that proves that you don't have to spend a fortune to get incredible flexibility in pushing your system performance to new levels. This is the kind of board that serious overclockers love - a value-priced board that can be coupled to a value-priced AMD Socket 939 Opteron, for example, to get beyond top-of-the-line performance.
UPDATE: After further testing on shipping retail boards, we have concluded that a 2T Command Rate is needed for Clock frequencies above 260-265. We did not realize that the board we initially tested was actually reset to 2T in our benchmark tests at 325. However, the Asus A8R-MVP at 2T is often as fast as other board at 1T since the memory timings on this board are very agressive. The good news is that 320+ was in reach at 2T using good TCCD memory on all of the shipping retail boards we tested, and the performance at 2T was very competetive with other boards at the same speed at 1T Command Rate.
Asus tells us the Engineer responsible for this board design is a young professional, well-regarded for his creativity and promising design skills. Perhaps this is the first of many such surprises from this young Engineer.
In the end, the Asus A8R-MVP is definitely not what we expected. It is not top-end, expensive, 8-phase, or designed for the top overclock that anyone will ever achieve. It is really much more than any of those expectations. The A8R-MVP is a reasonably-priced, full-featured board that is not really missing any important features. Instead of the limitations of SB450, it has the advantages of ULi M1575. And this value-priced board produced the highest overclocks that we have ever seen with our OCZ Rev.2 Platinum memory and our 4000+ CPU.
As we said, it's a good thing that we actually test motherboards instead of relying on first impressions. The Asus A8R-MVP is exactly what many of you are looking for, and it is probably the best thing that could happen to the ATI AMD chipsets. A reasonably priced board that has all the check marks, is very fast at stock, and can overclock like a banshee is always a good thing.
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Wesley Fink - Wednesday, November 23, 2005 - link
Theoretically nVidia SLI can run on ATI crossfire without much trouble. We have tested hacked drivers that do just this and it appears to work fine. However, until nVidia allows Crossifire board operation in their video drivers it is officially not supported. The same goes for ATI Crossfire on nVidia - ATI has to support it in their drivers. Single video cards are supported on all platforms.As for avaialability of X1800XT, our video reviewer received a review sample about 6 weeks ago, but we have not seen another X1800XT from ATI. The X1800XT was to be available for sale November 5. ATI tells us daily there are none available for sampling, but we can expect a unit for motherboard testing "very soon".
shabby - Wednesday, November 23, 2005 - link
Geez if your having this much trouble getting a x1800xt i wonder when you'll recieve the crossfire ones.Schro - Wednesday, November 23, 2005 - link
Has Asus stated the general availability date of the board? The only vendor that I can find with it listed is ZZF @ $199 for a pre-order, which is certainly not a mainstream price.Wesley Fink - Thursday, November 24, 2005 - link
I just did a search on Google's Froogle at http://froogle.google.com/froogle?q=A8R-MVP+&b...">http://froogle.google.com/froogle?q=A8R...;btnG=Se.... There are 4 listings for the A8R-MVP - buy.com for $104.99, Computer Brain for $108.21, PC & Stuff for $115.94, and PCSuperDeals for $119.15. These prices are very much in line with what Asus projected - in fact they are even better. A Crossfire motherboard with these features for $105 is a terrific value.Wesley Fink - Wednesday, November 23, 2005 - link
We confirmed final pricing with Asus yesterday. They told us the board should sell initially in the $115 to $125 range. Obviously a new board, a good review and limited availability drive up the price in capitalism. Asus confirmed last evening the boards have shipped from Taiwan to US e-tailers and should begin appearing for sale Friday or Monday (November 25th or 28th).Live - Wednesday, November 23, 2005 - link
This board is listed for pre-order from several e-tailers here in Europe at just the price range ASUS is suggesting.Calin - Wednesday, November 23, 2005 - link
it's nowhere near the $100-$125 suggested by the article... but the price will fall when availability increasesOrSin - Wednesday, November 23, 2005 - link
Poster before me hit it right on the head. My next motherboard will most likely be one of these ATI boards but it seems this was fluck to me. I guess we can wait for other sites to seee if they get similar results.poohbear - Wednesday, November 23, 2005 - link
excuse me, great review, but when presuming that this board is not a fluke u state:"based on the Asus expectations being set very low for this board, and the genuine surprise that Asus expressed when we reported our results, I would venture to say that what we found is not a fluke."
how are the 2 aforementioned reasons related to it NOT being a fluke? i was a bit confused reading that. if a mobo manufacturer's expectations are low, and then they're surprised, would'nt that mean that this mobo might on the contrary, be a fluke?
Wesley Fink - Wednesday, November 23, 2005 - link
I receive some emails complaining that I must receive "Cherry" motherboards for testing since my OC results are so high. Of course, part of my success is due to being a long-term overclocker, and overall my results have not noramlly been that different than what other experienced overclockers found on retail boards.In this case Asus positioned this as a mainstream board and advised us the board was not positioned as a top overclocker. The ATI Crossfire chipset is an outstanding overclocker and I believe this board, with the design efforts of a talented design team turned out to be a surprising overclocker and that retail boards will also. I really don't think Asus as a company considered that this might be a top overclocker, but certainly someone in Asus design did consider this with the BIOS options that are available.
The first BIOS was not particularly good for overclocking, but version 2 and 3 are outstanding. We have seem many manufacturers, even tier 1, design boards for overclockers that were mediocre in performance. We have also seen boards that had a solid design but no great OC credentials rise to the top as a great overclocker. In fact, Asus has had a number of this type of "wolf in sheep's clothing" boards over the past few years.