nForce4 SLI Roundup: Painful and Rewarding
by Wesley Fink on February 28, 2005 7:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe: Features and Layout
| Specification | Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe |
| CPU Interface | Socket 939 Athlon 64 |
| Chipset | nForce4 SLI (single chip) |
| BUS Speeds | 200MHz to 400MHz (in 1MHz increments) |
| PCI/AGP Speeds | Asynchronous (Fixed) |
| PCI Speeds | 100MHz to 145MHz in 1MHz increments |
| Core Voltage | Auto, 0.8V to 1.65V in 0.0125V increments |
| DRAM Voltage | Auto, 2.6V to 3.0V in 0.05V increments |
| Chipset Voltage | None |
| Hyper Transport Ratios | Auto, 1X to 5X in 1X increments |
| LDT Bus Transfer | 16/16, 16/8, 8/16, 8/8 |
| LDT Voltage | None |
| PCI Synchronization | Auto, To CPU, 33.33MHz |
| CPU Ratios | Auto, 4x to 20x in 0.5x increments |
| DRAM Speeds | Auto, DDR200, DDR266, DDR333, DDR400, DDR433, DDR466, DDR500 |
| Memory Command Rate | Auto, 1T, 2T |
| Memory Slots | Four 184-pin DDR Dual-Channel Slots Unbuffered ECC or non-ECC Memory to 4GB Total |
| Expansion Slots | 2 x16 PCIe Slots 2 x1 PCIe 3 PCI Slots |
| SLI Setup | Movable PCB Card |
| Onboard SATA | 4-Drive SATA 2 by nF4 PLUS 4-Drive SATA by Sil3114 |
| Onboard IDE | Two Standard nVidia ATA133/100/66 (4 drives) |
| SATA/IDE RAID | 4-Drive SATA 2 PLUS 4-Drive IDE (8 total) Can be combined in RAID 0, 1 PLUS 4-Drive SATA by Sil3114 Sil3114 Raid 0, 1, 5 |
| Onboard USB 2.0/IEEE-1394 | 10 USB 2.0 ports supported nF4 2 1394A FireWire ports by TI 41AY42T |
| Onboard LAN | Dual Gigabit Ethernet PCIe by Marvel 88E1111 PHY PCI by Marvel 88E8001 |
| Onboard Audio | Realtek ALC850 8-Channel codec with 6 UAJ audio jacks, CD-in, front audio, and both coaxial and optical SPDIF |
| Other Features | 3-slot SLI spacing |
| BIOS | Award 1005 Beta BIOS |
When the Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe was first introduced, prices were in the stratosphere. However, after several weeks on the market, prices have settled solidly below the $200 price point. Several online retailers now offer the Asus SLI in the $175 range. The feature set and Deluxe name are generally reserved for Asus for their "notch-down" boards, which might indicate that Asus has plans for a top-line Premium board in the future.
We have commented before that Asus pays close attention to the layout of their motherboards, and that also shows in the A8N-SLI Deluxe. Connectors are all where they should be - IDE, floppy, ATX and 12v are all conveniently located for easy access. In fact, our only real complaint is the so-called EZ-plug that Asus uses to provide more power to SLI. It is bad enough that two top-end video cards require 4 Molex connectors to power them, but on the Asus board you also have to connect another 4-pin Molex for additional video card power. Asus says that this is required for "stable SLI operation", but the other 3 SLI designs do fine and are quite stable without the 5th power connector.
In its favor, the Asus was the only SLI board that allowed you to change the setup from "normal" to "SLI" without having to first remove the video card. The design of the PCB was also the best of the group with positive side locking that looked like it might survive a few changes. We also very much liked the locks on the video slots because you could release them from the back of the slot as well as the front - a real plus with double slot cards.
The feature set on the Asus is just average in this roundup. There are two gigabit LANS, but #2 is PCI instead of the faster PCIe. Audio is the rather average Realtek 850 with nothing special in the Asus implementation - quite a step down from the leading edge designs of some Asus boards for Intel processors. Firewire is also 1394a, or Firewire 400, when Asus uses Firewire 800 on their recent Intel boards. Another way to put this is that this Asus A8N-SLI is certainly not up to the high design standards that Asus has set for their recent Intel designs. Perhaps there is another Asus SLI in the works that will do a better job at bringing high-end features to Asus nForce4.
The storage area is an area where it first appears that the Asus stands out. Asus fully supports the nVidia SATA 2 and IDE any drive RAID features, and then offers an additional Silicon Image 3114 SATA RAID controller that even supports RAID 5. In the end, 3 of the 4 SLI boards provide the same Sil3114 controller, which is SATA 1, and does not support SATA 2 drives.
The Asus is certainly a competent SLI motherboard, but it is pretty average in this roundup and does not stand out in any way other than the wide space between the video slots. Add to this below-average overclocking abilities and the problems experienced with our 6800 Ultra cards on just the Asus board, and it is hard to get too excited about this particular Asus board. Asus engineering is an important benefit with any Asus product, and the resources of this giant company are impressive. But as you will see in the roundup, there are better choices among the SLI boards available.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
108 Comments
View All Comments
Reflex - Tuesday, March 1, 2005 - link
#83: Not sure what to say to you about that but AMD has made it clear that ECC is a Opteron but not a A64 feature. The memory controller still has the capability I am certain, but the pinout on the CPU's is different and does not support it as far as I am aware.There are no boards that support it either as far as I know.
Lakku - Tuesday, March 1, 2005 - link
#77 Point well taken. However, this last generation of video cards was a HUGE leap in performance compared to previous generations. Probably not since the move to T&L chips have we seen such a performance increase. I have doubts that the next generation of cards will be able to double performance of current cards. SLI, on average, increases performance from 20% to almost 100% (mostly in synthetic tests on the latter). On newer games that are not CPU/system bound (or games at resolutions above 1024x768), and rely more on the GPU, the increase is greater (i.e. Doom 3 and HL2). This generation doubled the pipelines and increased memory throughput by quite a bit. I don't forsee the next generation being able to do this without substantial hurdles that would need to be overcome or at substantial costs. The fact remains that I don't think a single next generation card (7xxx series lets assume) will handily beat an SLI system, let alone the fact that if supply problems continue, next generation will be 6 or 700 dollars while the 6xxx series will be down to a decent price. The next Unreal engine can run on current SLI setups, as Epic demo'd the engine on 6800 Ultra's SLId. All of this gives support to my idea of mainstream SLI making sense. Two 6600GT's out now give the power (more so in some tests, less when FSAA or super high reso's get involved) of a 6800GT for a lot less cost. Next generation you can upgrade to two 7600GT's that will probably match one future high end card and more then likely beat out any high end card on the market now (and possibly match current high end in SLI, but this is wishful thinking). The concluding points are that it is a good upgrade path. 1) You can get two mainstream cards now that perform great under SLI, 2) Next gen high end will be expensive and probably in short supply, meaning if you did splurge on one high end card now, you can get another then at a reduced cost (probably with your two cards totalling less then one new high end), and 3) The two SLI cards form this generation should match a single card from the future, meaning you can then wait until the NEXT next generation when features will have changed enough to warrant a new generation of cards to play the new generation of games.bob661 - Tuesday, March 1, 2005 - link
#82Are you sure about that? How do you know that the 5.1 speaker test hasn't been encoded in DD?
endrebjorsvik - Tuesday, March 1, 2005 - link
In the 5th paragraph in the Gigabyte K8NXP-SLi-review you have written: "Four ports are 3Gb/s ports provided by the nForce*_3_* chip".That can't be correct, huh?
1955mm - Tuesday, March 1, 2005 - link
#71, Do your homework. http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/white... Both the socket 754 and 939 processors support ECC.EODetroit - Tuesday, March 1, 2005 - link
Giz02, I look forward to hearing the results of your audio testing on the MSI. That will probably determine whether I get the DFI or the MSI.The easiest way to test, (Wesley or anyone with the MSI could do this too) is to just run the speaker test in the nvidia control panel with some 5.1 speakers connected to the toslink or digital coax out. If you can only hear front left and front right, its only outputting stereo, just like all other soundblasters. If you can hear all the positions, like I can on my NForce2 Soundstorm audio, then its doing what I hope it does :) .
giz02 - Tuesday, March 1, 2005 - link
Wesley #80Didn't work for me. I tried that with two Ultra PC4000's in the green slots and no post :( The manual has it documented well enough, and I was just replying to what #48 had an issue with.
In my post (79) what do you know what would be better (performance wise) of the two (well three) options I listed?
Wesley Fink - Tuesday, March 1, 2005 - link
#79 -I mentioned in the review of the earlier MSI Neo2 that 4 dimms on auto sets timings to DDR333 on almost every board. This is an AMD Athlon 64 spec for 4 DS dimms. However, on the MSI and all boards in this roundup I found you could force the memory speed to DDR400, lower the Command Rate to 2T - with all other settings the same as 2 DS dimms - and boot just fine. This has been stated clearly in every review and should not be new information.
I have not yet found any board that will run 4 DS dimms with both DDR400 and 1T. We are told the upcoming Rev.E Athlon 64 chips have an updated memory controller that will support 4 DS dimms at DDR400 and 1T. We are looking forward to reviewing Rev. E when it appears in Athlon 64, since it is appearing already in a few Opteron chips.
giz02 - Tuesday, March 1, 2005 - link
#68, I hope to prove otherwise tonight. (ran outta time yesterday!) I purchased the board and installed winxp. Will install the drivers tonight, and all indications thus far indicate that it is a modified chip (or drivers) that supports intel HD. There is also a quote from MSI that indicates it is the only licensed Dolby motherboard on the market (whatever that means). If I am wrong, and there is no Dolby Live Support (PCSTATS said outright that DICE was supported), then I'll be selling this board and hitting DFI!Asus vs MSI. One thing I will say is that the documentation from MSI is pathetic. Broken english, an vague references! I'm not even sure what I was supposed to have in my box! It said the User Manual was optional! Funny thing is, they printed that IN THE USER MANUAL!
Asus has been solid for documentation for some time now, and while thier boards haven't traditionally been the best for performance/OC'ing/features, they are pretty reliable!
giz02 - Tuesday, March 1, 2005 - link
#48,I just read your post, and I had the same problem with the MSI board.
I have an Ultra PC4000 Dual Channel Kit (512x2), and booted up , SPD set the memory to 167 (333) I was blown away, so I manually set it to 200 (400) BOOM. no post. It wasn't until later that I noticed in teh manual that with this board (MSI Neo4SLI) you CANNOT use Dual sided memory in DUAL CHANNEL mode ABOVE 167 (333). In order to go above 333, I'll have to run the chips in slots 1 and 2 (green and purple), thus negating any benifits of DC.
Anyone know what would be better:
1. Running Dual channel at 333
2. Running single channel at 400+ (400-500)
3. Offloading this cheap ass memory to someone else and buying a single sided DC kit :D
giz