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.
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fozzymatic - Tuesday, March 1, 2005 - link
"So, is SLI worth the cost and the effort? For some, the answer will be a definite no. The SLI boards still cost a great deal, setting up the system is still a daunting task, and the cost of two top-of-the-line video cards will be just too much for many to consider SLI to be a real option."I still do not understand why this argument is so popular. Why is the general assumption that purchasers of SLI capable boards will immediately want to jump into a dual-card config? The idea is flexibility. Sure, 2 6800's are expensive now, but they will inevitably get cheaper. So why not buy one now and then profit form your forward thinking later down the line when the price of a second card is cut in half and there are more SLI-supported games available. I concede that the mobos are 50$ more than a non-SLI board but, for 50$, I'll take the enhanced upgrade path. Out of the gate the SLI boards are the fastest single or double-card NF4 mobos available, so whats to lose?
justly - Monday, February 28, 2005 - link
Wesley, well done, although I have to admit I skipped over some of the pages describing the individual boards as I am not personnaly intrested in buying a SLI system.One thing about the bar graphs, it could have been a little easier to compare between a single card and SLI if you had used split bars like in this graph
http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/video/ATI/rade...
using the top half of the bar for single card and the bottom for duel cards.
It would also be nice to see a comparasion of disk controller, firewire and USB performance (and anything else that is chipset specific) using all the different brand chipsets.
I don't think you are the person that does power supply reviews, but with all the concerns recenty about power supplies it would also be nice to see an article that not only describes some of the differences in power supplies but what components draw power from what rails and how much they draw (I have seen power supply guides that give an idea of how many total watts is needed but very little information on how those watts are divided up between rails).
One last thing, I have a little problem with this statement "the ability of a motherboard to run at much higher than stock speeds tells you something about the quality of components used in a motherboard". If every motherboad had a perfect BIOS and they all had the same overclocking options then your statement could be true, but that is not the case. Would you call all Intel branded motherboards poor quality just because Intel doesn't put overclocking options in their motherboards BIOS? What if an OEM decided to use one of these great overclocking boards in a prebuilt system and the only change they made to the board was to eliminate the overclocking options from the BIOS, is that board now poor quality?
Viper4185 - Monday, February 28, 2005 - link
Well well well, seems you are right. The MSI nForce 4 Ultra board in Australia even has 1x PCI Express slot...http://www.msi.com.tw/program/products/mainboard/m...
Does anyone know which boards support Firewire 800 (1934b)?
Also to Wesley, thanks for the reply, do you have a rough idea when the nForce 4 Ultra comparison would be available?
falcc - Monday, February 28, 2005 - link
There seems to be different version of MSI's SLI boards depending on where you live. In Australia the SLI board is a MSI K8N Diamond. The interesting thing about this board is that it has two PCI Express x1 slots. as well as the two x16 slots for SLI. It also has a wlan option.falcc - Monday, February 28, 2005 - link
ChineseDemocracyGNR - Monday, February 28, 2005 - link
#43, I'm aware it needs a PHY, but I always thought it worked the same way as it did since the nForce3-250Gb, with no PCI-E involved.I checked out the manual for the MSI K8N Diamond and ASUS A8N-SLI, from them:
MSI
"Dual LAN
? Supports dual LAN jacks
- 1st LAN supports 10/100/1000 Fast Ethernet by nForce4 SLI
- 2nd PCI Express LAN supports 10/100/1000 Fast Ethernet by Marvell 88E8053"
ASUS
"nForce4 built-in Gbit MAC with external Marvell PHY :
- NV ActiveArmor
- NV Firewall
- AI NET2"
I couldn't find a reference that the chipset LAN is tied to PCI-E.
ajmiles - Monday, February 28, 2005 - link
Excellent, thanks Wesley. Every response I've had from now has been, quote:"With regards to the overclockability, it has AI Overclock, PEG link, and other options, the extent of the overclockability was not promised and unfortunately some customers expect amazing overclocking abilities when the 1T overclock is still a good feature and is overclocking in action."
Perhaps what you would expect them to say when their board clocks more than 60mhz lower than some competitors.
If you could keep me apprised of their response either here or at amiles(at)gmail.com that'd be great. Thanks again.
JoKeRr - Monday, February 28, 2005 - link
I really wish MSI could pump a bit more voltage for the ram, 2.85 is a bit low, especially considering the Asus is giving 3V and DFI is giving 4V!! Guess if u want to run your good old BH5 sticks at 250mhz 2-2-2-7, DFI will be the way to go. But I really liked the MSI mobo. o well, guess u can't have everything.JoKeRr - Monday, February 28, 2005 - link
Wesley Fink - Monday, February 28, 2005 - link
#6 & #56 - I saw the same behavior with the A8N-SLI Deluxe during our testing, and I shared my results with Asus. I forwarded your comments and my own to the Asus A8N-SLI BIOS and Engineering team.