Asus A8N-E or A8N-SLI Premium?

[coolsti]

I almost have specified completely my new PC, but after reading more
deeply into people's experiences with the motherboard, I am now uncertain
as to which one would be the best choice for me. I plan to use the AMD64
3800+ CPU, and would like to buy Asus, and so my choice is between either
the A8N-E or the A8N-SLI Premium.

At the moment I do not think I will use two graphic cards, so the SLI
feature is of no importance. The use of a heat sink instead of chipset fan
is a drawing point of the A8N-SLI Premium, but I have read several reports
about problems in getting this motherboard to work. Then again, I also
have read of problems with the A8N-E. Many of these problems may have been
fixed via Bios updates or hardware changes by Asus (for example I read
that chipset fan failures for the A8N-E should be fixed now) but this is
hard to tell from my internet surfing.

Does anyone have experience with one or both of these motherboards? And
can give me some tips concering pros and cons of either of them?

Additional info: I am not into overclocking, and definitely not into
spending days or weeks in getting my new PC to work. I built my current PC
with a P4PE Asus board 3 years ago, set it up with standard
configurations, and got it working right away. I hope to do this again
with the new PC.

Regarding the passive cooling of the A8N-SLI Premium, I will be using an
existing HP Vectra 800 cabinet, which is a very high quality cabinet
and very roomy but only has one main cabinet fan in the back (not
including the fans on the new PSU I will buy) so one concern may be
whether this cabinet's air flow will be sufficient.

Thanks for any tips!

Steve, Denmark

 

[Will Dormann]

I almost have specified completely my new PC, but after reading more
deeply into people's experiences with the motherboard, I am now uncertain
as to which one would be the best choice for me. I plan to use the AMD64
3800+ CPU, and would like to buy Asus, and so my choice is between either
the A8N-E or the A8N-SLI Premium.

At the moment I do not think I will use two graphic cards, so the SLI
feature is of no importance.

Then get the A8N-E. And replace the chipset fan with a passive
heatsink if you like.


I'm quite happy with mine.




-WD

 

[coolsti]

Then get the A8N-E. And replace the chipset fan with a passive
heatsink if you like.


I'm quite happy with mine.




-WD

Thanks for the reply WD.

Is that possible? To replace the chipset fan with a passive heatsink?

Actually, I noticed that a lot of people are happy with using fans by
Zalman instead of using the "default" coolers that come with CPU's and
video cards. Perhaps an option would be to replace Asus' chipset fan with
a better one by Zalman?

/Steve, Denmark

 

[Will Dormann]

Actually, I noticed that a lot of people are happy with using fans by
Zalman instead of using the "default" coolers that come with CPU's and
video cards. Perhaps an option would be to replace Asus' chipset fan with
a better one by Zalman?

Yep, that's what I did. Just clip off the pins for the stock hsf with a
small side cutter and it comes right off. It's pretty simple.

This is the particular model I used:
http://www.zalman.co.kr/eng/product/view.asp?idx=65&code=014

But any one should do fine.



-WD

 

[coolsti]

Yep, that's what I did. Just clip off the pins for the stock hsf with a
small side cutter and it comes right off. It's pretty simple.

This is the particular model I used:
http://www.zalman.co.kr/eng/product/view.asp?idx=65&code=014

But any one should do fine.



-WD

Hey, thanks for the tip, and the link!

So you did not even attempt to use the Asus original chip set cooler? You
went right to the Zalman solution? I read in some forums that Asus has
supposedly improved the fan on this motherboard after so many of the
original model failed.

- Steve

 

[Will Dormann]

So you did not even attempt to use the Asus original chip set cooler? You
went right to the Zalman solution? I read in some forums that Asus has
supposedly improved the fan on this motherboard after so many of the
original model failed.

That's correct. I never attempted to use the stock chipset HSF. Small
fans are always noisy, and I wanted the system to be quiet.



-WD