Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe

[Bosconian]

I'm seriously considering purchasing an Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe, paired with
an Athlon 64 4000 90nm rev. Before pulling the trigger, does anyone have any
strong objections to this mobo? What about SATA2 support (and does SATA2
even make that much of a difference)?

Thanks in advance.

 

[General Schvantzkoph]

I'm seriously considering purchasing an Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe, paired with
an Athlon 64 4000 90nm rev. Before pulling the trigger, does anyone have
any strong objections to this mobo? What about SATA2 support (and does
SATA2 even make that much of a difference)?

Thanks in advance.

All Nforce4 motherboards have SATA2 support.

 

[John Edmister]

I just upgraded to the A8N SLI premium which is similar to that board, I
have to say that I love my new system.
SATA II will transfer up to 3gb per second vs 1.5, so, yes its worth it. I
did a clean install of XP pro with service pack 2 in about 20 minutes when I
fired my rig up for the first time, and it's been flying ever since.
I socketed an FX-57 cpu in my rig with 2gb of OCZ performance PC3200 DDR,
and an XFX 7800 GTX video card. and I'm getting kick ass numbers in
benchmarks, 100+fps in BF2 and Farcry, and 60+ FPS in Q3 and D4. For some
reason I cant get over 60 fps in Q3 or D4, even if I drop my rez down
low..... all are running with 4xAA and AF. When Q3 and D4 load, Fraps shoots
to 399fps, but then drops back to 60, LOCKED at 60, no more, no less.
Graphics are kick ass. I've also "Tested" my rig by playing BF2, and Q4
WHILE having AOL run in the background streaming XM radio.....
OUTSTANDING!!!!! I'm not a big fan of AOL but we get it free with our
broadband, and I now it's a system hog. I wanted to see what it would
do..... not even a hickup! The board you want to get has dual 16 channel
PCI-E slots, vs 1 16 channel or 2 8 channel. I'm not sure of the cost for
that board bud, but, if it is alot more than the premium...... I'd say save
the cash and just get a better video card, one 7800GTX suites me fine....
although I do fantasize about what it would be like to have 2 7800 GTX
cards..... but, then again, how much better can it get? Either way you
choose to go, you'll be happy, I'd be leary of going with dual core CPU....
I've heard alot of people are having problems with them, driver issues, game
issues. I was told I was better off getting the fastest single core
processor I could buy.... for now, until they work the kinks out of the dual
core systems. Besides very few programs, games or otherwise are written to
take advantage of them. Thats why I chose the FX-57. Expensive as hell....
but, hey, its the fastest chip on the market right now Good luck, if you
have any questions, feel free to e-mail me at (e-mail address removed). Keep us
posted on which way you go

{SFU}Jackyl
--
Asus A8N-Premium
Enermax Liberty 550
AMD FX-57
2 GB OCZ PC3200
Seagate Baracuda 300 GB SATA II
XFX 7800 GTX 256

 

[Bosconian]

I just upgraded to the A8N SLI premium which is similar to that board, I
have to say that I love my new system.
SATA II will transfer up to 3gb per second vs 1.5, so, yes its worth it. I
did a clean install of XP pro with service pack 2 in about 20 minutes when I
fired my rig up for the first time, and it's been flying ever since.
I socketed an FX-57 cpu in my rig with 2gb of OCZ performance PC3200 DDR,
and an XFX 7800 GTX video card. and I'm getting kick ass numbers in
benchmarks, 100+fps in BF2 and Farcry, and 60+ FPS in Q3 and D4. For some
reason I cant get over 60 fps in Q3 or D4, even if I drop my rez down
low..... all are running with 4xAA and AF. When Q3 and D4 load, Fraps shoots
to 399fps, but then drops back to 60, LOCKED at 60, no more, no less.
Graphics are kick ass. I've also "Tested" my rig by playing BF2, and Q4
WHILE having AOL run in the background streaming XM radio.....
OUTSTANDING!!!!! I'm not a big fan of AOL but we get it free with our
broadband, and I now it's a system hog. I wanted to see what it would
do..... not even a hickup! The board you want to get has dual 16 channel
PCI-E slots, vs 1 16 channel or 2 8 channel. I'm not sure of the cost for
that board bud, but, if it is alot more than the premium...... I'd say save
the cash and just get a better video card, one 7800GTX suites me fine....
although I do fantasize about what it would be like to have 2 7800 GTX
cards..... but, then again, how much better can it get? Either way you
choose to go, you'll be happy, I'd be leary of going with dual core CPU....
I've heard alot of people are having problems with them, driver issues, game
issues. I was told I was better off getting the fastest single core
processor I could buy.... for now, until they work the kinks out of the dual
core systems. Besides very few programs, games or otherwise are written to
take advantage of them. Thats why I chose the FX-57. Expensive as hell....
but, hey, its the fastest chip on the market right now Good luck, if you
have any questions, feel free to e-mail me at (e-mail address removed). Keep us
posted on which way you go

{SFU}Jackyl
--
Asus A8N-Premium
Enermax Liberty 550
AMD FX-57
2 GB OCZ PC3200
Seagate Baracuda 300 GB SATA II
XFX 7800 GTX 256

Jackyl,

Thanks for your detailed reply.

I can get the Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe for under $190 including shipping. At
that price it seems like a no-brainer.

The rest of my components are actually going to be quite similair to yours
including a single-core CPU (actual flavor TBD), video card and memory.

What's your opinion on RAID (0 or 1)? I've never had a raid workstation
before (previouslly something reserved only for server class configs, but
not anymore.) With hard drives so cheap this seems like a no-brainer as
well.

Cheers,

 

[John Edmister]

I'm kind of new to the SATA, and RAID configuration too. And who knows, I
probably dont have my drive configured for optimal performance.... lol. I
think I have my single drive configured in a raid 0 stripe configuration. I
think I could have and probably should have put 2 in at the same time.
ASUS's manuals are very detailed about configuring your SATA drives though.
Read the pages about configuring before you install an OS. I like the speed
though, as I said, I had a complete SP2 install of windows up and running in
about 20 minutes.
That is a good price for your motherboard, I paid $165 for my A8N-SLI
premium board about 2 months ago. Believe me, you'll be VERY happy with it!
I simply love mine!! I get wood every time I power my system up! lol

 

[Bosconian]

I'm kind of new to the SATA, and RAID configuration too. And who knows, I
probably dont have my drive configured for optimal performance.... lol. I
think I have my single drive configured in a raid 0 stripe configuration. I
think I could have and probably should have put 2 in at the same time.
ASUS's manuals are very detailed about configuring your SATA drives though.
Read the pages about configuring before you install an OS. I like the speed
though, as I said, I had a complete SP2 install of windows up and running in
about 20 minutes.
That is a good price for your motherboard, I paid $165 for my A8N-SLI
premium board about 2 months ago. Believe me, you'll be VERY happy with it!
I simply love mine!! I get wood every time I power my system up! lol

Someone just pointed out one limitation with the Asus mobo: it doesn't
support DDR2. I wonder how much of a difference this will make (?)

 

[General Schvantzkoph]

Someone just pointed out one limitation with the Asus mobo: it doesn't
support DDR2. I wonder how much of a difference this will make (?)

Of course it doesn't support DDR2. The current generation of A64s use DDR,
if you want DDR2 you'll either have to buy a Intel system or wait until
the socket AM2 A64s are released this summer.

 

[Bosconian]

Of course it doesn't support DDR2. The current generation of A64s use DDR,
if you want DDR2 you'll either have to buy a Intel system or wait until
the socket AM2 A64s are released this summer.

I'm such a fool. Thanks for setting me straight.

 

[General Schvantzkoph]

I'm such a fool. Thanks for setting me straight.

Not a fool, you just have feline optimism. My cat spends all winter going
from door to door because he's convinced that summer is behind one of the
doors (Heinline wrote a book entitled The Door to Summer because his cat
did the same thing). A few weeks ago he was proved right, I opened the
right door for him and sure enough the snow was gone. If you keep asking
about A64 motherboards with DDR2, come July your optimism will be rewarded.

 

[fearless frank]

Not a fool, you just have feline optimism. My cat spends all winter going
from door to door because he's convinced that summer is behind one of the
doors (Heinline wrote a book entitled The Door to Summer because his cat
did the same thing). A few weeks ago he was proved right, I opened the
right door for him and sure enough the snow was gone. If you keep asking
about A64 motherboards with DDR2, come July your optimism will be rewarded.

I'd put the money into a single latest graphics card that
can beat out the other cards in SLI. It'll fit in the new
motherboards later on. No SLI problems either.

 

[Gojira]

I'm seriously considering purchasing an Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe, paired with
an Athlon 64 4000 90nm rev. Before pulling the trigger, does anyone have any
strong objections to this mobo? What about SATA2 support (and does SATA2
even make that much of a difference)?

Thanks in advance.

The advantage the 32 Deluxe has over the Premium model is full 16x
acceleration for both vid cards in SLI mode.With the Premium,the cards only
operate at 8x.Also,the Premium has a problem supporting 4MB's of memory with
all four memory slots occupied,a fault that was corrected with the 32
Deluxe.

 

[TonyC]

I'm seriously considering purchasing an Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe, paired with
an Athlon 64 4000 90nm rev. Before pulling the trigger, does anyone have
any
strong objections to this mobo? What about SATA2 support (and does SATA2
even make that much of a difference)?

Thanks in advance.

Prefer DFI personally.

 

[jaden]

since i am going with an SLI setup and a sound card i like the a8n-sli
premium better. the a8n32 has a bad slot layout so you basically have
to give up your x-fi =\

besides the dual 16x lanes is just hype right now - you wont be using
anymore than your single 16x on a premium

 

[TonyC]

since i am going with an SLI setup and a sound card i like the a8n-sli
premium better. the a8n32 has a bad slot layout so you basically have
to give up your x-fi =\

besides the dual 16x lanes is just hype right now - you wont be using
anymore than your single 16x on a premium

I'm not sure I get your point re: DFI. It is SLI, the best on the market
according to most reviews. I use DFI LanParty SLI-DR with a X-Fi Platinum,
working a treat. Also Opteron146 @ 2.7Ghz. Best board I've owned after
many years of building PC's. If I was in the market for a board today I'd
get the DFI Expert NF4.

I do see your point about the 2x 16x PCI-e slots, currently it's wasted.