Asus A8N32-SLI initial impression....WOW!

im thinking of stepping up to this board from a DFI lanparty SLI-D, would the price difference after I sell the lanparty be justified as far as function/oc and performance? I also have a Lian LI V1000. I know the temps won't be as good with the inverted mobo tray, but is it really that substanial? I don't mind a 3-4 degree increase but that's all I can sacrafice. Has there been any tests or actual results you guys can link me too? I would also like to know everybody's chipset temps under load and idle. Thanks in advance

Manual says this pair of 1GB sticks is limited to a single pair (i.e. 2GB limit to RAM installed), leaving 2 RAM slots empty. (Page 2-13 of manual, or on Asus QVL document). In fact, NONE of the low latency ram is approved for more than 2 slots.

I had put in a ticket to Asus about this problem... Their reply is below:

"4 stick will not work and there is no BIOS update that will change RAM compatibility.

Sincerely,

Jon V.
ASUS Technical Support"

I'm now effectively limited to 2GB of RAM. :(

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Originally Posted by Aldy402

the SI-120 should definetly not pose any clearance isssues, how come you haven't considered that?

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Didn't want to chance it. Review. Page 4.

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Originally Posted by jasonh1234

I have a fan that came with my case that I could mount there. My question is would it be enough? I mean... Look how little space there is! I know air can fit through a pin hole but...

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You can use the pci slot above the 2nd pci express (3rd from bottom) very easily and not worry much about clearance or airflow. Expecially if you do the fan mod on the tops of the cards or have a side fan in your case. After that your pretty much screwed for pci. You could still do it with a stock cooler but even with the fan mod it would get a bit warmer. Would have to stay stock, heavy grafix overclocking would be out of the question.

I think the mobo makers went to this because they were getting complaints that the standard layout overheated the sli cards. Now they have a problem with free pci slots... Can't win. Is there a better solution?? I personnaly liked the old layout because I use arctic coolers and airflow isn't as much of an issue for me. My temps are low either way. :D

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Originally Posted by jasonh1234

Manual says this pair of 1GB sticks is limited to a single pair (i.e. 2GB limit to RAM installed), leaving 2 RAM slots empty. (Page 2-13 of manual, or on Asus QVL document). In fact, NONE of the low latency ram is approved for more than 2 slots.

I had put in a ticket to Asus about this problem... Their reply is below:

"4 stick will not work and there is no BIOS update that will change RAM compatibility.

Sincerely,

Jon V.
ASUS Technical Support"

I'm now effectively limited to 2GB of RAM. :(


Didn't want to chance it. Review. Page 4.

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What would the reason be for 4gigs of ram? You designing a super torpedo or something? 2 gigs is already an overkill for 99.9% of the stuff out there.

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Originally Posted by situman

What would the reason be for 4gigs of ram? You designing a super torpedo or something? 2 gigs is already an overkill for 99.9% of the stuff out there.

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2 gigs is overkill for 99.9% of the stuff you do with your rig but can't you imagine there are peeps doing different stuff with their computers.

Mine came shipped with the 508 ( i think) bios and was very difficult to install de OS,finally after a few reboots i up dated for the 703 and everything come to is own :toast:

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Originally Posted by jasonh1234

Manual says this pair of 1GB sticks is limited to a single pair (i.e. 2GB limit to RAM installed), leaving 2 RAM slots empty. (Page 2-13 of manual, or on Asus QVL document). In fact, NONE of the low latency ram is approved for more than 2 slots.

I had put in a ticket to Asus about this problem... Their reply is below:

"4 stick will not work and there is no BIOS update that will change RAM compatibility.

Sincerely,

Jon V.
ASUS Technical Support"

I'm now effectively limited to 2GB of RAM. :(


Didn't want to chance it. Review. Page 4.

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I thought the Venice core updated memory controller was supposed to fix this problem?:confused:

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Originally Posted by jasonh1234

Manual says this pair of 1GB sticks is limited to a single pair (i.e. 2GB limit to RAM installed), leaving 2 RAM slots empty. [/URL]

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I have 4 1gig cas 2 corsair. I will try it out when I get off work... Maybe it will work anyways.

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Originally Posted by situman

What would the reason be for 4gigs of ram? You designing a super torpedo or something? 2 gigs is already an overkill for 99.9% of the stuff out there.

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With 64bit OS and 4gigs of ram Home Video Editing/ sure goes a lot smoother while CD burning and RRA is all going on at the same time

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Originally Posted by smurfmods

You can use the pci slot above the 2nd pci express (3rd from bottom) very easily and not worry much about clearance or airflow.

I think the mobo makers went to this because they were getting complaints that the standard layout overheated the sli cards. Now they have a problem with free pci slots... Can't win. Is there a better solution?? I personnaly liked the old layout

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Me too. The slot you spoke of is where my X-Fi is going. I guess the TV tuner card goes to my girlfriend.

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Originally Posted by situman

What would the reason be for 4gigs of ram? You designing a super torpedo or something? 2 gigs is already an overkill for 99.9% of the stuff out there.

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Photoshop.

ben805 thanks for the thread and a great job. It's been a big help. Got my board yesterday and had a horrible time with the 0805 beta bios. Finally got fixed and now am using the 0703. No problems so far. I also am trying an Opty 148 but the stepping isn't that great. It's CABYE 0543 FPMW. It will boot all the way to 3.0 gig using a Vcore of 1.425 but so far I can only get it stable to 2.84. Raising vcore doesn't seem to help. I'm using the OCZ 4800 ram that's supposed to be good to.... 303 or so fsb. I've been playing with the ram for a while but can't figure what kinda voltage it needs. If you all got any tips throw em at me. I get the feeling my chip is a better chip than I am an ocer.
Did I understand the earlier post in this thread that the HT is shown for this board as NB to SB and should be set to 600 to equal a 3 on the DFI board, 1000=5 and 800=4. Is that correct? Aren't there two settings for NB to SB on this board?

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Originally Posted by shogan191

Did I understand the earlier post in this thread that the HT is shown for this board as NB to SB and should be set to 600 to equal a 3 on the DFI board, 1000=5 and 800=4. Is that correct? Aren't there two settings for NB to SB on this board?

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yep thats right 1000 is 5, 800 is 4, 600 is 3 and yes also I hve also set both the settings in the 'chipset config'

Default settings
K8 to NB Frequency [AUTO]
K8 to NB LinkWidth [AUTO]
SB to NB Frequency [1000]
SB to NB LinkWidth [16down, 16up]

I am going to try these settings?

K8 to NB Frequency [800]=HTT Multiplier>keep 1000 or less
K8 to NB LinkWidth [AUTO]
SB to NB Frequency [1000]
SB to NB LinkWidth [16down, 16up]

The K8 to NB Frequency is the HTT Multiplier. For bios 703, divide your manual number you selected by 200 to get your multiplier. I will be using 800 so that equals a 4X multiplier. If I get over 250 I will drop K8 to NB Frequency to [600]. If I leave SB to NB frequency at 1000 it shouldnt effect my overclock does it? Also, what setting ensures that you are running memory in syncronous ratio of 1:1? I went in memory configuration and set memclock mode to [limit] and set memclock value [200]. Thanks.

Just saw this thread now, and I have a question I hope someone can answer for me. I am going to be buying this board (A8N32-SLi) and have a ThermalTake Big Typhoon to use on it. I was going to purchase the Corsair XMS3500LL 2 x 1gb kit to go with it all, but looking at the pics on the front page, im not sure its going to fit. From what I have seen the heatspreaders on the ram are quite large, and the ballistix that are shown in that pic have very little clearance as it is. Can the ram not be used in slots A2/B2 instead of A1/B1? Manual says to use A1/B1 when using 2 sticks. Any help is appreciated.

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Originally Posted by Shootingblanks

Default settings
K8 to NB Frequency [AUTO]
K8 to NB LinkWidth [AUTO]
SB to NB Frequency [1000]
SB to NB LinkWidth [16down, 16up]

I am going to try these settings?

K8 to NB Frequency [800]=HTT Multiplier>keep 1000 or less
K8 to NB LinkWidth [AUTO]
SB to NB Frequency [1000]
SB to NB LinkWidth [16down, 16up]

The K8 to NB Frequency is the HTT Multiplier. For bios 703, divide your manual number you selected by 200 to get your multiplier. I will be using 800 so that equals a 4X multiplier. If I get over 250 I will drop K8 to NB Frequency to [600]. If I leave SB to NB frequency at 1000 it shouldnt effect my overclock does it? Also, what setting ensures that you are running memory in syncronous ratio of 1:1? I went in memory configuration and set memclock mode to [limit] and set memclock value [200]. Thanks.

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I did not see any benefit from running the HTT multiplier higher, but anything above 1000 definitely induced instability so you'll be fine to set them at 600(3x) even if you only running 250, you certainly can try 800(4x) and do a few benchmarks or use FRAPS to test some games and see for yourself ;)

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Originally Posted by ubern00b

Just saw this thread now, and I have a question I hope someone can answer for me. I am going to be buying this board (A8N32-SLi) and have a ThermalTake Big Typhoon to use on it. I was going to purchase the Corsair XMS3500LL 2 x 1gb kit to go with it all, but looking at the pics on the front page, im not sure its going to fit. From what I have seen the heatspreaders on the ram are quite large, and the ballistix that are shown in that pic have very little clearance as it is. Can the ram not be used in slots A2/B2 instead of A1/B1? Manual says to use A1/B1 when using 2 sticks. Any help is appreciated.

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if the ram are way too tall then you might want to consider taking the heatspreader off and throw in a 80mm case fan to cool them, or maybe get different ram? :D

Thanks Ben805. What RAM would you recommend to marry up with my new system? A8N32-SLi, TT Bit Typhoon, Opteron 146 + 148 (whichever clocks better) and now I only need some ram. Was looking at some OCZ PC-4000 EB sticks but no one has stock anywhere (Im in the UK btw). Your recommendations are appreciated.

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Originally Posted by ubern00b

T Was looking at some OCZ PC-4000 EB sticks but no one has stock anywhere (Im in the UK btw).

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So was too try http://www.memory-configurator.com/brand/OCZ.html#30 they have it in stock £209 in sterling ''IN STOCK '' too

Got this pm today about the same mem/mobo too

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i am at 2750 on the 183 divider so my ram is at 250 on the dot..

my timings are 3-3-7-2 for primary and my vddr is 2.75

my vcore is high right now @ 1.375 + 200mv increase - i hope to get that down to 1.5 even..

i noticed that when i selected 1.5vcore and rebooted it didnt track to 1.5 but went to 1.44 instead and thus i couldnt overclock...

as soon as i did the 1.3x + 200mv option i could prime at 2750...

unquote

so its looking good

Thanks for that, but the sticks I am wanting "2Gb OCZ EB DDR PC4000 Platinum Edition Dual Channel kit" are showing as not in stock :( I think I am going to go for some crucial ballistix 2gb kit. At least places have stock.

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Originally Posted by ubern00b

Thanks for that, but the sticks I am wanting "2Gb OCZ EB DDR PC4000 Platinum Edition Dual Channel kit" are showing as not in stock :( I think I am going to go for some crucial ballistix 2gb kit. At least places have stock.

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Sorry my mistake .opps was late last night when I was looking - after the 2Gb OCZ EB DDR PC4000 Platinum Edition Dual Channel kit myself

i flashed the bios a hundred times and my APM refuses to appear....any tips??
i´m becoming sorry to change from my ultra D.
the fan control is very poor,the asus update doesn't work like it should...well i´m going too test it until monday,i think DFI Expert is the answer to my problems:(

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Originally Posted by bullit

i flashed the bios a hundred times and my APM refuses to appear....any tips??
i´m becoming sorry to change from my ultra D.
the fan control is very poor,the asus update doesn't work like it should...well i´m going too test it until monday,i think DFI Expert is the answer to my problems:(

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'restore setup defaults' in the exit menu off the bios - worked for me and flashing the bios did nothing as it did for u

bullit, the Asus Updater will not flash back to an earlier bios. Use the AFUDOS flash utility on a floppy to go backwards. There's an explaination on the Asus site and in the manual. What bios are you using. For me the 0703 was best.

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Originally Posted by jasonh1234

Photoshop.

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Photoshop CS2 will use a max of 3GB in XP and then only if you use the /3GB XP boot-up switch.

It supports 4 GB if you're using XP 64bit...but then you loose SLI.

I use CS2 a lot...imho going from 1 GB to 2GB pays big dividends...going for 2 to 3 is not even noticeable... and that's shooting RAW files with a Canon 20D (8 Mpixels) and using ACR to convert them to 16-bit/channel, 40 MB files to work with in CS2... sometimes I'll fart around with HDR blended files...these things use 4 or more shots bracketed for different exposures and 32bit/channel depth...in other words, HUGE files...that's pretty well the very top of high-end PS use... 2 Gigs + a fast CPU + a fast HD and you're laughing.

CS2 is memory intensive but it's much more CPU-intensive...a faster CPU (or overclocking what you have till it screams) and better X2 support from Adobe is needed a heck of a lot more than 3 or 4 GB of memory.

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Originally Posted by shogan191

bullit, the Asus Updater will not flash back to an earlier bios. Use the AFUDOS flash utility on a floppy to go backwards. There's an explaination on the Asus site and in the manual. What bios are you using. For me the 0703 was best.

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Shogan wen you open asus update,instead of updating from a file or from the internet a little lower you have "Options" there you can select Bios downgrade or something like that.:slap: :D
but thanks anyway Shogan.

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Originally Posted by bullit

i flashed the bios a hundred times and my APM refuses to appear....any tips??
i´m becoming sorry to change from my ultra D.
the fan control is very poor,the asus update doesn't work like it should...well i´m going too test it until monday,i think DFI Expert is the answer to my problems:(

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copy the bios file to a floppy. make sure it is named A8N32SLI.rom. then boot up and press Alt + F2 and let the autoflasher do it for you