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

[Supertim0r]

really nice board

you can't use the heatpipe system in a V2000 ?

[TEDY]

uf 230$

so around 230€ here.....which makes it 300$ ...OMG = ROFL

[Blue078]

Nice review ben805 Nice board too, good to see Asus get serious with AMD for once.

[mdzcpa]

Have you tried putting 2 double slot vid cards in SLI in those PCIE slots yet? I ask cause you mention you love the layout and that there is plenty of room for a soundcard.

I dunno.

Here's a pic of my air cooled 7800GTX 512 cards on the Expert. I couldn't imagine sticking a PCI card in between them. The top card already runs hotter than the bottom due to blocked air flow.



I'll be moving to water on the cards soon, so it does not matter. But for those with air cooled double slot cards, they really need to consider the spacing.

I'm not poo-pooing the mobo. I'd like to get one. The spacing scares me though.

[Perc]

holy crap! there isnt much room for air let alone a sound card! id have to say that the layout is flawed in that area for sure! probly have trouble getting water to fit deff a tight one for sure! wouldnt you think that when asus was designing this mb they would of stuck two video cards in and sit back and look at it? sometimes i wounder about these guys... oh well if thats the only thing wrong with this mb its still an awsome mb. keep the screenies commin man im liking this mb so far.

peace perc,

[Pyr0]

has anybody tested the vcore on a dual core yet?

[mdzcpa]

if thats the only thing wrong with this mb its still an awsome mb. keep the screenies commin man im liking this mb so far.

Agreed! I'm really interested in the board too. If I can figure out for sure that I can get everything to fit and play nice, and want to try the board.

Keep the information coming ben805...this is a great thread so far.

[ben805]

hehe....the PCI slot clearance is everyone's #1 concern, same as mine when I bought it so the first thing I did was to measured the spacing, I do not have the 2nd video card yet but as I said there is plenty of room for 1 PCI if you install it onto PCI slot# 2, now...just to show you what I'm talking about, I have an XFX 7800GT with stock heatsink on PIC-X 1, I put in SoundBlaster soundcard on PCI Slot#2 and you can clearly see there's more than enough room for the video card to breath, keep in mind that many pc case also have the side panel blow-hole but even if the case doesn't come with one, I still don't forsee any problem with that much room to spare, well...lookie here.....



the SLI bridge is longer than the DFI so this motherboard definitely do NOT have an issue with 1 PCI card IF...just IF...for whatever reason I need to install 2 PCI cards, all I need to do is beef up the side panel fan to blow cool air directly on top of all those cards, this motherboard generate less heat than DFI plus if you have a good case ventilation then you shouldn't worry about packing 2 PCI cards in there if needed. Keep in mind that most pc case already came with the side panel blow hole aiming at the video card so they'll be fine


For the time being, here's more benchie






more to follow later...

[ben805]

holy crap! there isnt much room for air let alone a sound card! id have to say that the layout is flawed in that area for sure! probly have trouble getting water to fit deff a tight one for sure! wouldnt you think that when asus was designing this mb they would of stuck two video cards in and sit back and look at it? sometimes i wounder about these guys... oh well if thats the only thing wrong with this mb its still an awsome mb. keep the screenies commin man im liking this mb so far.

peace perc,

No sweat....plenty of room for 1 PCI card on slot# 2, the Asus SLI bridge is much longer than DFI's and there's plenty of room in between, it's definitely not like the picture shown by mdzcpa I highly doubt the Asus engineer would left out the slot clearance measurement

[Supertim0r]

this is torture ! I want one

[gundamit]

After getting a chance to play with an Asus mobo on the Intel side and having a smooth ride on a 1ghz OC I can't say I'm surprised to see a mobo giant like Asus step up with a board like this. The only mystery is what took so long.

Ben, I'm looking forward to seeing your highest 32M stable HTT. Terrific work so far.

[chew*]

" I wonder when is Abit going to join the party? :p"

Have you seen the new an8 32x? it looks just like the asus its uncanny however the power scheme looks to be different with a few other differences. However if bios/ram compatibility is anything like the an8/fatality/ultra/SLi it will suck donkey
http://www.abit-usa.com/products/mb/...es=1&model=310

[mdzcpa]

No sweat....plenty of room for 1 PCI card on slot# 2, the Asus SLI bridge is much longer than DFI's

I don't think this is true.

The pic I am showing is of the DFI Expert. The SLI bridge is also much longer than the regular DFI NF4 boards. In fact, just for comparison, the SLI bridge is 2 3/4" long on the Expert in the Pic I showed. Let's take another closer look:



There are 2 slots in between PCIE #1 and #2 on Expert. Just like on the Asus layout. As you can see by the pic, the first slot is completely covered by the vid card in PCIE#1 (which cannot be seen), and the second one (which is visible) is pretty much useless unless you want the card literally butting up against the vid card in PCIE#1.

If I did not have the ability to put my sound card in the 3rd PCI slot below PCIE#2 I'd be out of luck. Basically, double slot vid cards kill the two PCI slots below it.

So, unless the SLI bridge on the Asus is significantly longer than 2 3/4" it won't cut it. No offense, but your pics don't do any justice to having 2 monsterous double slot vid cards in SLI.

Again, I'm not bashing the board. I'm just not sure its fair to say there is "plenty of room" for those with 2 dual slot vid cards in SLI.

Here's a pic of the old and new DFI Bridge for reference.


Just how long is that Asus SLI bridge?

[ben805]

Interesting, the Asus SLI bridge is 3 1/4" long so maybe it would work out just fine? it's slightly longer than the Expert nonetheless unfortunately I do not have any monster size double sloted vid cards to test, if they do not fit then I guess for those who own the jumbo size SLI setup will just have to stick with the Expert or whatever else out there

[mdzcpa]

Interesting, the Asus SLI bridge is 3 1/4" long so maybe it would work out just fine? it's slightly longer than the Expert nonetheless unfortunately I do not have any monster size double sloted vid cards to test, if they do not fit then I guess for those who own the jumbo size SLI setup will just have to stick with the Expert or whatever else out there

Well, if the Asus bridge is indeed 3 1/4" long that may very well be enough room. Especially for those of us water cooling. That 1/2" can make all the difference.

I think I may try the Asus board now. Thanks for the info ben805

[pcdoc1]

If you wanted to run this board in an inverted case like v1000 or v2000, is there any reason you couldn't remove the heatpipe and replace it with a pair of Swifty MCX159's?

[Supertim0r]

if you have the money for SLI 512mb GTX you can buy both board

[cronic]

man that board is awesome. I really don't see an issue at all on the pci spacing.

[ben805]

Well, if the Asus bridge is indeed 3 1/4" long that may very well be enough room. Especially for those of us water cooling. That 1/2" can make all the difference.

I think I may try the Asus board now. Thanks for the info ben805

no problem, I just went to newegg to take a look at the double sloted 7800GTX, holy jumbo batman....that heatsink is humongous if you can measure the thickness of your GTX from one end to the other (pcb to heatsink) then I certainly can try to simulate one and calculate how much room left between the GPU heatsink and the soundcard on PCI slot# 2


As for the Abit A8N 32X, man it looks like.....eerr....well....very odd!! I don't like the color and the floppy connector is at the bottom of the board right next to the last PCI slot, not sure how well it overclock but if it can clock anywhere close to DFI and Asus then I'd say it's another candidate worth consider for WC and Phase Change, amber room around the cpu socket!!!!! Anybody got their hands on one to play around with yet?

[Jailer]

If you wanted to run this board in an inverted case like v1000 or v2000, is there any reason you couldn't remove the heatpipe and replace it with a pair of Swifty MCX159's?

Exactly what I am considering, but I want a 7800GTX 512 and it looks like it won't fit with the swfity chipset cooler on the southbridge. I'm not giving up my case for this board.

Of course a water block on the gpu would solve that.

[madpete]

Guys, been playing with this board all day.

CPU voltage reg on this board is great, on the DFI I needed 1.61v to get 3ghz, on the Asus I need 1.52v....which is a big differance in my book.

Bios takes some getting used to as its an AMI bios, and some options are unfamiliar I'm just about getting to grips with it but still loads to explore.

Only issue I'm having is with T1 at high FSB, I can only get to about 285mhz at T1 (1:1) before I start getting errors in memtest. On the DFI my OCZ Plat Rev2 TCCD is good for around 310mhz T1 (1:1), and I've had the FX running more than that with no problems so I know CPU is good for it. I dropped an Opty 146 in there too, and that was the same. At 2T I can go 310mhz+ with no errors.


Maybe the board doesn't like TCCD or is not optimized for it? I have literally spent all day tweaking ram options but nothing seems to help.

What ram are you running Ben? I noticed it was a 2gb kit, is it Crucial Z503 by any chance?, I 'm planning on getting me some soon and would be interested to know how it does on this board.

[HKPolice]

Any problems with going over 1.58vcore? Must figure out why 2 ppl couldn't get past 1.58v whereas the rest could.

Guys, been playing with this board all day.

CPU voltage reg on this board is great, on the DFI I needed 1.61v to get 3ghz, on the Asus I need 1.52v....which is a big differance in my book.

Bios takes some getting used to as its an AMI bios, and some options are unfamiliar I'm just about getting to grips with it but still loads to explore.

Only issue I'm having is with T1 at high FSB, I can only get to about 285mhz at T1 (1:1) before I start getting errors in memtest. On the DFI my OCZ Plat Rev2 TCCD is good for around 310mhz T1 (1:1), and I've had the FX running more than that with no problems so I know CPU is good for it. I dropped an Opty 146 in there too, and that was the same. At 2T I can go 310mhz+ with no errors.


Maybe the board doesn't like TCCD or is not optimized for it? I have literally spent all day tweaking ram options but nothing seems to help.

What ram are you running Ben? I noticed it was a 2gb kit, is it Crucial Z503 by any chance?, I 'm planning on getting me some soon and would be interested to know how it does on this board.

[madpete]

Any problems with going over 1.58vcore? Must figure out why 2 ppl couldn't get past 1.58v whereas the rest could.

Nope, no problems with vcore here. Most I tried was 1.425 + overvolt which gave me 1.62v in the bios readout.

[situman]

anyone noticed the ABIT is a 3 phase? Its cheaper made than the Fatalities. Maybe they shouldnt have given him so much money to do nothing.

[HKPolice]

But you're on an FX.... wonder if it's true, that the X2's are limited to 1.58v....?

Nope, no problems with vcore here. Most I tried was 1.425 + overvolt which gave me 1.62v in the bios readout.