Reviews
T
here are two types of PC
upgraders: those who get so
excited by new technology that
they jump in with both feet, and
those who carefully measure their
options before settling on an upgrade
path. Asus’ A8V Deluxe mobo should
appeal to both.
The A8V marks the debut of Socket
939, which finally standardizes the
interface for both the Athlon 64 and
Athlon 64 FX processors. This socket
change is more than just the removal
of a pin. A tweaked memory controller
in the CPU allows the Athlon 64 FX to
finally shed its requirement for slower
and more expensive registered RAM.
(For more info on Socket 939 and the
future of Socket 754 and Socket 940 see
In The Lab on page 56.)
The VIA K8T800 Pro chipset that
powers the A8V is similar to its non-
Pro kin but adds support for an asyn-
chronous bus mode that locks down
the AGP and PCI buses when the CPU
is overclocked. Enthusiasts should
appreciate this, as it prevents crashes
that originate from, say, an uninten-
tionally overclocked soundcard.
Another noteworthy feature is
full support for a 1GHz, or 8GB/s,
link between the CPU and chipset.
Older Athlon 64 boards support just
800MHz, or sometimes even 600MHz.
VIA has also increased the communi-
cation speeds between the north and
south bridge to 1GB/s from 533MB/s
of the non-Pro chipset. This amounts
to greater performance headroom that
may come in handy down the road.
Chipset improve-
ments aren’t the
A8V’s only bragging
rights. There are two
FireWire 400 ports,
eight High-Speed
USB 2.0 ports, and
a Wi-Fi option that
turns the machine
into a soft access point.
Audio is strictly 16-bit, but at least
it’s eight-channel thanks to the new
RealTek ALC850 chip. For storage,
you get three PATA and four SATA
ports, but sadly the VIA chipset still
doesn’t support native SATA devices.
You’ll still need a floppy drive and
“F6” drivers to install Windows XP.
The A8V/K8T800 Pro combo also
falls short by not including a high-
speed port for Gigabit Ethernet—its
Marvell Gigabit chip is ensconced
in the mobo’s PCI. This means that
if you’re running a SCSI controller,
soundcard, or other PCI device that
sucks up bandwidth, your LAN perfor-
mance will suffer.
Fortunately, the A8V has the goods
where it counts: performance. We
configured the A8V with a Socket 939
FX-53 CPU, an ATI Radeon 9800 Pro
videocard, a Western Digital 2500JB
drive, and 1GB of Corsair DDR400
RAM, and compared it with our simi-
larly outfitted benchmark mother-
board—an Asus SK8N using the older
FX-53. This isolated the variables
so that with both chips clocked at
2.4GHz, the only differences were the
chipset (the SK8N uses the oldernForce3
Pro) and RAM (the
older FX-53 requires registered RAM.)
Clock for clock, the A8V beat its
older sibling in every benchmark
by a 2 to 6 percent margin. Much of
the performance boost can be attrib-
uted to the elimination of registered
RAM, but some of it also comes
from the VIA chipset and drivers.
Regardless, the A8V is clearly the
fastest Athlon 64 FX board we’ve
reviewed to date.
The lack of a few key features such
as a high-speed interface for LAN
and a true native SATA mode make
its chipset less sophisticated than
the nForce3 250Gb, but the A8V is
nonetheless the fastest board. The big
question for upgraders is this:
Do you take the plunge now or wait
for the PCI Express version of this
mobo, which should arrive at the
end of summer?
If you have/
need/want to do
it now, the A8V
is certainly a
sound choice.
— GORDON MAH
UNGDARE TO COMPARE: ATHON 64 MOTHERBOARDSMainboard Asus SK8N Asus A8V
Chipset nForce3 150 K8T800 Pro
CPU Athlon 64 FX-53 Athlon 64 FX-53
Clock speed 2.4GHz 2.4GHz
Socket Socket 940 Socket 939
L2 cache 1MB 1MB
RAM mode Dual Dual
Quake III “Normal” Four 484 505
Sandra RAM Composite 5685 5939
3DMark 2001 SE 20188 21226
AquaMark 3 CPU Test 10355 10645
3DMark 2003 CPU Test 836 847
UT2003 Fly By 329.9 347
SYSmark 2004 Overall 184 188Best scores are bolded.
It’s fast, and Socket 939 stabilizes upgrade options.RPG 7M72
Competing nForce3 chipset packs more features.
$152 ($130 w/o Wi-Fi), http://www.asus.comMAXIMUMPC VERDICT 9
Asus A8V Deluxe Motherboard
One new Socket 939 to rule them all
The A8V marks
the debut of
Socket 939
and uses VIA’s
K8T800 Pro—
a combination
that’s faster
than the
competition.AUGUST 2004 MAXIMUMPC 69
SPECS
Chipset VIA K8T800
CPU support All current Socket 939 Athlon 64 and Athlon 64 FX CPUs
RAM 4GB MAX, DDR200-DDR400
PCI slots Five 32-bit 5-volt/3.3 volt PCI slots
AGP support 1.5 volt signaling AGP 4x/8x cards
SATA Four SATA (two in south bridge, two from Promise)
PATA Three PATA (two in south bridge, one from Promise controller)
RAID 0, 1, JBOD
LAN Marvell 88E8001 Gigabit/Fast Ethernet
Audio 8-channel RealTek ALC850
FireWire VIA VT6307 IEEE1394
Other 802.11g option, audio jack sensing, virtual cable testing,
AMD Cool ‘n’ Quiet technology