Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe: NVIDIA Dual x16 for the Athlon 64
by Wesley Fink on November 6, 2005 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Test Setup
*Samsung TCCD from OCZ and other Memory manufacturers is currently binned into several speed grades. Our test memory would be equivalent to current OCZ PC4800.
Tests used OCZ PC3200 Platinum Rev. 2 (current equivalent OCZ PC4800) which uses Samsung TCCD chips. All memory ran at 2-2-2-7 timing in all benchmarks.
We tested the Asus A8N32-SLI using both single and SLI MSI NVIDIA 7800GTX with NVIDIA video driver 81.85. Once we discovered the improved performance, we also ran a full retest of graphics and gaming benchmarks on the DFI LANParty nF4 SLI-DR for comparison. Resolutions in standard benchmarks were 1280x1024x32 unless otherwise noted. Some standard tests like 3DMarks and Aquamark set standard tests automatically to 1024x768 to force a consistent comparison. Gaming benchmarks were run at 1600x1200 with 4x Anti-Aliasing and 8x Anisotropic Filtering enabled wherever possible. SLI game benchmarks were also run with 4xAA and 8xAF where possible.
Results for the Asus A8N32-SLI are in red, while results for the retest of the DFI LANParty nF4 SLI-DR are color-coded orange. Results for the other boards are in blue. Other board tests used the 6800 Ultra for testing unless otherwise noted and are included for reference.
We added Quake 4, F.E.A.R., and Splinter Cell - Chaos Theory to game benchmarks in this review. Asus targets the A8N32-SLI at the gamer, and these recent games should provide a better picture of the Asus performance in the latest games. We will be adding Battlefield 2 and Call of Duty 2 benchmarks in future reviews. The benchmarks that we have been testing for these two games are not completely reliable for both single-video and SLI testing, so they were not usable in a review that compares SLI performance. As we find solutions to these issues, we will benchmark with these new games.
| Performance Test Configuration | |
| Processor(s): | AMD Athlon 64 4000+ (2.4GHz) Socket 939 |
| RAM: | 2 x 512MB OCZ PC3200 Platinum Rev. 2* (Equivalent to current OCZ OC4800) |
| Hard Drive(s): | Seagate 120GB 7200 RPM SATA (8MB Buffer) |
| Video AGP & IDE Bus Master Drivers: | NVIDIA 6.82 Platform NVIDIA 6.70/6.66 Platform ATI Catalyst Platform 5.10 |
| Video Cards: | MSI NVIDIA 7800GTX NVIDIA 6800 Ultra ATI X850XT Crossfire |
| Video Drivers: | NVIDIA 81.85 Release ATI Catalyst 5.10 NVIDIA nForce 78.01 |
| Operating System(s): | Windows XP Professional SP2 Direct X 9.0c |
| Motherboards: | Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe DFI LANParty UT RDX200 (ATI RD480) ATI Crossfire AMD Reference Board SiS 756 Reference Board ASRock 939Dual-SATA2 (ULi M1695/1567) Sapphire A9RX480 (ATI) Jetway 939GT4-SLI-G (nForce4) ULi AP9567A (M1695/M1567) DFI LANParty nF4 SLI-DR (nForce4) DFI LANParty UT nF4 Ultra-D (nForce4) MSI K8N Neo4/SLI Platinum (nForce4) |
Tests used OCZ PC3200 Platinum Rev. 2 (current equivalent OCZ PC4800) which uses Samsung TCCD chips. All memory ran at 2-2-2-7 timing in all benchmarks.
We tested the Asus A8N32-SLI using both single and SLI MSI NVIDIA 7800GTX with NVIDIA video driver 81.85. Once we discovered the improved performance, we also ran a full retest of graphics and gaming benchmarks on the DFI LANParty nF4 SLI-DR for comparison. Resolutions in standard benchmarks were 1280x1024x32 unless otherwise noted. Some standard tests like 3DMarks and Aquamark set standard tests automatically to 1024x768 to force a consistent comparison. Gaming benchmarks were run at 1600x1200 with 4x Anti-Aliasing and 8x Anisotropic Filtering enabled wherever possible. SLI game benchmarks were also run with 4xAA and 8xAF where possible.
Results for the Asus A8N32-SLI are in red, while results for the retest of the DFI LANParty nF4 SLI-DR are color-coded orange. Results for the other boards are in blue. Other board tests used the 6800 Ultra for testing unless otherwise noted and are included for reference.
We added Quake 4, F.E.A.R., and Splinter Cell - Chaos Theory to game benchmarks in this review. Asus targets the A8N32-SLI at the gamer, and these recent games should provide a better picture of the Asus performance in the latest games. We will be adding Battlefield 2 and Call of Duty 2 benchmarks in future reviews. The benchmarks that we have been testing for these two games are not completely reliable for both single-video and SLI testing, so they were not usable in a review that compares SLI performance. As we find solutions to these issues, we will benchmark with these new games.
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Zebo - Friday, November 4, 2005 - link
LOLLive - Friday, November 4, 2005 - link
The Techreport writes about overclocking with AMD Cool'n'Quiet here:They highlight two important bios options:
and with regards to memory overclocking:
Does this board have these options in bios?
As Techreport writes:
I must say I agree.
Link: http://techreport.com/etc/2005q4/damagebox/index.x...">http://techreport.com/etc/2005q4/damagebox/index.x...
DieLate - Saturday, November 5, 2005 - link
Can we get some official info on these questions?They're high on my list of features. I was all set to go with the DFI until I saw this review. These features may win me over if the ASUS has them too.
Live - Monday, November 7, 2005 - link
It looks like official reply is not going to happen. does anyone know if the Asus A8N SLI;Delux;Premium has this in later bios? If so I would bet this one has it aswell.Capt Caveman - Monday, November 7, 2005 - link
The latest bios for the Asus A8N-Sli Premium came out yesterday and no, it does not have this feature so I doubt the A8N32-Sli Deluxe will have this feature. Not very many overclocker's use CNQ, so I don't think there's a huge demand for this feature unfortunately.WobbleWobble - Friday, November 4, 2005 - link
I wonder if it's better than the DFI because of the PEG mode Asus implements on its motherboards, which overclocks the videocard.Wesley Fink - Friday, November 4, 2005 - link
And I disabled "PEG link" mode for our review. Asus has settings in PEG for Auto, Normal, Fast, Faster, and Disabled. We set "Disabled" because we know this trick. Asus suggests using "Faster" for review tests. On the positive side you have that additional performance waiting to be tapped.We also turn off the overclocks that are enabled when many boards arrive for review. That's the first thing we check.
psychobriggsy - Friday, November 4, 2005 - link
Really nice to see such diligence!Capt Caveman - Friday, November 4, 2005 - link
Not by 17%lopri - Friday, November 4, 2005 - link
Also, if you're running SLI with 2 dual-slot video cards, where are you supposed to put a sound card, or any PCI card? It seems like the only slot available will be, if it's possible at all, the one above the 2nd video card. Not sure how anyone's gonna be able to use any PCI card with SLI.