nForce4 SLI Roundup: Painful and Rewarding
by Wesley Fink on February 28, 2005 7:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe: Features and Layout
| Specification | Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe |
| CPU Interface | Socket 939 Athlon 64 |
| Chipset | nForce4 SLI (single chip) |
| BUS Speeds | 200MHz to 400MHz (in 1MHz increments) |
| PCI/AGP Speeds | Asynchronous (Fixed) |
| PCI Speeds | 100MHz to 145MHz in 1MHz increments |
| Core Voltage | Auto, 0.8V to 1.65V in 0.0125V increments |
| DRAM Voltage | Auto, 2.6V to 3.0V in 0.05V increments |
| Chipset Voltage | None |
| Hyper Transport Ratios | Auto, 1X to 5X in 1X increments |
| LDT Bus Transfer | 16/16, 16/8, 8/16, 8/8 |
| LDT Voltage | None |
| PCI Synchronization | Auto, To CPU, 33.33MHz |
| CPU Ratios | Auto, 4x to 20x in 0.5x increments |
| DRAM Speeds | Auto, DDR200, DDR266, DDR333, DDR400, DDR433, DDR466, DDR500 |
| Memory Command Rate | Auto, 1T, 2T |
| Memory Slots | Four 184-pin DDR Dual-Channel Slots Unbuffered ECC or non-ECC Memory to 4GB Total |
| Expansion Slots | 2 x16 PCIe Slots 2 x1 PCIe 3 PCI Slots |
| SLI Setup | Movable PCB Card |
| Onboard SATA | 4-Drive SATA 2 by nF4 PLUS 4-Drive SATA by Sil3114 |
| Onboard IDE | Two Standard nVidia ATA133/100/66 (4 drives) |
| SATA/IDE RAID | 4-Drive SATA 2 PLUS 4-Drive IDE (8 total) Can be combined in RAID 0, 1 PLUS 4-Drive SATA by Sil3114 Sil3114 Raid 0, 1, 5 |
| Onboard USB 2.0/IEEE-1394 | 10 USB 2.0 ports supported nF4 2 1394A FireWire ports by TI 41AY42T |
| Onboard LAN | Dual Gigabit Ethernet PCIe by Marvel 88E1111 PHY PCI by Marvel 88E8001 |
| Onboard Audio | Realtek ALC850 8-Channel codec with 6 UAJ audio jacks, CD-in, front audio, and both coaxial and optical SPDIF |
| Other Features | 3-slot SLI spacing |
| BIOS | Award 1005 Beta BIOS |
When the Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe was first introduced, prices were in the stratosphere. However, after several weeks on the market, prices have settled solidly below the $200 price point. Several online retailers now offer the Asus SLI in the $175 range. The feature set and Deluxe name are generally reserved for Asus for their "notch-down" boards, which might indicate that Asus has plans for a top-line Premium board in the future.
We have commented before that Asus pays close attention to the layout of their motherboards, and that also shows in the A8N-SLI Deluxe. Connectors are all where they should be - IDE, floppy, ATX and 12v are all conveniently located for easy access. In fact, our only real complaint is the so-called EZ-plug that Asus uses to provide more power to SLI. It is bad enough that two top-end video cards require 4 Molex connectors to power them, but on the Asus board you also have to connect another 4-pin Molex for additional video card power. Asus says that this is required for "stable SLI operation", but the other 3 SLI designs do fine and are quite stable without the 5th power connector.
In its favor, the Asus was the only SLI board that allowed you to change the setup from "normal" to "SLI" without having to first remove the video card. The design of the PCB was also the best of the group with positive side locking that looked like it might survive a few changes. We also very much liked the locks on the video slots because you could release them from the back of the slot as well as the front - a real plus with double slot cards.
The feature set on the Asus is just average in this roundup. There are two gigabit LANS, but #2 is PCI instead of the faster PCIe. Audio is the rather average Realtek 850 with nothing special in the Asus implementation - quite a step down from the leading edge designs of some Asus boards for Intel processors. Firewire is also 1394a, or Firewire 400, when Asus uses Firewire 800 on their recent Intel boards. Another way to put this is that this Asus A8N-SLI is certainly not up to the high design standards that Asus has set for their recent Intel designs. Perhaps there is another Asus SLI in the works that will do a better job at bringing high-end features to Asus nForce4.
The storage area is an area where it first appears that the Asus stands out. Asus fully supports the nVidia SATA 2 and IDE any drive RAID features, and then offers an additional Silicon Image 3114 SATA RAID controller that even supports RAID 5. In the end, 3 of the 4 SLI boards provide the same Sil3114 controller, which is SATA 1, and does not support SATA 2 drives.
The Asus is certainly a competent SLI motherboard, but it is pretty average in this roundup and does not stand out in any way other than the wide space between the video slots. Add to this below-average overclocking abilities and the problems experienced with our 6800 Ultra cards on just the Asus board, and it is hard to get too excited about this particular Asus board. Asus engineering is an important benefit with any Asus product, and the resources of this giant company are impressive. But as you will see in the roundup, there are better choices among the SLI boards available.
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Rike - Monday, February 28, 2005 - link
And then he double posts and can't spell "graphs." (not "graphes!") *bangs head on wall* Oh well. To err is human. Happy Monday! :)Wesley Fink - Monday, February 28, 2005 - link
#33 - That is correct, but to implement PCIe Ethernet the mfg must use a PHY gigabit ethernet controller. In fact, as I state in the review, all 4 SLI boards implement PCIe on Gigabit #1, but all 4 boards have dual gigabit ethernet. Most implement PCI on Gigabit #2 with the results you can see in the ethernet performance charts.#30 - It IS a significant point and I thought we were clear that the 3132 is PCIe. I will add that to the chart to removee any confusion. However, there is another side to MSI using PCIe on all the on-board features. With both PCIe LAN's and PCIe SATA2 add-on there are no channels left from the 20 lanes available for PCIe slots.
Rike - Monday, February 28, 2005 - link
Rike - Monday, February 28, 2005 - link
Minor typo: HL2 resolutions on the graphes are listed as 16,000 x 1200 instead of 1600 x 1200. Either that or you're using a seriously wide screen! ;)mechBgon - Monday, February 28, 2005 - link
Wes, an academic point: unless something's changed with nVidia southbridges, the nForce3/4 gigabit Ethernet controller isn't a PCI-based device, it's native to the southbridge and rides the Hypertransport bus. If you're getting >900Mbit/sec in your test, it's pretty obvious it's not on a 32-bit PCI bus ;)AlanStephens - Monday, February 28, 2005 - link
#28 - I know for a fact that Creative doesn't support Dolby Digital Encoding. I wish they did though. Here is a quote from Creative's Knowledge Basse on this:"Computer games written with support for 3D audio do not require a Dolby Digital Interactive Content Encoder (DICE) to output multichannel sound, with no exceptions. Sound devices that support the real time encoder technology from Dolby will simply receive the multichannel wave file output and encode it in real time to a somewhat modified Dolby Digital bitstream. Creative does not support the Dolby Digital Interactive Content Encoder on any of its sound cards.
The only difference between a Sound Blaster card and an audio card that has a real time encoder, is that you can make a one-wire, digital connection from your audio card to your home theater receiver and enjoy discrete multichannel sound from the game. However there will be a continuous, slight delay, known as "latency", as the encoder is creating and transmitting the bitstream, and of course the compression scheme being used is "lossy" (i.e. not bit-accurate).
If you want to enjoy 3D audio in 3D enabled PC games in multichannel surround sound with a Sound Blaster card, it is recommended that you connect the analog outputs of the sound card directly to the analog inputs of the receiver."
EODetroit - Monday, February 28, 2005 - link
I wanna know the answer to #28's question. I've been looking for the next Soundstorm... ie I want to output a dolby digital 5.1 (or better) signal through a spdif connection from a non-pre-encoded source, like only Soundstorm can.Can the MSI do this now too??
RyanVM - Monday, February 28, 2005 - link
Why didn't you guys bother to note that the Si3132 SATA controller is PCIe? I think that's a fairly significant point in comparison to the PCI Si3114 controller and it likely explains why the Si3132 was faster.Lakku - Monday, February 28, 2005 - link
I wish you would have discussed 6600GTs in more detail. I am perturbed at a number of sites saying the 6600GT is not worth it for SLI. Specifically from X-Bit (though many have echoed it) "We guess it is the 6600GT SLI configuration that's not very appropriate". The only fact for this statement is the lack of a 256MB 6600GT card. This means its high resolution on some games and FSAA capabilites are limited. But so what? Noone has discussed REAL WORLD prices of 6800GT and Ultra cards. They range from 430 to 800 dollars, for ONE card. Yet sites claim it's better to just get a 6800GT rather then two 6600GTs. I picked up my 6600GT for 170 bucks, brand new retail. It overclocked to 550/1100 easily and I kept it at that, even though it went quite a bit higher with air cooling. I put that in because it gave me another 5%-10% or so increase over stock speed. I could get two for just over 350, almost $100 cheaper, and in a majority of tests, it equals or BEATS a 6800GT. It only suffers when you get to 1600x1200 with FSAA, as its smaller frame buffer and 128-bit interface is a hinderance. But for such a HUGE price difference, is it not worth it? If I had bought two outright (my plan was to get a start on a PCIe based system to bring me up to date for the future, and then buy the next generation cards for SLI), I could use that extra 100 for the GF7600GT (I am assuming this name, and the fact that if the next generations are 24 pipes, then the mainstream will be 12) that when SLId, will be up there in terms of todays speed on 700 to 1000 dollar video combinations, all for under 400. The point is that I wish someone would actually take an IT type approach to this situation instead of badmouthing SLI or the price for running an SLI setup. You get SLI now, be cost effective and get 6600GTs, and you have a great platform for the next generation (if it still exists, but nVidia seems to have put its eggs in this basket so I assume it will be around for awhile) of cards that you can SLI and get great performance. Is SLI worth it? I say the answer SHOULD be a resounding yes if the same performance holds true for the future. It means you can always get two mainstream cards to equal ONE high end card, for a much cheaper price.chup - Monday, February 28, 2005 - link
Is the SB Live! 24 really capable of encoding audio stream into Dolby Digital stream?