Asus A8R-MVP: Board Layout
The box for the Asus A8R-MVP is dark grey and strewn with confetti, perhaps to announce the party inside, but it is certainly not a serious package like we see on the top-line Asus boards.
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Nonetheless, all the top Crossfire AMD features are there, such as dual x16 PCIe slots that support a single x16 video card or dual x8 Crossfire.
Just as important are the SB450 south bridge limitations that are not here. The Asus A8R-MVP is the first board that we have reviewed that uses the ULi M1575 south bridge instead of the SB450. This means full support for 4 SATA2 devices, and fully competitive USB performance with 8 USB 2.0 ports.
The ULi M1575 also has the necessary hooks to support Azalia HD audio, like the ATI solution. Asus has chosen the Analog Devices Azalia High Definition AD1986A audio chip to drive 6 channels of High Definition Audio. You can find more information on the Analog Devices HD Audio AD1986a at
http://www.analog.com/en/prod/0,2934,AD1986A,00.html.
The A8R-MVP uses a simple slot insert that Asus calls MVP for x16 and dual x8 switching. This is the same simple arrangement that we saw on early ATI Reference boards. The card goes into the slot nearest to the CPU for x16 mode and is removed for dual x8 Crossfire. There are no complicated internal switches as we've seen on some other Crossfire boards, which may be one of the reasons for the excellent overclocking that we see on this Asus.
Click to enlarge.
The basic layout of the A8R-MVP is typically Asus, meaning that the layout overall is very good. Cooling is passive - there are no active fans - which is also typical of Asus designs. You will notice that there is nothing on the board which would announce that this might be a serious overclocker, except perhaps for the large heatsink covering the power Mosfets. Even here, we see a 3-phase design instead of the robust 4-phase designs used on the ATI Reference boards.
The 4-pin 12V and 24-pin ATX power connectors are at the preferred location on board edges. There is no need to snake cables over the CPU or slots when this location is used. The 4 DIMMs are also color-coded for Dual-Channel: the blue slots are one channel and the black slots are the other. When running 2 DIMMs, this alternate spacing makes it easier to keep the DIMMs cool.
A single video card goes in the blue slot, so even if it's double-width, you still have a usable PCIe x1 and 2 PCI slots. In the worst dual video arrangement of two double-width cards, you still have 2 usable PCI slots. If the cards are single width, you gain a PCIe x1 and another PCI slot.
Asus does not include an additional SATA2 controller on the A8R-MVP, but it really isn't needed. The ULi M1575 provides four SATA2 ports that can be combined up to RAID 5 if you choose.
IDE and floppy connectors are ideally located on the right edge of the board - where they belong. However, they are really strewn all the way across the right board edge instead of being concentrated in the upper right quadrant. The lower IDE and floppy connectors are card-edge connectors, which keep cables out of the way of cards. However, you may want to connect these card-edge cables before securing the board in your case - especially in a tight case design. You shouldn't have an issue with IDE, floppy, or SATA connector placement, but look carefully at how cables will be managed in any case that you are considering.
This may be a mainstream board, but Asus still includes IEEE1394 Firewire and HD audio. There are also 6 jack-sensing connectors driven by the HD audio chip and a coaxial SPDIF port.
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poohbear - Thursday, November 24, 2005 - link
thanks for clarifying.:) guess it's best to wait and see other reveiws to get a general consensus though.Calin - Wednesday, November 23, 2005 - link
Maybe the design team had a set of design cues for the board, received from the top (management) - these include cost, performance, reliability, and possibly even other metrics. The ATI chipset might have been too good for those cues, or maybe they worked to optimize the board - and told nothing to management about their substantial successes.Or maybe the board was a lucky one, and maybe 1 in 100 will get near those results, and the rest will be mainstream. Anyway, I think it is a good design, and not a lucky board
Calin
poohbear - Wednesday, November 23, 2005 - link
jesus 2900mhz on air?!!?? i LOVE competition.:)CrystalBay - Wednesday, November 23, 2005 - link
Hi Wes, Did you run into any coldboot problems ?Wesley Fink - Wednesday, November 23, 2005 - link
No Coldboot problems at working overclocks. We did find, however, that failed overclocks at very high frequencies usually required the system be turned off (power switched off) for the board to recover from the failed OC. This is common to many motherboards, but it is always easier if the board recovers on a warm boot.Diasper - Wednesday, November 23, 2005 - link
Just wondering why there weren't any game benchmark comparisons against the Asus A8N32 given the article set out by comparing them and given the numerous benchmarks with it including Aquamark, how come it was excluded from the rest of the game benchmarks?? It would be pretty nice/important if you included them.nvidia4ever - Wednesday, November 23, 2005 - link
I was wondering the same. Either the results are not favorable for ATI or there are results coming that were not posted yet. Either way it looks like a great board.Wesley Fink - Wednesday, November 23, 2005 - link
The original benchmarks with the A8N32-SLI Deluxe were run at 1600x1200 with AA/AF on. This is because we were trying to determine if Dual x16 SLI made any difference compared to Dual x8 SLI. When we tested the ATI we reran benchmarks on one of the current top nForce4 boards - the DFI LANParty nForce4 SLI - to provide a comparison with the nForce4 SLI chipset. We did not have the Asus A8N32-SLI available for retesting since another reviewer was using the board for benchmarking. It also didn't seem important to also rerun benches on the A8N32-SLI since its performance was comparable to the DFI nF4 SLI.At any rate, the A8N32-SLI is available again and we will rerun some benches at 1280x1024 and add results to the game graphs. For "Standard Score" benchmarks like 3DMarks and Aquamark 3 the video resolutions are always the same and the A8N32-SLI results are already included in the graphs.
Beenthere - Wednesday, November 23, 2005 - link
It was pretty obvious a year ago that ATI had created a very impressive chipset for the AMD Mobos. The Southbridge ULi chip resolves perceived deficiencies by those who believe they need faster USB and S-ATA 2, even though in reality this simply isn't true. The fact that the ATI Northbridge chipset O/C's so well is proof of an excellent design and one to build a Helleva reputation on in the Mobo market. The ATI chipset makes it pretty obvious that you don't need to endure high prices and marketing gimmicks of some Mobo mfgs. to promote over-priced "gamers or overclockers" Mobos that don't deliver as much, let alone more PC performance than the ATI chipset Mobos, which include all the practical overclocking BIOS options anyone would possibly need.sunshine - Wednesday, November 23, 2005 - link
RE: "Our first efforts at overclocking the A8R-MVP ran into a road block at just over 260. We have found some Asus boards in the past that did not like overclocks to be immediately set to high values, so we started again at 250. By going up just 5 to 10FSB at a time, we were able to reach 325."What is it exactly that prevents you from setting up the overclocking settings all at once? Why must you increase at only 5 - 10 mhz at a time? Is the Asus Bios boobytrapped to prevent someone from frying their motherboard or CPU???