Asus A8N-VM CSM: NVIDIA GeForce 6150 Finally Arrives
by Wesley Fink on December 1, 2005 12:04 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Basic Features: Asus A8N-VM CSM
With the feature list for the GeForce 6150/nForce 430 chipset, you will get a pretty good idea of the features and capabilities of the Asus A8N-VM CSM. The only significant addition to the feature set is the welcomed addition of Firewire ports with the VIA 6307 chipset.
This is also the first NVIDIA chipset board that we have tested to support High Definition Azalia audio. Asus has used the same ADI AD1986A chipset used on the recently reviewed Asus A8R-MVP motherboard. However, the SPDIF connection is only provided by an optional bracket. TV out is another feature that requires an optional bracket. Since HTPC/Multimedia buyers will be looking for these features, the optional brackets will be a huge disappointment for many buyers.
Asus does a great job with placement of power connectors. Even on this micro ATX board, the 24-pin ATX and 4-pin 12V are both near board edges where they work best. Both single and dual-core Socket 939 AMD processors work well on the Asus.
With the feature list for the GeForce 6150/nForce 430 chipset, you will get a pretty good idea of the features and capabilities of the Asus A8N-VM CSM. The only significant addition to the feature set is the welcomed addition of Firewire ports with the VIA 6307 chipset.
| Asus A8N-VM CSM | |
| CPU Interface | Socket 939 Athlon 64 Supports AMD Cool'n'Quiet |
| Form Factor | Micro ATX |
| Chipset | NVIDIA GeForce6150 Northbridge - NVIDIA nForce 430 MCP Southbridge |
| Integrated Graphics | NVIDIA 6150 GPU Dual VGA Output: DVI-D and RGB Maximum Resolution 1920x1440 Note: DVI-D only supports digital output and cannot be converted to output RGB signal to a CRT display |
| Bus Speeds | 200 to 240MHz in 1MHz Increments |
| PCIe Speeds | Fixed |
| PCI | Fixed at 33 |
| Expansion Slots | 1 x16 PCIe 1 x1 PCIe 2 PCI |
| OnBoard GPU | Auto, Always Enable |
| Frame Buffer (UMA) | 16M, 32M, 64M, 128M, Disabled (64M Default) |
| Core Voltage | Not Adjustable |
| CPU Clock Multiplier | Not Adjustable |
| HyperTransport Frequency | 1000MHz (1GHz) Supports AMD Cool'n'Quiet |
| HyperTransport Multiplier | Auto, 1X, 2X, 3X, 4X, 5X |
| DRAM Voltage | Not Adjustable |
| Memory Slots | Four 184-pin DDR DIMM Slots Dual-Channel Configuration ECC/non ECC Regular Unbuffered Memory to 4GB Total |
| Onboard SATA/RAID | 2 SATA II Drives by nForce 410 (RAID 0, 1, JBOD) |
| Onboard IDE/IDE RAID | Two Standard ATA133/100/66 (4 drives) |
| Onboard USB 2.0/IEEE-1394 | 8 USB 2.0 ports supported by nF430 2 IEEE 1394 by VIA 6307 |
| Onboard LAN | Gigabit Ethernet by Marvell 88E1111 PHY |
| Onboard Audio | High Definition ADI Soundmax AD1986A 6-channel, auto jack sensing, SPDIF out |
| BIOS | AMI 0506 (11/18/2005) |
This is also the first NVIDIA chipset board that we have tested to support High Definition Azalia audio. Asus has used the same ADI AD1986A chipset used on the recently reviewed Asus A8R-MVP motherboard. However, the SPDIF connection is only provided by an optional bracket. TV out is another feature that requires an optional bracket. Since HTPC/Multimedia buyers will be looking for these features, the optional brackets will be a huge disappointment for many buyers.
Click to enlarge.
Asus does a great job with placement of power connectors. Even on this micro ATX board, the 24-pin ATX and 4-pin 12V are both near board edges where they work best. Both single and dual-core Socket 939 AMD processors work well on the Asus.
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highlandsun - Thursday, December 1, 2005 - link
Yes, Googer is missing the point that this is supposed to be a complete *Media Center*, that means audio too. I need SPDIF in/out for my minidiscs and other audio devices. I have a multichannel amplifier but I'd prefer to feed it with a pure digital signal. And yes, the PCI slots are already spoken for (Fusion HDTV tuner).BigLan - Thursday, December 1, 2005 - link
Actually, spdif and HD audio are pretty much mutually exclusive. The main benefit of spdif is to pass a dolby digital or dts audio stream untouched to a receiver from the dvd disk (or .avi file.) HD audio allows the motherboard to do 7.1 sound on the motherboard, which is then sent out of the analogue outputs - the 7.1 sound in games etc doesn't use spdif unless you have a soundstorm2 board or certain soundcards which do dolby digital encoding.For most HTPCs, HD audio doesn't actually do anything.
Googer - Thursday, December 1, 2005 - link
If i am not mistaken, ATI's chipset allows for 32 or 64MB of dedicated video RAM to be soldered in to the motherboard. This prevents it from having to resort to system memory.USAF1 - Thursday, December 1, 2005 - link
Hmm... I could be mistaken, but I'm pretty sure that the Marvell 88E1111 "Alaska" chip is just functioning as the PHY for the GbE resident in the nForce 430 southbridge chip. I don't see anything in the 88E1111 tech docs that indicate that it's a fully functional PCIe GbE controller - for that you'd need something like the Marvell's 88E8050 "Yukon" chip. Here are some links:http://www.marvell.com/products/transceivers/singl...">http://www.marvell.com/products/transceivers/singl...
http://www.marvell.com/products/transceivers/singl...">http://www.marvell.com/products/transce.../Alaska_...'marvell%2088e1111'
http://www.marvell.com/products/pcconn/yukon/index...">http://www.marvell.com/products/pcconn/yukon/index...
Wesley Fink - Thursday, December 1, 2005 - link
The Marvell is a Gigabit PHY, just as in other nForce4 chipsets. As our benchmarks show, it is definitely operating at PCIe speeds.USAF1 - Thursday, December 1, 2005 - link
The fact that a certain PHY (Marvell 88E1111, Vitesse VSC8201RX, etc) and nForce4 MAC combo runs at speeds similar to a dedicated PCIe controller, doesn't make it a PCIe-based solution. Your article would lead one to believe that the Marvell 88E1111 is a PCIe-enabled GbE controller, which in fact it is not.Wesley Fink - Thursday, December 1, 2005 - link
We stated clearly in the Features Chart that the Marvel is a PHY (Physical Layer) chip. This is what we have been seeing in nF4 chipsets for quite a while.USAF1 - Thursday, December 1, 2005 - link
Sorry Wesley, but I still think that your article is misleading. The quote "Asus used the PCIe Gigabit hooks in the 430 Southbridge to provide PCIe Gigabit LAN on the A8N-VM." is just not factual. Neither are the "PCIe" labels next to "Marvell 88E1111" on your graphs. The fact of the matter is that there is no PCIe GbE on this board, yet it's plastered all over the "ethernet performance" section of your article. Why don't you just fix the mistake? Where is Anandtech's vaunted journalistic integrity???Wesley Fink - Friday, December 2, 2005 - link
Upon further research, it does look like the 88E1111 does use a different approach to Gigabit LAN than the PCIe solutions. Marvell refers to the chip as a "Single Port Transceiver". From a users perspective, the performance was found to be the same as PCIe Ethernet, but we have made a few changes in the wording and graphs to more accurately describe the Gigabit LAN used on this board.USAF1 - Friday, December 2, 2005 - link
Thank you very much, Wesley. Now I can stop talking bad about you and your extended family. ;)