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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formulav8 - Sunday, December 4, 2005 - link
Speak for yourself.jfreiman - Thursday, December 1, 2005 - link
What are the chances that this is not Asus' HTPC motherboard?Could they be developing another model for a home theater PC? -- If so, will it use the nVidia chipset?
As much as I want to use this board for my HTPC, I have to examine why Asus would not have - at the very minimum, included a spidif cable and TV out cable.
Something just doesn't fit in this picture.
-John
Calin - Friday, December 2, 2005 - link
I would like to have game performance compared to a single channel board using one of the current integrated graphic chipsets - there is a Biostar board for Socket 754 and a Asrock one. Or at least to have performance checked with a single DIMM (or two DIMMs in single channel mode)Thanks
jamawass - Thursday, December 1, 2005 - link
Poor implementation of a good idea by Asus.This chipset screams htpc, why have HD audio without out of the box spdif? Might as well have realtek audio. The S video out should also be standard with an optional component out dongle for those who need it. Add-on brackets take up pci openings on the case, quite a few htpc cases are microatx where these slots are a premium.ShadowVlican - Thursday, December 1, 2005 - link
aw man.... if only this board can OC...jfreiman - Thursday, December 1, 2005 - link
According to the picture of the motherboad the board you tested was 1.01.However, I just read that there is a 2.0 rev board. Are you aware of this? Do you know if this is accurate?
I can't find anything about this on the Asus site and would like to know about this before I get the final piece (motherboard/video) for my HTPC upgrade.
Thanks for the quick review, and I too would like to know more about it's CPU utilization during DVD and HDTV playback.
Again, thank you.
-John
PS. and if I missed it, what was the BIOS revision you used for your tests.
Gary Key - Thursday, December 1, 2005 - link
AMI 0506
plonk420 - Thursday, December 1, 2005 - link
may we see HL2 and MPEG2/WMV9 decoding benchmarks, please, Anand? also, how does one go about purchasing the addon card, and is it S-Video only, or is there hope for component out?BigLan - Thursday, December 1, 2005 - link
Does the nvidia firewall actually work on this board, or does it corrupt zip archives as have been reported with the nforce4?Leper Messiah - Thursday, December 1, 2005 - link
Performance is mediocore, features missing, can't OC. Guess I'll be sticking with a biostar 6100-T for my next F@H box.