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.

The Asus is unique among the tested SLI boards in providing 3 slots between the x16 PCIe slots used for SLI. All of the other SLI boards provide 2 slots between the video cards. This will be an important feature for users who water-cool their video cards or have special cooling in mind for the pair of SLI cards. As you will see later in our overclocking test, however, this capability is basically wasted, since this Asus is not a particularly good overclocker. Lately, Asus has stood at or near the top in overclocking, but that has been truer of Asus Intel solutions than those for AMD.

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.

The Roundup Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe: Overclocking and Stress Testing
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  • ajmiles - Wednesday, March 2, 2005 - link

    If i was a doubting type I would suggest that Nvidia spent as much time tuning their drivers for benchmarks as they do games.

    Nice to see support for some unreleased games such as Battlefield 2 on the list though.

    Wesley, you get my email btw? (sorry for bugging you)?
  • Wesley Fink - Wednesday, March 2, 2005 - link

    nVidia has just advised the release of Beta 71.84 drivers now supporting 70 games in SLI. The drivers can be downloaded at http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_downloads_rel70b... Below is a list of suypported games and benchmarks.

    Age of Mythology
    AquaNox 2: Revelation
    Armed & Dangerous
    Battlefield 1942
    Battlefield 2
    Battlefield Vietnam
    Breed
    City of Heroes
    Colin McRae Rally 2005
    Colin McRae Rally 4
    Conan
    Dark Age of Camelot: Atlantis
    Desert Rats vs. Afrika Korps
    Dirt Track Racing 2
    Doom 3
    EverQuest
    EverQuest II
    Far Cry
    Flat Out
    Ground Control II : Operation Exodus
    Half-Life 2
    Halo
    Hitman 2
    IL-2 Sturmovik: Forgotten Battles
    Joint Operations: Typhoon Rising
    Kohan II: Kings of War
    Leisure Suit Larry
    Lineage II
    Lock On
    Lord of the Rings, Battle for Middle-earth
    Madden NFL 2005
    Max Payne 2
    Medal of Honor
    NBA Live 2005
    Need for Speed: Underground 2
    Painkiller
    Perimeter
    Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
    Quake III
    Return to Castle Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory
    Return to Castle Wolfenstien
    Rome: Total War
    Serious Sam: The Second Encounter
    Sid Meier's Pirates!
    Silent Storm
    Sims 2
    SpellForce
    Splinter Cell
    Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory
    Star Wars Battlefront
    Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy
    Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast
    Star Wars: Knight of the Old Republic
    SWAT 4
    The Chronicles of Riddick
    Thief: Deadly Shadows
    Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2005
    ToCA Race Driver 2
    Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness
    Tony Hawk's Underground
    Tribes Vengeance
    Tron 2.0
    Unreal
    Unreal 2
    Unreal Tournament 2003
    Unreal Tournament 2004
    Vampire: Bloodlines
    Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War
    World of Warcraft
    X2: the Threat
    Xpand Rally


    In addition to these top games, NVIDIA SLI supports the following applications:

    3DMark01
    3DMark03
    3DMark05
    AquaMark 3
    Code Creatures
    D3DRightMark
    HDRLighting
    NVIDIA Clear Sailing Demo
    NVIDIA Dawn Demo
    NVIDIA Nalu Demo
    NVIDIA Timbury Demo
    PCMark04
    Shadermark 2.1
    Trees of Pangaea

  • giz02 - Wednesday, March 2, 2005 - link

    I've done some further testing, and still no luck. The PCStats review also indicated 192Khz output, but I can't find that either. I'm still hoping for something, and will let you guys know if anything comes up.

    Other points:
    + The onboard Creative can attenuate the digital outputs just like a regular live could. Most onboard solutions that i have used could not

    - Cannot have Analog and Digital outs enabled at the same time (at least I haven't found that yet). All other onboard solutions that I have tried were able to do this. An example of what I'd like to do (ideally) is have my Zalman Real Surround headphones plugged in to the analog ports, and the z5500's plugged into the digital (coax/optical). When the GF complains, I could turn the z5500's off, and put on the headphones. With creative you do this BUT you also have to uncheck the digital out only box. If they can bot h be enabled at the same time, let me know (Y)

    - Either the Z5500's can't accept 96/24 on the optical in, or the creative isn't outputting 96/24 on the optical out.

    - Only Coax or Optical work at one time (with the Z5500's)

    - DD and DTS passthroughs work with Videolan and DVD's/.ts's.

    I'll try this board for a while longer, but if encode will not work, I'll be heading to DFI. It's a bit more expensive, but you get the Lan Tote (woohhoo!) and the extra PCIx slots. Anyone have any comments on DFI's onboard sound?


  • EODetroit - Wednesday, March 2, 2005 - link

    Thanks giz02. One of these days some manufacturer is going to realize there's demand for this and meet it... I just hope that day comes sooner than later.
  • SLK75 - Tuesday, March 1, 2005 - link

    I bought the GA-K8NXP-9 because fo the rave reviews on its OC abilities which Anandtech also proved in their pre-production sample reviewed towards the end of last year...All of a sudden now Gigabyte's production version of the board does not seem to clock high as was expected and proved previously WHYYYY ???? and Anandtech make it really clear to Gigabyte that people went and bought their board not only first its great features but also for its OC capabilities...I hope Gigabyte can address this with a new BIOS
  • giz02 - Tuesday, March 1, 2005 - link

    I feel DUPED by that PCSTATS review. I've asked the reviewer for why he indicated that the board can DICE (either how to do it, or who told him it was possible).

    The board is .... OK...

    I'da rather had the DFI (if DICE is not possible!)
  • Aquila76 - Tuesday, March 1, 2005 - link

    #89 - looks like we'll both still wait for the next SoundStorm. Maybe the next gen of PCI-E sound cards will have DDL?
  • bob661 - Tuesday, March 1, 2005 - link

    #89
    Thanks for the test.
  • giz02 - Tuesday, March 1, 2005 - link

    So far, It's a negative on the DICE :(

    I have a single coax cable connected from the onboard card to my Z-5500's and they are not recieving Dolby on the speaker tests. Left and Right channels come through but that is is... 96-24 is working as well, but zilch on the 5.1 :(
  • 1955mm - Tuesday, March 1, 2005 - link

    #87: AMD has NOT made it clear that ECC is an Opteron only feature. Read the document from the link I posted. As for ASUS not supporting ECC, download the manual and look at pages 4-21 and 4-22. In the screenshot for DRAM configuration there is an item for ECC enablement. The ASUS K8N-E deluxe (socket 754) also supports ECC. If you still have doubts that the Athlon 64 supports ECC, go to crucial.com and see what memory is supported by the ASUS K8N-E deluxe and A8N-SLI deluxe. I think that you might be confusing registered memory with ECC. If you write code work with critical data ECC is worth having. I have had bad memory in the past that corrupted data without crashing the machine. Considering misinformation that is sometimes provided by motherboard manufacturers and your obvious confusion about the Athlon 64, I think that ECC deserves some mention by motherboard reviewers. I myself would like to understand why the A8N-SLI apparently supports 4 256MB ECC memory modules but not 2 512MB ECC memory modules (page 2-12 in manual), Wesley?

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