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Asus A8N-VM CSM: NVIDIA GeForce 6150 Finally Arrives

 by Wesley Fink on December 1, 2005 12:04 AM EST
56 Comments | Add A Comment
56 Comments
More Features: Asus A8N-VM CSM


The 4 DIMMs support up to 4GB of ECC/non-ECC unregistered DDR memory in a dual-channel configuration. The color coding is correct here - match colors for each channel - but this places the DIMMs with no spacing in-between in a 2-dimm setup. IDE and Floppy cable connections are all at the upper right edge, which is normally the best location.

The 430 Southbridge supports 4 Sata2 ports, where the cheaper 410 supports just 2. Asus uses the full-surround SATA connector for a more durable port connection.

Keeping with the image of a higher end integrated chipset, Asus includes an IEE1394 Firewire port on the rear IO. You can also see the Dual video connectors in the IO ports. We tried running both ports at the same time and had no problem at all. IMPORTANT: The DVI-D port will only work with a digital display, such as a flat panel or digital TV. You cannot use an adapter on the DVI-D connection to drive an analog connection.

The BIOS options were surprisingly sparse on the Asus A8N-VM CSM. As you can see, there really aren't any voltage adjustments at all - no vCore, vDIMM, or chipset voltage adjustments. The board supports AMD Cool'n'Quiet, but then has no means of adjusting multipliers in BIOS. The CPU clock is adjustable, but with a very limited range from 200 to 240. The point is that there are extremely limited means to really overclock the A8N-VM.

Asus provides a fairly complete selection of memory adjustments, but without the most important voltage adjustment for memory, the adjustments are something of a moot point. There are no memory voltage adjustments at all in the current Asus BIOS.

We confirmed that the Graphics Clock Frequency was really 475 instead of the 425MHz seen in the base GeForce6100 chipset. While this should provide better graphics performance, you will see that the real impact is pretty small.

Basic Features: Asus A8N-VM CSM Test Setup
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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

    quote:
    PS. and if I missed it, what was the BIOS revision you used for your tests.


    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.
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