Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe: NVIDIA Dual x16 for the Athlon 64
by Wesley Fink on November 6, 2005 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Final Words
It's a shame that the first task in reviewing the truly excellent Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe is to set the record straight. Despite what you may have seen at other web sites, we can tell you conclusively that the Asus A8N32-SLI is not 40% to 50% faster in some games than the current Dual x8 designs. Those who concluded this overlooked the impact of the new 81.85 NVIDIA drivers and 6.82 platform drivers on the board's performance. These new drivers are definitely faster - so much so that current NVIDIA owners should definitely upgrade their video drivers.
We truly expected no increase in performance at all with the new Asus Dual x16 once the playing field was leveled. What we actually found, however, was that the A8N32-SLI Deluxe is slightly faster in both single video and SLI running our current test suite games like Doom 3, Far Cry, and Aquamark 3. The A8N32-SLI is faster, but at levels that are generally within the margin of error.
There is more to the story though. While we can't fully explain why it is faster, we did find the Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe to be as much as 8% faster on the newest games that we tested in SLI mode, and up to a whopping 17% faster in single video mode with single/dual 7800GTX video cards. These are significant increases in performance that can't be ignored. We don't know why this is the case, and we will be testing this further as more Dual x16 boards appear in the marketplace. Perhaps it is the Asus design, perhaps it is the MCP51, and perhaps it could be anything.
Please do not let the debunking of the 40% to 50% claims that others have made for this board's performance sway your opinion of the Asus A8N32-SLI. This is one fast Socket 939 motherboard worthy of a place in any enthusiast's Athlon 64 system. The 8-phase works very well to keep the board stable and cool, the heat pipes and no fans really work, and Asus even provides optional cooling fans for those who will use water cooling with this board. If you want to build a super performance, silent PC or a water-cooled or phase-change cooled super overclocker, the A8N32-SLI will serve you well. We couldn't say anything close to this about recent Asus boards, but Asus obviously designed this board to turn some heads in the Athlon 64 market.
The Asus A8N32-SLI is also a monster overclocker, reaching the highest overclock ever with our stock CPU and to 310FSB with a reduced multiplier. If you compare this performance to our other reviews of recent Asus Socket 939 boards, you may wonder if they were produced by the same company. Asus has become serious about Athlon 64, and it shows in the design, execution and performance of the A8N32-SLI Deluxe.
The A8N32-SLI is blessed with a unique and very effective design that truly works. The 8-phase design behaves gracefully under extreme loads and remains much cooler than other 3- or 4-phase designs. This yields excellent stability and headroom that we have not seen before on an Asus Socket 939 design. Asus claims that the board is up to 15°C (36°F) cooler than conventional solutions, and we saw nothing in our testing to make us doubt this claim. The board remained cool and stable under the most difficult test conditions.
In the end, we still have some reservations as to whether Dual x16 makes any difference at all in video performance. It certainly appears to improve performance greatly in the latest, greatest, and most demanding games, but we will need to dismiss other potential explanations before we become a true believer. We do not, however, have reservations about the A8N32-SLI Deluxe. This board is a definite keeper.
It's a shame that the first task in reviewing the truly excellent Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe is to set the record straight. Despite what you may have seen at other web sites, we can tell you conclusively that the Asus A8N32-SLI is not 40% to 50% faster in some games than the current Dual x8 designs. Those who concluded this overlooked the impact of the new 81.85 NVIDIA drivers and 6.82 platform drivers on the board's performance. These new drivers are definitely faster - so much so that current NVIDIA owners should definitely upgrade their video drivers.
We truly expected no increase in performance at all with the new Asus Dual x16 once the playing field was leveled. What we actually found, however, was that the A8N32-SLI Deluxe is slightly faster in both single video and SLI running our current test suite games like Doom 3, Far Cry, and Aquamark 3. The A8N32-SLI is faster, but at levels that are generally within the margin of error.
There is more to the story though. While we can't fully explain why it is faster, we did find the Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe to be as much as 8% faster on the newest games that we tested in SLI mode, and up to a whopping 17% faster in single video mode with single/dual 7800GTX video cards. These are significant increases in performance that can't be ignored. We don't know why this is the case, and we will be testing this further as more Dual x16 boards appear in the marketplace. Perhaps it is the Asus design, perhaps it is the MCP51, and perhaps it could be anything.
Please do not let the debunking of the 40% to 50% claims that others have made for this board's performance sway your opinion of the Asus A8N32-SLI. This is one fast Socket 939 motherboard worthy of a place in any enthusiast's Athlon 64 system. The 8-phase works very well to keep the board stable and cool, the heat pipes and no fans really work, and Asus even provides optional cooling fans for those who will use water cooling with this board. If you want to build a super performance, silent PC or a water-cooled or phase-change cooled super overclocker, the A8N32-SLI will serve you well. We couldn't say anything close to this about recent Asus boards, but Asus obviously designed this board to turn some heads in the Athlon 64 market.
The Asus A8N32-SLI is also a monster overclocker, reaching the highest overclock ever with our stock CPU and to 310FSB with a reduced multiplier. If you compare this performance to our other reviews of recent Asus Socket 939 boards, you may wonder if they were produced by the same company. Asus has become serious about Athlon 64, and it shows in the design, execution and performance of the A8N32-SLI Deluxe.
The A8N32-SLI is blessed with a unique and very effective design that truly works. The 8-phase design behaves gracefully under extreme loads and remains much cooler than other 3- or 4-phase designs. This yields excellent stability and headroom that we have not seen before on an Asus Socket 939 design. Asus claims that the board is up to 15°C (36°F) cooler than conventional solutions, and we saw nothing in our testing to make us doubt this claim. The board remained cool and stable under the most difficult test conditions.
In the end, we still have some reservations as to whether Dual x16 makes any difference at all in video performance. It certainly appears to improve performance greatly in the latest, greatest, and most demanding games, but we will need to dismiss other potential explanations before we become a true believer. We do not, however, have reservations about the A8N32-SLI Deluxe. This board is a definite keeper.
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GliderPilot - Monday, January 9, 2006 - link
Well i have finally gotten my replacement board, and again i have a major issue with it. It seems that in some fit of wisdom, one of asus's underpaid engineers placed a heatpipe right in the way of the x4 PCIe slot. You might not have a use for them, but i certainly do. I have a PowerColor Theatre 550Pro x1 TV Tuner that is right now occupying an x16 slot. While i dont intend to do SLI, i would dearly like to have dual tuners without having to have one on pci, the other on PCIewbloon - Sunday, December 18, 2005 - link
I'm not a big gamer. But I currently drive 2 monitors and with the new system want to drive at least 3 monitors and possibly a TV.So my question is can I drive two video boards but not in SLI mode, since it is my understanding that SLI will only drive one monitor.
I understand that I could get away with a board like the DFI Ultra and have 16 lanes to one card and 4 lanes to another and that would probably meet my needs but I'd like stretch the envelope where ever possible because the future keeps coming despite my best efforts.
Terry Clark
GliderPilot - Monday, January 9, 2006 - link
unless you are gaming on both cards (which probably wont) having 4 lanes is more than sufficient. The bandwidth would be comparable to AGP4 in the downstream. This solution is about as future proof as it gets. To answer your question, yes this board basically has 2 full bandwidth X16 slots, what you do with them is up to you. Buying this board soley for the extra 16 lanes is really a waste of money, unless there is some other reason you like itBibbidyBobidyBoo - Wednesday, December 7, 2005 - link
I recently purchased this motherboard and an Antec NeoHe 550W PS and the combo worked great for about 5 to 10 min and then the computer spontaneously shuts down. The issue is with the PS not the MB. The Antec TruePowerII 550W PS works just fine. I believe the incompatibility is from the amount of current supplied on the 12V and 5V lines, it may match the ATX2.2 spec however it is not completely backwards compatible with this Asus MB.Beware this issue has also been noted on other Asus MB’s.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/CustratingReview.asp...">Newegg Customer Reviews">http://www.newegg.com/Product/CustratingReview.asp...
JNo - Thursday, November 10, 2005 - link
Can someone confirm to me that no single x16 video slot version of this Asus motherboard exists? I get the impression that none does. Also, anyone know if the latest zalman CPU coolers fit? Finally, I know most here wouldn't care for the Asus automatic overclocking results but for someone like me, can you please inform me, Wesley, as to how much of a boost does the inbuilt Asus overclocking facility provide please?Many thanks
Capt Caveman - Monday, November 14, 2005 - link
Umm, this new chipset is for SLI, thus the chipset name x16 SLI. The pci-e video slot is already x16 on every single video slot socket 939 pci-e motherboard. Up til now, SLI motherboards had to split the x16 into two x8 pci-e graphic slots. Thus, you will never see a single slot video care motherboard using this chipset.And yes, it has been confirmed by current users that the Zalman coolers fit.
Due to the fact that Asus's Overclocking Utilities lack a number of settings that are available in the bios, ie. memory settings, you'll only be able to get a small overclock before the system becomes instable. Overclocking via the bios is the only way to go to ensure a stable overclock.
qquizz - Sunday, November 6, 2005 - link
Whatever happened to BF2 benchies?huges84 - Monday, November 7, 2005 - link
Quoted from page 7
DieLate - Sunday, November 6, 2005 - link
Wesley, any chance of a measurement of northbridge & "stack cool" heatsinks? If you or someone else with one could measure how high off the motherboard they rise, that would be great.I'm hoping the Thermaltake Big Typhoon or Thermalright SI-120 would fit, as they have somewhere around 2" raised off the board (though the heatpipes might still hit the northbridge heatsink :( ).
DieLate - Tuesday, November 8, 2005 - link
Nevermind.I have confirmed elsewhere the TT BT fits without any issues.