The
initial ATI RD480 chipset launch enabled Crossfire support on
AMD Socket 939 motherboards. The launch, although touted heavily
from ATI, met with little fanfare. Instead of dismissing the feedback
or turning and running, ATI went back to the drawing boards, took
the feedback they received and launched the RD580 chipset. Did
ATI perform due diligence in their latest release? Read on and
we shall see.
HIS
has provided Viperlair with the Asus variant of the ATI RD580
chipset, the A8R32-MVP
Deluxe. It does not appear, with the current release of the
AM2 lineup from AMD, that Asus will be supplying us with the “Premium”
version of the ATI RD580 chipset for the socket 939 lineup. Adding
to that, the RD580 has built in support for the AM2, so I am sure
we will see it spring to life on that side of the fence. With
that said, lets look over the specifications of this Socket 939
motherboard.
Specifications
|
Form
factor
|
ATX |
|
Chipset
|
ATI CrossFire Xpress 3200 / Uli M1575 |
|
CPU
|
Socket
939 supporting Athlon 64 / FX / X2 / Opteron |
|
FSB
|
2000 / 1600 MT/s |
|
BIOS
|
AMI 8Mb Flash ROM |
|
Memory
|
4 DDR DIMMS / Max 4GB (ECC and Non-ECC) / Dual Channel |
|
PCIe
|
2–
x16 / 1 – x1 |
|
NIC
|
Marvell 88E8001 10/100/1000 (PCI)/Marvell 88E8053 10/100/1000
(AI NET2, PCIe) |
|
IDE
|
Uli M1575 – 2x IDE / 4x SATA-II (RAID 0,1, 0+1, 5
and JBOD) |
|
|
Silicone
Image 3132 SATA 1x External SATA-II/1x External SATA on-the-go |
|
Audio
|
Realtek ALC882 HD 8-Channel HD-Audio CODEC S/PDIF Optical/Copper
|
|
Ports
|
8x USB 2.0 (4 rear) / PS2 (2) / 2x IEEE-1394a-2000 (1 rear
/ 1 headers) |
|
Misc
|
AiLife silent cooling |
While
ATI specifies the North Bridge with their RD580 chipset, they
interconnect the NB and SB with PCIe lanes, thus, the end manufacturers
(Asus in this case) are given a lot of latitude in what they
want to do with the SB. In this case Asus has chosen a relative
unknown, the Uli M1575. Name recognition aside, it appears to
be a rather strong SB solution. The HD Audio should rival that
of Intel's (something I feel the nF4 boards have until recently
been lacking) along with the standard plethora of ports that
have become expected.
Of
course, Asus using the AiLife process, your cooling solution uses
no fans, therefore, is silent, a trend I am enjoying more and
more.
The
Asus motherboard arrived as expected, well packaged with standard
marketing fair pasted on the outside, hopefully giving you a
good indication of what you are purchasing.
Opening
the package lets take stock of what comes as “extra”
with the motherboard itself:
3
Red SATA cable (with included Molex to SATA power converter)
1
IDE Ribbon cables
1
Floppy ribbon cable
1
USB / Game port Riser connector / Face plate
1
IEEE-1398 (Firewire) riser connector / Face plate
Rear
I/O plate
1
Driver CD
1
Manual
A
somewhat disappointing list of goodies for a deluxe.
Looking
over the included software, the Motherboard Support CD has the
ATI / Marvell drivers as well as a few utilities:
MediOne Gallery
WinDVD Creator 2 Platinum
InterVideo PhotoAlbum
Disc Master 2.5 Platinum
DVD Copy 2.5 Platinum
The
Asus manual, like that of most Asus manuals I have received since
my P3V4x, is complete and well referenced. Drawings are accurate
to the board I received and well documented. The only thing I
would like to see Asus adopt here is possibly color coding some
of the pieces they know we are going to touch, say the IO panel
and USB/Firewire risers. Interesting side note here:
The
Asus Quick start guide is in just about every language, except
English :)
The
motherboard is a dark Brown in color, with minimal color variations,
Asus has never been one to “flash” you into purchasing
their hardware. A quick glance and you notice, as I mentioned
earlier, there are no fans. You might not catch it at first,
but yes, something is amiss. Asus opted to space the PCIe x16
slots a full 2 slots apart, giving you a little more space between
video cards and theoretically allowing for better cooling performance.
Flipping
the board does not net you much, with the exception of Stack to
Cool 2, Asus latest achievement in alleviating heat to allow further
overclocking.
The
socket used on the Asus A8R32-MVP Deluxe is of course of the 939
format and is located on the right rear quadrant as with most
solutions today. There appears to be ample room surrounding the
socket retention mechanism for most HS/Fan combinations. Also
in this area is the 4 pin 12V-Aux power connector. I was surprised
not to find an 8 pin dual rail use connector here as late into
the game as we are with proper power delivery, it is something
I feel a board at this level is amiss not to have. Interestingly
there is a single SATA port hanging out in this region of the
motherboard, this is the Silicon Image RAID port that you would
use in conjunction with the external SATA connector (more on that
later).
Moving
to the left rear of the motherboard we see the two x16 slots with
an x1 and PCI in between, beyond the x16's are two more PCI slots.
When using both PCIe graphics cards, as you can imagine, the x1
and single PCI slot is unusable. At the far left edge are the
IEE-1394a risers.
Moving
to the Left Front section of the motherboard we see our Front
Panel connector, USB/Game Port/COM1 risers. Also in this section
are your 4 SATA-II connectors, edge mounted IDE connector your
BIOS chip and CMOS battery.
Finally
the Right Front section of the board where we connect our 24 pin
main power, memory slots, IDE connector as well as the Floppy
connector. The memory slots are color coded for Dual Memory and
as mentioned, allow for a maximum of 4GB. The design, which differs
from the nF4, nicely separates paired memory enough for sufficient
air flow to minimize heat build up. Note that the 24Pin power
and IDE are a little snug with each other, I found it easier to
connect the IDE cable to the motherboard, and then the Main Power.
The
Rear I/O Panel for the Asus A8R32-MVP Deluxe features (from left
to right) 2 PS2 ports for your mouse and keyboard, LPT, Optical
and Coaxial S/PDIF out, External SATA port, the 6 connector Audio
panel, 4 USB slots, and two 10/100/1000 RJ45.
Installing
the Asus A8R32-MVP Deluxe wasn't an issue. Even though my case
is considered by some to be “shallow”, nothing was
positioned in a hard to get to place. Even plenty of room for
that edge mounted IDE connector. The memory modules go into the
same color slots, the graphics card(s) click solidly into their
respective PCIe slot and the CPU goes in as any other Socket 939,
pretty basic so far. The FP connector was even color coded as
well as labeled on the motherboard, something I wish more manufacturers
would do.
Now
that everything is connected nicely, lets boot her up
NEXT
