BIOS

Asus has used AMI BIOS for sometime now, it seems every time I get my hands on an Asus motherboard they have tweaked the BIOS to where it seems they can't tweak anymore, yet they continue to do so, lets look over what Asus has done to the A8R32-MVP Deluxe BIOS. To start, lets jump right into the Advanced Menu / Jumper Free section where all of the fun begins to appear:

For a non-Premium board, Asus sure has given us a lot of tweaks, more then you see in a board in this price range. To start off, we will change from the default AI Overclocking to Manual, allowing us to see all of the available goodies.

Memory voltage can be adjusted from 2.5v to 3.2V which is wider than most boards I have been reviewing, Asus also adds finer memory voltage adjustments, in 0.05V increments. Memory voltage does not extend to 4.0V, such as the DFI I reviewed last January, but the only memory able to utilize these voltages are OCZ VX and Mushkin Redline, which you can no longer purchase new by the way.

 

(Asus-BIOS-CV-HBV-PCIeV.jpg) MISSING IMAGE

The Northbridge Core voltage, HTT Bus voltage and PCIe voltage can all be manipulated as well. The more you can adjust, the more you can overclock? Well, there are many out there who believe that.

Turning our attention towards the CPU Configuration sub-menu we see this is where CPU information, GART (mainly for testing), MTRR mappings (4GB and up memory configuration), Cool n' Quiet, HT Link speed and a sub menu for memory configuration.

Delving into the Memory timings, they are either automatic or manually controlled (interestingly enough, the manual talks to a selection of “DRAM ECC Mode [Auto]� directly under the SPD settings, this is obviously missing in my version of BIOS). Like most AMD motherboards, Asus has opted for the memory timings to default to a 2T setting. I am sure this is to be as compatible to pretty much any memory you want to load into the motherboard. It is fairly easy to change this to 1T and there appears to be no limitation on how high we can overclock with a 1T setting (as far as the BIOS is concerned).

Updating the BIOS can be done in 3 ways. via a DOS boot disk and using Asus AFUDOS utility, the Asus EZ Flash utility by pressing <Alt> + <F2> (still needing a floppy to hold the new BIOS). I don't know about you, but I don't even own a floppy drive anymore. You can also update the BIOS from within Windows using AsusUpdate.

The Asus A8R32-MVP Deluxe BIOS brings a lot more to the table then I would expect to see in a sub $125 motherboard. The overclocking features and tweaks, although not to the level of a DFI LANParty, are about as close as you can come to it.

Quick Notes / Observations

Crossfire is performed automatically within the Asus A8R32-MVP Deluxe motherboard, there are no jumpers to set, no BIOS settings to manipulate. Simply insert the second card, as both slots operate at x16 speeds. From there it is a simple proper driver install (possible cable connection on higher end ATI Graphics cards) to take advantage of the Crossfire solution. This currently is a Windows only solution, while nVidia has been shipping SLI longer then ATI has been shipping crossfire, they have also been notoriously better at Linux drivers then ATI. I have talked with several people who like the crossfire advantage, but can't use it because they are Linux users, it is an issue with a lot of enthusiasts out there that I hope ATI address's soon. Although Linux is not 100% my main system (dual boot), every system but my Main system is.

The RealTek ALC882 8-Channel HD audio is nothing short of impressive. Not only the sound quality, the entire management system used is impressive, and something the nVidia lineup needs to take note of. Just as the Intel HD setup, the rear audio ports are completely software selectable, allowing you to plug your microphone into ANY port on the back and then define within Windows. Unfortunately there is no such program for Linux, forcing all of them to their respective defaults.

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