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Back when
NVIDIA first announced they were entering the
chipset market, one couldn?t help but wonder if companies
like Via, Intel and SiS were looking over their shoulders.
At the time, NVIDIA shared control of the high end 3D
Graphics market with no one, although ATi was poised for a
long overdue resurgence. The question was whether or
not the company, who was extremely successful in the
graphics card industry, would be able to carry that success
over to the chipset market. Certainly on-line
media was eager to see if they were going to be able to
inject new energy into an otherwise bland industry that was
often
full of hype. Anyone who is familiar with VIA?s
history, most particularly with the evolutionary process
from the KT266A to the KT400, will understand what we mean.
When the KT333 became reality, soon the lack of any real
performance gains over the KT266A
became
apparent.
A similar pattern followed with the KT400 where it offered
minimal differences in performance compared to the KT333, or
KT266A for that matter. Could NVIDIA offer something
that the others couldn?t? Were they going to simply
present us with their interpretation of technologies already
available or were they willing to think outside the box?
With the introduction of the nForce chipset, we soon found
the latter to be true. NVIDIA made a serious effort to
offer a product that was full of new technology and
features, as well as performance that was competitive with
anything else available at the time.
Recently,
NVIDIA added a new chapter to their chipset story for the
Athlon platform, with the introduction of the aptly named
nForce2. We were eager to see if they were
going to ride on the success of the original nForce or if
they were going to approach the next generation chipset with
the same vigor and creativity they demonstrated with their
original offering. Back in June, Marco and I met
with NVIDIA in New York City and were introduced to a
prototype board built around the new chipset. In the
end, we walked away with a good feeling about what we saw.
Now we have an opportunity to review the Asus A7N8X Deluxe
motherboard, one of the first motherboards available to
adopt NVIDIA's new design. Needless to say, we?ve been
anxious to get our hands on one of these since then, and
today that wait is finally over.
Let?s take
a look and see what the Asus A7N8X Deluxe motherboard has to
offer.
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Specifications of the Asus A7N8X Deluxe
Motherboard |
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A
Complete Package |
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Processor Support:
Socket A for AMD Athlon and Duron Processors
Chipsets
NVIDIA nForce2 SPP North Bridge
4Mbit Programmable Flash EPROM
NVIDIA nForce2 MCP-T/MCP South Bridge
Multi-I/O controller
Serial ATA Controller
1394 PHY Realtek 8801B
Main Memory
Maximum 3GB support
3 DDR DIMM Sockets
Expansion Slots
5 PCI Slots
1 Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP) Pro Slot
System I/O
1 Floppy Disk Drive Connector
2 IDE Connectors (UltraDMA133/100/66 Support)
1 COM2 Header
1 Game port Connector
1 Infrared Connector
1 Panel Connector
1 SM Bus Connector
USB Headers (Ports 5/6)
Serial ATA Headers
Modem Connector
IEEE 1394 Headers
S/PDIF Connector
1 PS/2 Mouse Connector (green)
1 PS/2 Keyboard Connector (purple)
RJ45 Connector (3COM LAN
Controller)
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RJ45 Connector
(NVIDIA LAN Controller)
1 Parallel Port
USB Connectors (Ports 3/4)
USB Connectors (Ports 1/2)
1 Serial Ports (COM1)
Hardware
Monitoring
System Voltage Monitor (integrated in ASUS ASIC)
Special Feature
Onboard LED (Green)
On board AGP Warning LED (Red)
Network Feature
Realtek 8201 BL PHY
BroadCom PHY
3Com LAN
NVIDIA LAN
Audio Features
Audio Codec
CD I AUX Audio Connectors
Front Panel Audio Connectors
1 Line In Connector (light blue)
1 Line Out Connector (lime)
1 Microphone Connector ..: (pink)
1 S/PDIF out Connector (yellow)
1 Surround UR audio Connector (violet)
1 CNTR I LFE Connector (orange)
Power
ATX Power Supply Connector
Form Factor
ATX
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Below are the items that were included with the sample we
received for review:
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ASUS
A7N8X support CD
ASUS 2-port USB/Game port module
40-pin 80 conductor Ultra DMA 133/100/66/33 IDE
ribbon cable
Ribbon cable for a 3.5-inch floppy drive
COM 2 bracket
I/O shield
Bag of extra jumper caps
User Guide
2 Serial ATA Cables (optional)
2 ASUS IEEE 1394 2-port brackets (optional)
2 ASUS IEEE 1394 cable (optional)
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The A7N8X Deluxe comes with a nice compliment of hardware to
take full advantage of this motherboard's capabilities. Detailed
documentation is provided covering the board's features and
set up. A User?s Manual is provided which covers all
of the system?s details from its BIOS settings to
each component's functions, while a Quick Setup Guide is
included to cover the physical installation of the board.
Just incase the manual gets misplaced, Asus includes a Quick
Reference Guide to help identify the physical components of
the system, and a smaller, more detailed, sticker version is
provided to adhere to the inner part of the case.
One floppy cable, a 40-conductor IDE, and an 80-conductor
IDE cable were included. 2 serial ATA cables were also
provided to use with the integrated SATA RAID controller.
An IEEE 1394 2-port bracket and cables can be connected to
the FireWire headers of the system board. A 2-port
USB/Game port module is included to support older joysticks
or MIDI inputs and it also adds two more USB ports to the system.
Asus also provides a Serial Port bracket for users who may
need an additional serial connection.
The Setup CD contained everything needed to get the board up
and running. The disk also comes with
a decent selection of complimentary software such as ASUS PC
Probe, ASUS update, WinBond Voice Editor and PC-Cillin 2002
to name a few.
More
Software, Quality and Setup
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