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Ever since its
inception, the nForce2 chipset has taken off and never
looked back. It brings a lot to the table in terms of
stability, performance, and most importantly affordability
for the Athlon XP platform. The latest revision of the
nForce2 chipset, the nForce2 Ultra 400, brings with it all
the same traits, but also provides support for the latest
Athlon XP 400MHz front side bus processors. Add a
reliable and popular motherboard manufacturer to the mix,
namely Asus, and you have a recipe for success. Taking
one of their most popular motherboards, the A7N8X Deluxe,
Asus made a few changes including dual LAN (10/100 and
Gigabit) and a WiFi slot and now offers the "A7N8X-E Deluxe
Wireless Edition".
Today in the
HotHardware labs we have the Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe Wireless
Edition on the test bench and are ready to show you if the
second revision of the A7N8X motherboard is reason to get
excited. The features and specifications alone of the
A7N8X-E Deluxe are impressive. Dual LAN, wireless LAN,
dual channel DDR, and 400MHz front side bus, are just a few
of the bright spots on this motherboard. We'll get
into more detail in just a bit, but after putting this
motherboard through the usual paces in HotHardware fashion,
we were pretty pleased with it. Don't take our word
for it, take a look for yourselves.
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Asus
A7N8X-E Deluxe Feature set
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Power and complete
connectivity |
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CPU
Socket A for
AMD Athlon XP/Athlon / Duron Thoroughbred/ Barton Core
Support
Chipset
NVIDIA nForce2 Ultra 400
NVIDIA nForce2 MCP-T
Front Side Bus
400/333/266/200 MHz
Memory
3 x 184-pin DIMM Sockets support max. 3GB
PC3200/PC2700/PC2100/PC1600 non-ECC DDR SDRAM memory
Dual Channel Memory Architecture
Expansion Slots
1 x AGP Pro/8X (1.5V
only)
5 x PCI
1 x ASUS Wi-Fi slot for optional wireless LAN upgrade
Storage
NVIDIA nForce2 MCP-T
2 x UltraDMA
133/100/66/33
Silicon Image Sil 3112A RAID Controller: 2 x Serial
ATA - RAID 0, RAID1
Audio
Realtek ALC650 6-Channel CODEC
Integrated APU (Audio Processor Unit)
Dolby Digital (AC-3) Encorder
S/PDIF in / out interface
LAN
2 Ports
Marvell 88E8001 Gigabit Lan PCI Controller supporting
10/100/1000 BASE-T Ethernet
MCP-T integrated NVIDIA MAC + Realtek 8201BL PHY
IEEE 1394
Realtek PHY 8801B with Two 1394 Ports
USB
2.0
Integrated 6 USB2.0
ports
Special Features
Power Loss Restart
Support S/PDIF in / out interface
ASUS POST Reporter
ASUS C.O.P. (CPU Overheating Protection)
ASUS Q-Fan technology
Overclock Features
ASUS JumperFree
CPU, Memory, and AGP voltage adjustable
SFS (Stepless Frequency Selection) from 100MHz up to
300MHz
Adjustable FSB/DDR ratio, Fixed AGP/PCI frequencies
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Back
Panel I/O Ports
1 x Parallel
1 x Serial
1 x PS/2 Keyboard
1 x PS/2 Mouse
1 x Audio I/O
2 x RJ45
1 x S/PDIF out+1 x Surround L/R audio jack+ 1 x CNTR/LFE
audio jack
4 x USB 2.0/1.1
Internal I/O Connectors
1 x USB 2.0 connector
supports additional 2 USB 2.0 ports
CPU / Chassis / Power FAN connectors
20-pin ATX Power connector
IDE LED connector, power LED connector
Chassis Intrusion, SIR
S/PDIF in / out connector
CD / AUX / Modem audio in
2 x IEEE1394 ports connector
GAME/MIDI connector
2 x SATA ports
COM2 connector
Front panel audio connector
BIOS
Feature
4 Mb Flash ROM, Award
BIOS, PnP, DMI2.0
Industry Standard
PCI 2.2, USB 2.0
Manageability
WfM 2.0, DMI 2.0, WOL
by PME, WOR by PME, Chassis Intrusion
Support CD
Drivers
ASUS PC Probe
Trend Micro PC-cillin 2002 anti-virus software (OEM
version)
ASUS LiveUpdate Utility
Accessories
InterVideo WinDVD Suite
User's manual
UltraDMA cable
IDE cable
FDD cable
2-port USB2.0
I/O shield
Serial ATA Power Cable
Serial ATA cables
2 port IEEE1394 cables
Form
Factor
ATX Form Factor, 12"x
9.6"(30.5cm x 24.5cm)
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The A7N8X-E Deluxe's feature
set is impressive to say the least. A wireless port as
well as two LAN ports, one of them supporting Gigabit
speeds, make this rig one of the most versatile in terms of
networking ability we have seen to date. Mix that with
the ample performance typical of NVIDIA's nForce2 Ultra
chipset and the quality we've come to expect from Asus and
this is one attractive product. All these features,
most would guess, should cost an arm and a leg, but on
various search engines the Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe comes in at
around $110. Let's take a closer look so you can see
all these features in detail.
Asus
A7N8X-E Deluxe Wireless Edition Up Close
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