Asus A8V Deluxe "Wireless Edition" (Socket 939)

Benchmark Performance Summary:  The benchmark results proved that both of the VIA K8T800 powered motherboards we tested, the Asus A8V Deluxe and MSI MS-6702E, performed at very similar levels.  The A8V Deluxe and MSI MS-6702E both won their fair share of the benchmarks, and the performance deltas between the two were generally very small.  What we did learn, however, is that the VIA K8T800 Pro has a clear advantage over the NVIDIA nForce3 150.  We haven't had any Socket 939 nForce3 250GB powered motherboards arrive in the lab just yet.  The nForce3 250Gb may close the performance gap, somewhat.  We'll let you know how NVIDIA's latest Athlon 64 chipset fares, once retail products are made available.

There are quite a few things we liked about the Asus A8V Deluxe "Wireless Edition".  This motherboard is loaded with useful features like Gigabit Ethernet and SATA RAID, and it has very good on-board audio.  The "Wireless Edition" also ships with a decent WiFi card, which gives users the ability to use their system as a wireless access point.  The A8V Deluxe is also compatible with AMD's "Cool 'N Quiet" technology, which makes this a good platform on which to build a near silent PC.  It overclocked relatively well, and all of the features worked without any fuss.  Historically, there have usually been a few bugs or glitches to deal with when testing a brand new product like this one, but Asus' A8V Deluxe worked flawlessly from the get go.  At about $170, it's also much less expensive than most Socket 940 boards, but Socket 939 CPUs will command a premium for quite some time.  We do wish Asus had given the A8V Deluxe a bit more "flash" by using a colored PCB and connectors, but other than that and a few minor layout issues, the Asus A8V Deluxe is a really nice socket 939 solution.  Asus has delivered a quality Socket 939 motherboard with the A8V Deluxe "Wireless Edition".  We're giving it a solid 9 on the Heat Meter.

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