Asus A8V Deluxe "Wireless Edition" (Socket 939)

How we configured our test systems: When configuring the test systems for this review, first, we entered the system BIOS and set each board to their "Optimized" or "High-Performance Defaults". We then manually configured our RAM to run at 200MHz (DDR400), with the timings set by the SPD. The hard drives were then formatted, and Windows XP Professional (SP1) was installed. When the installation was complete, we hit the Windows Update site and downloaded all of the available updates, with the exception of the ones related to Windows Messenger. Then we installed all of the necessary drivers, and removed Windows Messenger from the system altogether. Auto-Updating and System Restore were also disabled, and we setup a 768MB permanent page file on the same partition as the Windows installation. Lastly, we set Windows XP's Visual Effects to "best performance", installed all of our benchmarking software, defragged the hard drives and ran all of the tests...

Test System Specifications "AMD Inside!"

Preliminary Benchmarks With SiSoft SANDRA 2004 Synthetic Testing

We began our testing with SiSoftware's SANDRA, the System ANalyzer, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant. SANDRA consists of a set of information and diagnostic utilities that can provide a host of useful information about your hardware and operating system. We ran four of the built-in sub-system tests that comprise the SANDRA 2004 suite (CPU, Multimedia, Cache and Memory). All of these tests were run with the Asus A8V Deluxe powered by an Athlon 64 FX53 (2.4GHz)...

CPU FX-53 @ 2.4GHz	Multimedia FX-53 @ 2.4GHz	Memory FX-53 @ 2.4GHz	Cache FX-53 @ 2.4GHz
CPU FX-53 @ 2.52GHz Asus Auto 7% OC	Multimedia FX-53 @ 2.52GHz Asus Auto 7% OC	Memory FX-53 @ 2.52GHz Asus Auto 7% OC	Cache FX-53 @ 2.52GHz Asus Auto 7% OC

In the first set of SANDRA scores at the top, the Asus A8V Deluxe / FX-53 combination put up some impressive numbers.  In the ALU CPU tests, the Asus board outpaced all of the other systems in SANDRA's database, but the FPU tests belonged to the Pentium 4.  The Multimedia benchmark, which is a multithreaded test, also performed better on the Pentium 4 reference systems.  In the Memory bandwidth tests, however, the A8V Deluxe smoked all comers.  The results in SANDRA's cache benchmark again had the Pentium 4s in the lead, regardless of block size.

We won't dwell on the second set of numbers, because they were taken with the A8V Deluxe's "Auto Overclock 7%" feature enabled.  As you can see, by simply enabling this one feature in the BIOS, performance was improved across the board.  All this feature really does is bump core and memory voltages and the FSB speed up 7%, which could just as easily be done manually, but it does make overclocking a system much easier for the uninitiated.  It's a quick and easy way to squeeze some more performance from a system, as long as it is adequately cooled.