They say
it takes years to establish a solid reputation and minutes
to destroy it, which is why the office Christmas party
requires a delicate balance of business and pleasure.
Dating back to 1997, the folks charged with evaluating
hardware have showered ASUS motherboard products with praise
for performance, stability, and in many cases, value as
well. Consequently, ASUS is one of the most highly
regarded motherboard manufacturers. The industry is
more competitive now than ever before, though, and it isn?t
enough to merely be popular.
The
ultra high-end Athlon 64 FX market is particularly sticky
because it is defined foremost by performance. But
because the processor stems from AMD?s Opteron family,
platform stability should be inherent. Value is the
least likely consideration, given the chip?s $700+ price tag
and registered DDR memory requirement. Then again,
ASUS doesn?t want to develop a compelling platform only to
have a competitor undercut its price.
ASUS'
SK8V represents the latest Socket 940 platform to see
widespread availability, centering on VIA?s K8T800 chipset
and complementing the SK8N in its Athlon 64 FX lineup. The
board?s pedigree implies performance. Its
specification sheet proclaims a full featured offering.
However, with a Socket 939 variant of the Athlon 64 FX on
the horizon, there can?t be many Socket 940 FX-family rounds
left in AMD?s six-shooter. All factors considered,
ASUS handles the delicate Athlon 64 FX situation with
finesse, as the SK8V looks to be living up to the company's
established position.
The
SK8V's Specifications
Features and Functionality
CPU - Socket
940 for AMD's Athlon 64 FX or Opteron 100 Series - Retention mechanism built-in
- Supports one AMD64 processor on a 940-pin
interface and 1MB of L2 cache Chipset VIA K8T800 North Bridge
VIA VT8237 South Bridge Memory 3 x 184-pin DIMM Sockets support max. 8GB
Registered ECC PC3200/2700/1600 DDR SDRAM memory
Dual-channel memory architecture Expansion Slots 1 x AGP 8X
5 x PCI
1 x ASUS Wi-Fi slot for optional wireless LAN
upgrade Storage South Bridge 2 x UltraDMA 133/100
2 x Serial ATA with RAID 0, 1 function
Promise R20378 RAID controller
1 x UltraDMA 133
2 x Serial ATA with RAID 0, 1, 0+1 Audio ADI AD1985 6-channel CODEC
S/PDIF out interface LAN 3COM 3C940Gb Ethernet LAN Special Features AI Net AI BIOS ASUS POST Reporter ASUS EZ Flash
ASUS CrashFree BIOS 2
ASUS Instant Music
ASUS MyLogo2
ASUS Multi-language BIOS
ASUS Q-Fan Overclock Features ASUS JumperFree
ASUS C.P.R.(CPU Parameter Recall)CPU, Memory, and
AGP voltage
Adjustable SFS (Stepless Frequency Selection) from
200MHz up to 300MHz at 1MHz increment
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
4 x USB 2.0
1 x RJ-45 Port
1 x S/PDIF output
1 x IEEE 1394 Internal I/O Connectors -
- CPU/Power/Chassis FAN connectors
- 20-pin ATX power connector
- 4-pin ATX12V power connector
- Chassis Intrusion
- GAME port connector
- CD/AUX audio in
- S/PDIF_Out Connector
- 2 x USB 2.0 connector supports additional 4 USB
2.0 ports
- IEEE 1394 connector
- COM2 connector BIOS Feature
4Mb Flash ROM
AMI BIOS, PnP, DMI2.0, WfM2.0, SM BIOS 2.3, ASUS
EZ Flash, ASUS MyLogo2, ASUS CrashFree BIOS 2 Support CD - Drivers
- ASUS PC Probe
- Trend Micro PC-cillin 2002 anti-virus software
(OEM version)
- ASUS LiveUpdate Utility Industry Standard PCI 2.2, USB 2.0 Manageability WOL by PME, WOR by PME Form Factor ATX
12" x 9.6"
VIA's K8T800
chipset, on which the SK8V centers, is perhaps the most
feature-complete chipset supporting AMD's 64-bit initiative.
As indicated in the above diagram, the Athlon 64 or Opteron
processor connects to the K8T800 North Bridge via a 16-bit
HyperTransport bus running at 800MHz DDR (1.6GHz effective),
for a total of 3.2GB per second of bandwidth in each
direction. NVIDIA's nForce3 150 Pro comparatively
communicates over a 16-bit downlink and an 8-bit uplink,
both running at 600MHz, for which the platform has received
criticism. The firm counters that it's single-chip
design reduces latencies, compensating for the divergent
HyperTransport link. However, as the forthcoming
benchmarks demonstrate, high-end Socket 940 processors do
indeed expose a palpable performance difference between the
two chipsets.
The only caveat
to VIA's robust HyperTransport implementation is a slower
V-Link connection conjoining the North and South Bridges.
Topping out at 533MB per second, the V-Link interconnect
runs half as fast as the 1GB per second link featured on
VIA's PT880 Pentium 4 chipset. Fortunately, traffic
from the VT8237 South Bridge isn't likely to exceed or even
hit the theoretical 533MB ceiling. As discussed in our
PT880 preview, VIA divides its South Bridge technology
into three distinct categories, each simplified with a
special marketing designation. From our PT880 article,
we told you the following:
"Vinyl Audio"
refers to the chipset's integrated AC'97 codec, in
addition to an optional onboard 7.1-channel Envy24PT
processor. The "DriveStation" is actually a
two-channel parallel ATA controller, with support for up
to four devices and an integrated two-channel Serial ATA
controller equipped with RAID 0, 1, and 0+1 support.
When motherboards based on the chipset ship, they'll
include software to enable RAID configurations on the fly,
or after an operating system has already been installed on
a single drive. VIA "Connectivity" includes all of the
other South Bridge technologies, like USB 2.0 (eight
ports), PCI slots, 10/100 Ethernet, and I/O devices.
K8T800 also
features AGP 8x compliance, though VIA is purportedly busy
with a PCI Express variant of the chipset, dubbed K8T890,
slated to debut in 2004 with a faster implementation of the
HyperTransport bus. Once that emerges, you can also
expect VIA to employ Ultra V-Link, its 1GB per second
interconnect between the North and South Bridges.
