Asus A8R-MVP.....best S939 motherboard?

afrost · Post by **afrost** » Wed Nov 23, 2005 12:33 pm

http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2617

What's not to love?

stock passive chipset coolers
great overclocker with passive stock cooling
HD Audio
firewire
cheap price

This board seems to be exactly what I have been waiting for to replace my quirky Asrock dual SATA.

Tumlehund · Post by **Tumlehund** » Wed Nov 23, 2005 3:20 pm

WOW! This sounds like an extremely coll motherboard. I was planning on getting the A8N32, but now I'm not so sure. If this board is half the price of the A8N32, I guess the decision is not that hard. After all, what is this board missing compared to the A8N32?

Sooty · Post by **Sooty** » Thu Nov 24, 2005 10:00 am

When will it become available, very soon?

stromgald · Post by **stromgald** » Thu Nov 24, 2005 10:37 am

Tumlehund wrote:WOW! This sounds like an extremely coll motherboard. I was planning on getting the A8N32, but now I'm not so sure. If this board is half the price of the A8N32, I guess the decision is not that hard. After all, what is this board missing compared to the A8N32?

Well, it wasn't designed to compete against the A8N32, more like the A8N-SLI since with two graphics cards it only supplies x8 lines for each card. The only features I don't see compared to the A8N-SLI is slightly fewer overclocking options. Compared to the A8N32, this new motherboard only has 3-phase power rather than 8-phase power, probably doesn't have their Stack-Cool technology, and of course only provides PCIe x8 in dual graphics mode. But, its well worth the money since all the performance features are there. My only concern is being able to run SLI on a Crossfire board. Its supposed to work with hacked drivers, but I'd prefer a more official option.

Tumlehund · Post by **Tumlehund** » Thu Nov 24, 2005 1:44 pm

Yeah, the 8-phase design of the A8N32 is really cool, but I think that will be the only thing I'd miss in the A8R-MVP. Considering the price (less than 2/3 of the A8N32) and the extreme ability to overclock, this motherboard looks very interesting.

How about Asus A8R-MVP and and Opteron 170. Wouldn't that be a cool setup and provide a lot of overclocking options?

Hmm... If that was the setup, what kind of RAM would you choose (for overclocking)?

stromgald · Post by **stromgald** » Thu Nov 24, 2005 2:35 pm

I don't usually buy RAM for overclocking, but when I think of overclocking RAM, I think of Crucial's Ballistix series, Corsair's XMS, and high end OCZ RAM. They're pretty expensive though.

Tumlehund · Post by **Tumlehund** » Thu Nov 24, 2005 2:48 pm

Well, sorry I'm a total newbie in the overclocking business, can I overclock the processor with overclocking the RAM?

_MarcoM_ · Post by **_MarcoM_** » Thu Nov 24, 2005 2:51 pm

Tumlehund wrote:WOW! This sounds like an extremely coll motherboard. I was planning on getting the A8N32, but now I'm not so sure. If this board is half the price of the A8N32, I guess the decision is not that hard. After all, what is this board missing compared to the A8N32?

A8N32 is based on nforce4 rulez, Ati chipset are based on lamerfire technology...

jackylman · Post by **jackylman** » Thu Nov 24, 2005 3:11 pm

_MarcoM_ wrote:
Tumlehund wrote:WOW! This sounds like an extremely coll motherboard. I was planning on getting the A8N32, but now I'm not so sure. If this board is half the price of the A8N32, I guess the decision is not that hard. After all, what is this board missing compared to the A8N32?
A8N32 is based on nforce4 rulez, Ati chipset are based on lamerfire technology...

[Batman Voice]Quick, nvidia fanboy! We must make the world safe again by eliminating these crossfire villians! I know! We'll crush them with a chipset that poses as a furnace and a video card for every pricepoint in increments of $2![/Batman Voice]

Erssa · Post by **Erssa** » Thu Nov 24, 2005 3:36 pm

Tumlehund wrote:Well, sorry I'm a total newbie in the overclocking business, can I overclock the processor with overclocking the RAM?

I'm not sure if you ment "without" the RAM, in that case the answer is yes. You can run your memory async. Just choose lower memory multiplier from bios. For example you raise your fsb to 240, then you choose memory clock value of 166, effectively making your memory run in ddr400. The overclockability of this board won't be of much use to you unless you know what you are doing. Ati chipset is not as easy to overclock as nf4, so if you want an oc friendly board for someone not experienced a8n32-sli would be better for you since overclocks pretty well even when running most of the settings in auto.

SebRad · Post by **SebRad** » Thu Nov 24, 2005 3:53 pm

As _MarcoM_ pointed out the A8N32 is based on an Nforce 4 chipset and the A8R-MVP is based on ATi Crossfire chipset. If you only ever want one video card (or two running independently for 3-4 monitors) then the net effect is minimal. If you plan to buy one video card now and add another later to increase the 3D performance it's (highly?) unlikely that ATI or Nvidia will support it on each other’s chipsets. I.E.
Single card from either will work equally well in either board.
ATI Crossfire -> A8R-MVP
Nvidia SLI -> A8N32
Hope this helps someone,
Seb

afrost · Post by **afrost** » Fri Nov 25, 2005 2:15 am

i don't think very many people here are interested in SLI or Crossfire video cards for heat output reasons. there are also very few situations that it proves to be cost effective. for most people a 7800GT would be enough card for the next year all by itself.

~El~Jefe~ · Post by **~El~Jefe~** » Fri Nov 25, 2005 7:21 am

anything with nforce4 runs very hot without a fan on the chipset.

id stick to the asrock hands down.

Tumlehund · Post by **Tumlehund** » Fri Nov 25, 2005 7:24 am

Sorry, "with" was a typo, should have been "without" as you corectly guessed...

Thanks for the explanation. OK, so can I still get good performance if I only overclock the CPU and leaving the RAM at stock speed (lowering the memory clock value)? I suppose, one reason for doing this, is if your RAM modules aren't low latency.

I don't quite understand why the A8N32 is more overclocking friendly. I mean, once you get the basic things right, there would be no difference?

Also, the Anandtech review seems to conclude that this board is at least as overclocking friendly as the A8N32?

afrost · Post by **afrost** » Fri Nov 25, 2005 1:15 pm

~El~Jefe~ wrote:anything with nforce4 runs very hot without a fan on the chipset.

id stick to the asrock hands down.

it's not an nforce4 board

AHjota · Post by **AHjota** » Thu Dec 01, 2005 7:16 pm

Y'all should know that Tomshardware is conducting a comparison review of the A8R-MVP and the A8N-SLI right now. The first part of the review, in which they compare stock performance, is up. (The next parts are storage subsystem performance and overclocking.)

Here are two quotes I find most telling:

From the Analysis>Graphics section:

For the sake of fair play we decided to cross-benchmark both platforms with graphics cards from both ATI and NVIDIA. While we don't believe that either of the two players would implement pitfalls in its drivers to make the opponent's graphics technology look bad on their own platform, there is still a chance that an ATI platform with ATI graphics or an NVIDIA platform with NVIDIA graphics could run better than with mixed manufacturers. Luckily, this is not the case.

FYI, they used X850XTs and 7800GTs.

From the Conclusion:

There is good news for ATI on the performance front, though. If it weren't for the opponent's faster graphics top model, nForce4 SLI would not be able to score any better numbers than Radeon Xpress 200 Crossfire. In fact, both chipsets perform equally well at all the non-graphics benchmarks.

What I'm reading here so far is encouraging.

Aris · Post by **Aris** » Thu Dec 01, 2005 9:40 pm

whats not to love:

its full atx, not mATX
SLI? really people, this is SPCR, not [H]ard OCP
no onboard DVI

its a nice overclocking board no doubts of that. but who here is honestly going to push it to its limits on this forum?

now, IMO, this board is just about as perfect as can be. it still doesnt have DVI, but the board layout is just about as good as you can ask for. plus i love how they put the pci-e 1x slot between the 16x and pci slots, so when you use an aftermarket gpu cooler your not blocking any "important" expansion slots. the only other thing i would've like to have on this board is an SPDIF coaxial output for digital audio. i never did understand the point of HD audio with analog outputs.

computergeek22 · Post by **computergeek22** » Thu Dec 01, 2005 11:04 pm

I wouldn't mind overclocking as well as having a nice quiet (not necessarily silent) computer. Does any1 know when they're going to be released? Numerous vendors have said they're "out of stock" but they should have been out a week ago according to AT.

afrost · Post by **afrost** » Thu Dec 01, 2005 11:23 pm

i will push the board pretty far. with today's processors and heatsinks or watercooling you can get quiet overclocking without much effort when you have a stable motherboard.

i want a quiet machine that is still a gaming monster in my second bedroom. the "almost silent" computer is in the living room.

being able to push the FSB really far helps save you money by allowing you to buy the least expensive A64.

also....there is a spdif output right on the back panel of the board

afrost · Post by **afrost** » Thu Dec 08, 2005 9:52 pm

she's out!

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813131584

the price should drop down about $15 pretty fast......but I'm just going to order it anyway.

AHjota · Post by **AHjota** » Thu Dec 08, 2005 9:59 pm

WHOO!

Sooner than I expected.

Mystr_Byrnz · Post by **Mystr_Byrnz** » Fri Dec 09, 2005 6:33 pm

now, IMO, this board is just about as perfect as can be. it still doesnt have DVI, but the board layout is just about as good as you can ask for. plus i love how they put the pci-e 1x slot between the 16x and pci slots, so when you use an aftermarket gpu cooler your not blocking any "important" expansion slots. the only other thing i would've like to have on this board is an SPDIF coaxial output for digital audio. i never did understand the point of HD audio with analog outputs.

Will this board fit in the P180 or do i have to get a mATX form factor case?

I really like the looks of that board.

Ryan Norton · Post by **Ryan Norton** » Fri Dec 09, 2005 9:18 pm

Mine arrived today... build manana =^)

charger2000 · Post by **charger2000** » Fri Dec 09, 2005 11:33 pm

I can't find any confirmation that the Asus has HD Audio onboard, seems to have only a 5.1 ADI AD1986A

EDIT:
it has only 5.1 but it's HD ...

AHjota · Post by **AHjota** » Sat Dec 10, 2005 2:12 am

Mystr_Byrnz wrote:Will this board fit in the P180 or do i have to get a mATX form factor case?

I can't think of a single ATX case that couldn't fit a mATX motherboard. You just can't go the other way around.

csl · Post by **csl** » Sat Dec 10, 2005 11:30 am

Yeah, I read the review and thought this would be a near-perfect 939 board. I just hope Asus bring out a non-Crossfire version with more PCI slots as I'd like to use this for music with fussy UAD-1 DSP cards. nF4 boards are basically a no-go with my DSP cards, but apparently this board works well. It'd be great to have stable PCI performance as well as a decent PCIe graphics card for gaming.

Mats · Post by **Mats** » Sat Dec 10, 2005 12:25 pm

Ryan Norton wrote:Mine arrived today... build manana =^)

Nice, keep us updated!

Can you please check how many fan connectors are controllable with SpeedFan?

computergeek22 · Post by **computergeek22** » Sat Dec 10, 2005 1:38 pm

http://www.actbuy.com/details.asp?item=AS04A8R%2DMVP This is a really good price - a lot cheaper than the egg...

Ryan Norton · Post by **Ryan Norton** » Sat Dec 10, 2005 6:27 pm

So far so good. It's funny, I have you guys here asking me about Speedfannable fan headers and the forums at Anandtech just want to see if it can maintain a 310 HTT =)

Anyway, I am the farthest thing from a Speedfan guru, but all three of the mobo's fan headers (CPUFAN, CHAFAN, and PWRFAN) appear to be Speedfan controllable. One odd behavior, however, is that at anything under 100% Speedfan starts reporting 0RPM. Most peculiar.

~El~Jefe~ · Post by **~El~Jefe~** » Sat Dec 10, 2005 8:28 pm

wow. this looks likes a fantastic board

nice and passive. I wish someone could show load tests and max temps of northbridge and such.

can the other pci express lane be used for add in cards as well? or is it only for graphics the x16 lane? I like to connect a lot of things.

nice and simple board with the uli southbridge.