Board Analysis

The 462 pin socket interface

ASUS A7N8X Deluxe motherboard

The plethora of connectivity options begins on the A7N8X’s back panel. PS/2 mouse and keyboard connectors are flanked by a pair of USB 2.0 ports and the first of two 10/100 Ethernet ports, driven by a 3COM MAC. ASUS includes one parallel and one serial port on the back panel. Audio connectors that enable 5.1-channel analog output, in addition to a coaxial S/PDIF port for digital audio output, have replaced the second serial port. A second RJ-45 connector (powered by the NVIDIA MAC) sits atop two more USB 2.0 ports. Three 1/8” connectors round out the back panel, offering analog audio input, output, and a microphone input. There wasn’t enough room on the board’s back panel so ASUS also included several headers intended to occupy unused PCI slots. One provides for the second serial port, while another delivers IEEE 1394 Firewire connectivity. A third header offers an S/PDIF digital input as well as a redundant second S/PDIF output. The last header supplies a game port and the fifth and sixth USB 2.0 ports, should you require them.

The back panel of the motherboard, note DualNet

ASUS' 2-Phase power implementation

Power delivery consists of a two-phase implementation and STMicro’s L6917BD 5-bit programmable dual-phase controller with integrated driver chips. ASUS has pushed the power circuitry further down the board, freeing up room around the processor. Better still, the ATX power connector is conveniently located alongside the IDE connector, promoting airflow around the Socket A interface.

ASUS has a certain proclivity for including an AGP Pro slot on its higher-end boards, which the A7N8X has also received. Additionally, five PCI slots take care of expandability.

5 PCI slots for expansion, plus AGP Pro

The DIMM sockets are color-coded, very nice touch ASUS!

DualDDR

NVIDIA’s nForce chipset featured a dual-channel DDR design like today’s nForce2, yet, boards always seemed to sport three DIMM slots. Two slots would comprise one of the 64-bit DDR channels and the third made up the rest of the TwinBank Memory Architecture. The A7N8X similarly offers three DIMM slots. Again, the first two correspond to one 64-bit channel and the third makes up the second. Combined, the DualDDR architecture (as it has been renamed) offers up to 6.4GB per second of theoretical memory bandwidth using PC3200 memory. In reality, that number is actually much lower since the Athlon XP can only utilize 2.7GB per second running on a 333MHz front side bus. The extra bandwidth is consumed when integrated graphics are used (in other words, when the IGP is used in place of the nForce2 SPP).

Although the chipset supports PC3200 memory, NVIDIA maintains that maximum performance is attained when the memory and front side busses are run synchronously at 333MHz. Aggressive memory timings apparently compensate for the slower memory bus. We decided to test this theory, using a single 256MB PC3200 module running at 333MHz and 400MHz, CAS2 in both instances.





In real-world gaming applications, such as Quake III, platform performance is most significantly impacted at low resolutions, whereas higher resolutions tend to stress the capabilities of a graphics card. All the way up to 1280x1024, the synchronous bus speeds result in better performance. At 1600x1200, the difference is, for the most part, imperceptible.