It is nice that manufactors listen, but why do they still bring out Motherboards for SLI and Crossfire, where the normal PCI cannot be used with their heigh end grafic cards - I am wondering ?
Please get a clue before posting. All these people complaining about not making proper comparisons because Anandtech went the extra step of testing the latest vid card from ati on their latest chipset in ADDITION to making a very fair comparison with what nvidia has to offer currently.
Nice article, too bad people don't pay attention to the graphs before they complain about them.
I'd like to see numbers of both X1800 and X1900 Crossfire, on both the A8R and A8R32 (four sets of numbers for those who are math impaired). I am much more interested in how this new board, and its price premium, affect Crossfire performance.
**"The NVIDIA 7800GTX and ATI X1900XT are readily available for purchase in the marketplace. Since the 7800GTX 512 is not available for sale anywhere and has not been available for weeks, it seemed unfair to compare x1900XT results to products that are not available for purchase."**
Please don't take this personally Anandtech but your reviews are seriously flawed...
This article should of only been written if the proper hardware was available for testing.
If that was the case then the article should review a X1800XT Crossfire vs the 7800gtx 256 SLI in the A8R32-MVP.... These cards are based on competing technologies 2-3 quarters ago..... The X1900 series cards are based on current technologies as are the new 7900 from Nvidia and some might throw in the 7800gtx 512-
Back in december the 7800gtx 512 was readily available on launch- give the 1900xt another 2 months and we will see what the availability of the product looks like. Even now the 1900xt is in low quantities.. give it another 3 weeks and well you get the picture.
I have been finding that some of the Anandtech writers are not objective enough. They have a habit of allowing thier personal views and tastes on hardware flaw their testing and results. Sadly I can still recall the days when Anandtech was a viable resource.....
That's funny, I just checked three of the main reputable online vendors and found that they all appeared to have plenty of the X1900 series in stock and priced reasonably as well (reasonable being a relative term when referring to high end video cards). I then checked the same three vendors for the 7800GTX 512. Only one actually had listings for the cards, but they were all backordered and ridiculously overpriced as well. So since you are obviously a biased Nvidia fanboi, why don't YOU give it another 3 weeks to 2 months and see if you can extract your foot from your mouth when X1900s are still readily available.
Seriously you guys need to stop flaming every article Anandtech publishes. Get over it, if you don't like their reviews don't read them. IMO Anandtech is still the best and always has been.
I would have liked to see a side by side graph comparison of these two boards with crossfire enabled. That way we could get an idea if the dual x 16 PCI-E slots on the A8R32-MVP made any significant gaming performance improvement over the dual x 8 PCI-E slots on the A8R-MVP. Otherwise I really enjoyed the review, and I'll probably be purchasing one of these boards once the price settles down a little.
Well, well, well - the disappearing Asus Mobo Hype. I lost count is this the forth or fifth hype posting in the past ten days that has been up, down, up, down, up, down and a real jerk around?
After the abortion A8R-MVP Asus shipped as a designed for "serious overclockers" piece of garbage, they can stick the A8R32 where the Sun don't shine. The A8R-MVP was the most over-hyped under performing mobo ever sold and IMNHO a fraud as it doesn't come even close to delivering the advertised performance Asus claims.
I find it amazing how Asus feeds Anandtech all the info. they desire but Asus can't or won't fix the defective A8R-MVP mobos that have documented memory incompatibility issues, 1T timing issues, vcore voltage issues, MVP card issues and more. Asus has the balls to dump the defective A8R-MVP mobo into the marketplace and then flat refuse to even support this malfunctioning mobo or even discuss with their customers any solution to the long list of problems. Asus completely ignores its customers and has provided no BIOS upgrades that fix any of the listed problems above. Once upon a time we had good Asus mobos but for the past several years Asus has been unable to deliver any reliable, properly functioning mobos. It took them four different SLI models to get an SLI32 mobo that performs equal to every other mobo companies SLI X16 mobo, so you gotta believe Asus has engineering issues.
As if to illustrate how gullible some consumers are the A8R32 addresses some but not all of the problems on the A8R-MVP that according to Anandtech and Asus were not problems at all. This must be like with MICROSUCKS where bad security code isn't a defect it's a "feature". It's amazing the B.S. that is published to suck up to unscrupulous manufacturers. The disguised damage control is for the naive who don't have a clue. If a S939 mobo can't run standard industry DIMMS in 1T and the vcore voltage varies 100 mV or more, the mobo is a problem child. The fact that Asus still deletes the proper vcore voltage options in BIOS on the A8R32 tells me they still have engineering problems IMNHO.
Sorry Wes but these Asus reviews are not objective scientific tests any more they are just marketing hype. It looks like you're way too close to Asus to tell the whole story instead of regurgitating the glowing marketing hype. When Asus recalls all of the defective A8R-MVP mobos and replaces them with properly functioning A8R-MVP mobos, then they'll prove they have their act together and that they care about their customers. Otherwise IMNHO they are just an unscrupulous company dumping defective goods into the marketplace to defraud consumers.
Looks like there is little value in reading Anandtech any more as it's become unreliable just like THG did after Tom left. We ain't buying the hype and Asus can shove their entire product line where the Sun don't shine. They may have made short term profits by defrauding A8R-MVP buyers with defective goods, but in the long term they will lose a lot of customers to other mobo makers.
If you had been working for half the time you have been whining on every forum you can find, you could have bought two SLI-Experts or whatever motherboard you think has no problems.
Dude, get over it. The A8R was not exactly as reviewed here. Is that disappointing? Yep. Unfair? Maybe. Fact is, anybody who bought it for the "serious overclocking" that you're referencing would do a vMod and get on with it. I have two A8R's. One is dead because I was stupid and tried a vMod. My soldering needs work. I bought a second one on refurb for $75 because I realized that in the best case, that vMod might get me another 150 MHz. You know what else would get me 150 MHz? Dusting off a Pentium Pro in my basement. I could also get the 2% benefit that 1T timing would give me from chance, since most 'marks are + or - 2-3%.
I was burned by the same problem you were. I have learned to live with it and am currently happily running 300x9 with ram @ 2.5-4-4-9, 2T (166/200). That's not bad for standard blue heatspreader Patriot that runs about $80 per gig.
Should have run the 3DMark benches with the 7800GTX like all the other boards so at least we could see if the board itself (the object of review) offered any particular performance gain or loss. :[
I am unhappy with the pictures of the board included in this review. I can't see anything on them because they are too dark. I couldn't even tell if they were a firewire port on the back.
The pictures are not overly dark on several monitors we tried in reading the review. I'm sorry I don't have advice in that area.
As stated in the review, both Firewire ports are on an accesory bracket included with the motherboard. The bracket will fit in an empty slot or can be routed to case firewire ports.
Any properly designed 3-phase or greater CPU vcore circuit that complies with AMD's VRM64/T specs will work just fine. If however a mfg. delivers a poor circuit design or uses inferior MOSFETS, caps, etc., then you experience Vcore instability which causes all kinds of operational Hell. More phases just lowers the ripple and spreads the load across more MOSFETS.
BTW, if you check the A8R-MVP, the A8N series and the Asus P5GL-MX you'll see that all of these mobos have been confirmed to have vcore instability problems when tested at the mobo with a DVM or scope. Asus seems to have some significant mobo engineering issues they can't resolve... and that are not present on other brands of mobos using the same chipsets.
No flames at Anandtech. Asus is the mfg. and the one responsible for delivering a proper vcore circuit design, using quality components, etc.
Don't shoot the messenger for stating the facts. If Asus didn't have design and engineering problems their mobos wouldn't have these confirmed issues reported by numerous hardware review sites.
it's good to see you catch your mistakes from your previous reviews. i hope next time you'll take users comments/emails more seriously than just brushing it off simply as "others can do it..." other than that. this board looks great! its a shame all this good stuff is coming out 1/2 quarters before AM2 is being released.
I need to know on this board if you only have one video card (x1800XT) can you put it into the upper PCI-E slot closest to the CPU socket or does it have to go into the lower slot like the SD480 boards.
After Asus's false advertising of the A8R-MVP as being designed for "Serious Overclockers"; After Asus's failure to fix the long list of defects on the A8R-MVP which include 1T memory, Vcore instability, BIOS issues, etc.; After Asus's failure to acknowledge the known problems with the A8R-MVP; After Asus's refusal to even discuss the problems of the A8R-MVP with customers; After Asus's refusal to provide a proper BIOS upgrade to correct the defects in the A8R-MVP; After Asus's denial that the A8R-MVP mobo even existed after people bought it; After Asus's refusal to provide the same BIOS to consumers that they provided to Anandtech...
there will never be another Asus product purchased by our company. Asus can stick their entire product line where the Sun don't shine. They've burned us for the last time. They may think they got away with defrauding consumers with the defective A8R-MVP mobos but they are in for one big surprise.
Refusal to provide the same BIOS...
Hey, that gives me an idea! I wonder if Anandtech still has their A8R-MBP -- if they do, they should make a bios backup and post it!
If any of you read the article they offered anyone who emailed them a copy of the same bios that they used. If you really want it I can get it for you.
This doesn't make sense: "there will never be another Asus product purchased by our company". Why would a business care about overclocking? A business should care about STABILITY.
They should have moved the only PCI-E 1x slot to the left. They way it is now, you lose that slot when using a dual slot cooler in the PCI-E 16x slot closest to the processor. Hopefully that will be changed on the AM2 version of the board.
a 7800 and 1900 this way we can better gauge the mean performance of the "board" with identical comparison to other previously tested boards because not everyone is going to run out and get a $600 1900 ATI just for this board.
We DID test the A8R32-MVP with both the X1900XT and the 7800GTX. If you closely at the standard gaming performance graphs on p.9 you will see the orange bars are the A8R32-MVP test eith the X1900XT and the green bars are the same A8R32-MVP tests with the 7800GTX. The other board results are with the 7800GTX so if you compare the green bar to all the blue bars you are comparing 7800GTX performance on ATI and nVidia. In addition, all the bars are labeled with the test board and test video card to prevent confusion.
This is explained in Test Setup on p.6, and in my comment above, "We reported both results so you could compare 7800GTX performance to the previous boards also tested with the 7800GTX. Since the X1900XT is the latest and fastest video card the results were included for Reference only. As someone else pointed out, when testing Dual X16 Video you have to run SLI on nVidia and Crossfire on ATI (or Intel)."
This is exciting news. But I plan on getting the X1900 AIW, which won't do Crossfire. So, when are we going to see non-Crossfire (Xpress 200-type) versions of this chipset? In the end I may get this board, but I'm hoping I can save a few bucks by getting one without the added cost of Crossfire.
RD580 is only available as the dual x16 version. With both x16 lanes off the north bridge you can't really leave out a chip, as you can in the nVidia version right now, and lower the price. The single X16 slot and dual x8 Crossfire will be provided by RD480.
Look perfect to me. Black, high clocker, built like a tank and relativly inexpensive. I wish they had this two months ago - U seen my DFI chipset mod what a PITA to get silent chipset sitting right under card.:( Not only is ATI chispet seemingly cooler leaving us with passive solutions they clock at least as well if not better.
Why would you use two different videocards when benchmarking a motherboard?? This really tells us nothing about the motherboards performance in relation to the others, because you have another huge variable.
As we stated in the test setup we ran BOTH the 7800GTX and the X1900XT video card on the Asus A8R32-MVP. We reported both results so you could compare 7800GTX performance to the previous boards also tested with the 7800GTX. Since the X1900XT is the latest and fastest video card the results were included for Reference only - many would have asked for X199XT results if they were excluded.
As someone else pointed out, when testing Dual X16 Video you have to run SLI on nVidia and Crossfire on ATI (or Intel).
Why didn't Asus include the cool feel as they did with the ASUS A8N 32-SLI. Like the 8-Phase Power and the cool looking Fanless Motherboard cooling system.
Just wondering. maybe 8-phase is a waste for ~60 watt Athlon64s. Also why do a fancy(an expensive) "cool looking Fanless Motherboard cooling system" when chipset is cool and doesn not need one at all???
I.m glad someone has a sense and doesn't produce third central heater in the system(after CPU & GPU).
The A8R32-MVP was designed to sell for a lower price - probably around $130 to $150, where the A8N32-SLI was designed to sell for $200+. While the A8R32-MVP isn't 8-phase, it actually overclocked ba bit better and gave up nothing to the more expensive and excellent A8N32-SLI in performance. This board can also run dual X1900XT cards in Crossfire mode.
I wonder how much will it sell for and if it goes arround same price as Asus A8N 32-SLI (220ish). if it cost that much then i will end up buying DFI RD580 motherboard if its got no issue bugs like the 1st rev of DFI RD480 CRossfire.
quote: It's $280 at ZZF. Not exactly cheap. Certainly not what the article estimated.
The board should settle to the US $130~$150 price range. The prices will run high at first until supply meets demand. We are a little unsettled with the current trend of pricing by the resellers at product launch but it will continue to occur as long as people are willing to pay the price to be the first to own. ;-)
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65 Comments
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Spinne - Monday, March 6, 2006 - link
NewEgg still doesn't have them in stock, neither does Monarc Computers. Wonder how long it'll be before they get them and the prices drop.dennis hs - Sunday, March 5, 2006 - link
I've just gotten this mobo.. It's pretty sweet! I really like the ALC882 onboard sound! It's really crispy and all good :DOverall I don't have any issues with it. It's a damn good mobo!
[vietnamese hooker mode on]
" Me love it longtime :) "
[vietnamese hooker mode off]
tonser - Friday, March 3, 2006 - link
It is nice that manufactors listen, but why do they still bring out Motherboards for SLI and Crossfire, where the normal PCI cannot be used with their heigh end grafic cards - I am wondering ?yacoub - Thursday, March 2, 2006 - link
This board gets an official "daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamn, Gina!" rating.Holy crap it flies with an X1900XT!
theOracle - Wednesday, March 1, 2006 - link
In the table - "PEG Bugger Length"Wesley Fink - Monday, March 6, 2006 - link
Corrected the Brokeback Mountain referenceDigitalFreak - Wednesday, March 1, 2006 - link
No one has any RD580 boards in stock in the US. Hell, Newegg doesn't even have any listed! Looks like another classic paper launch to me.glynor - Wednesday, March 1, 2006 - link
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82...">Oh, and how about from Newegg hereSLIM - Wednesday, March 1, 2006 - link
http://www.antaresdigital.com/customer/product.php...">1or
http://www.atacom.com/program/print_html_new.cgi?&...">2
Please get a clue before posting. All these people complaining about not making proper comparisons because Anandtech went the extra step of testing the latest vid card from ati on their latest chipset in ADDITION to making a very fair comparison with what nvidia has to offer currently.
Nice article, too bad people don't pay attention to the graphs before they complain about them.
DigitalFreak - Thursday, March 2, 2006 - link
Moron. Did you happen to notice the "Out Of Stock" button?And what's with the bitching about proper comparisons, blah blah blah? Reply to the wrong thread, did we?
ocyl - Wednesday, March 1, 2006 - link
Page 4 mentions that there is an Asus board called "A8N32-MVP." Does anyone know where to find more information about this board, if it does exist?Gary Key - Wednesday, March 1, 2006 - link
It should have read A8N32-SLI and has been corrected. Thank you.Darthb0b0 - Wednesday, March 1, 2006 - link
I'd like to see numbers of both X1800 and X1900 Crossfire, on both the A8R and A8R32 (four sets of numbers for those who are math impaired). I am much more interested in how this new board, and its price premium, affect Crossfire performance.nicolasb - Wednesday, March 1, 2006 - link
Can we have some comparable benchmarks for 7800GTX 512 as well as 7800GTX? And 7800GTX 512 in SLI mode too.whippingboy79 - Wednesday, March 1, 2006 - link
**"The NVIDIA 7800GTX and ATI X1900XT are readily available for purchase in the marketplace. Since the 7800GTX 512 is not available for sale anywhere and has not been available for weeks, it seemed unfair to compare x1900XT results to products that are not available for purchase."**Please don't take this personally Anandtech but your reviews are seriously flawed...
This article should of only been written if the proper hardware was available for testing.
If that was the case then the article should review a X1800XT Crossfire vs the 7800gtx 256 SLI in the A8R32-MVP.... These cards are based on competing technologies 2-3 quarters ago..... The X1900 series cards are based on current technologies as are the new 7900 from Nvidia and some might throw in the 7800gtx 512-
Back in december the 7800gtx 512 was readily available on launch- give the 1900xt another 2 months and we will see what the availability of the product looks like. Even now the 1900xt is in low quantities.. give it another 3 weeks and well you get the picture.
I have been finding that some of the Anandtech writers are not objective enough. They have a habit of allowing thier personal views and tastes on hardware flaw their testing and results. Sadly I can still recall the days when Anandtech was a viable resource.....
dali71 - Wednesday, March 1, 2006 - link
That's funny, I just checked three of the main reputable online vendors and found that they all appeared to have plenty of the X1900 series in stock and priced reasonably as well (reasonable being a relative term when referring to high end video cards). I then checked the same three vendors for the 7800GTX 512. Only one actually had listings for the cards, but they were all backordered and ridiculously overpriced as well. So since you are obviously a biased Nvidia fanboi, why don't YOU give it another 3 weeks to 2 months and see if you can extract your foot from your mouth when X1900s are still readily available.Sh0ckwave - Wednesday, March 1, 2006 - link
Seriously you guys need to stop flaming every article Anandtech publishes. Get over it, if you don't like their reviews don't read them. IMO Anandtech is still the best and always has been.Matthews316 - Wednesday, March 1, 2006 - link
I would have liked to see a side by side graph comparison of these two boards with crossfire enabled. That way we could get an idea if the dual x 16 PCI-E slots on the A8R32-MVP made any significant gaming performance improvement over the dual x 8 PCI-E slots on the A8R-MVP. Otherwise I really enjoyed the review, and I'll probably be purchasing one of these boards once the price settles down a little.Beenthere - Wednesday, March 1, 2006 - link
Well, well, well - the disappearing Asus Mobo Hype. I lost count is this the forth or fifth hype posting in the past ten days that has been up, down, up, down, up, down and a real jerk around?After the abortion A8R-MVP Asus shipped as a designed for "serious overclockers" piece of garbage, they can stick the A8R32 where the Sun don't shine. The A8R-MVP was the most over-hyped under performing mobo ever sold and IMNHO a fraud as it doesn't come even close to delivering the advertised performance Asus claims.
I find it amazing how Asus feeds Anandtech all the info. they desire but Asus can't or won't fix the defective A8R-MVP mobos that have documented memory incompatibility issues, 1T timing issues, vcore voltage issues, MVP card issues and more. Asus has the balls to dump the defective A8R-MVP mobo into the marketplace and then flat refuse to even support this malfunctioning mobo or even discuss with their customers any solution to the long list of problems. Asus completely ignores its customers and has provided no BIOS upgrades that fix any of the listed problems above. Once upon a time we had good Asus mobos but for the past several years Asus has been unable to deliver any reliable, properly functioning mobos. It took them four different SLI models to get an SLI32 mobo that performs equal to every other mobo companies SLI X16 mobo, so you gotta believe Asus has engineering issues.
As if to illustrate how gullible some consumers are the A8R32 addresses some but not all of the problems on the A8R-MVP that according to Anandtech and Asus were not problems at all. This must be like with MICROSUCKS where bad security code isn't a defect it's a "feature". It's amazing the B.S. that is published to suck up to unscrupulous manufacturers. The disguised damage control is for the naive who don't have a clue. If a S939 mobo can't run standard industry DIMMS in 1T and the vcore voltage varies 100 mV or more, the mobo is a problem child. The fact that Asus still deletes the proper vcore voltage options in BIOS on the A8R32 tells me they still have engineering problems IMNHO.
Sorry Wes but these Asus reviews are not objective scientific tests any more they are just marketing hype. It looks like you're way too close to Asus to tell the whole story instead of regurgitating the glowing marketing hype. When Asus recalls all of the defective A8R-MVP mobos and replaces them with properly functioning A8R-MVP mobos, then they'll prove they have their act together and that they care about their customers. Otherwise IMNHO they are just an unscrupulous company dumping defective goods into the marketplace to defraud consumers.
Looks like there is little value in reading Anandtech any more as it's become unreliable just like THG did after Tom left. We ain't buying the hype and Asus can shove their entire product line where the Sun don't shine. They may have made short term profits by defrauding A8R-MVP buyers with defective goods, but in the long term they will lose a lot of customers to other mobo makers.
theprodigalrebel - Wednesday, March 1, 2006 - link
i was almost paying attention to your post, but you lost me when you wrote 'microsucks'.stupid troll.
superkdogg - Wednesday, March 1, 2006 - link
If you had been working for half the time you have been whining on every forum you can find, you could have bought two SLI-Experts or whatever motherboard you think has no problems.Dude, get over it. The A8R was not exactly as reviewed here. Is that disappointing? Yep. Unfair? Maybe. Fact is, anybody who bought it for the "serious overclocking" that you're referencing would do a vMod and get on with it. I have two A8R's. One is dead because I was stupid and tried a vMod. My soldering needs work. I bought a second one on refurb for $75 because I realized that in the best case, that vMod might get me another 150 MHz. You know what else would get me 150 MHz? Dusting off a Pentium Pro in my basement. I could also get the 2% benefit that 1T timing would give me from chance, since most 'marks are + or - 2-3%.
I was burned by the same problem you were. I have learned to live with it and am currently happily running 300x9 with ram @ 2.5-4-4-9, 2T (166/200). That's not bad for standard blue heatspreader Patriot that runs about $80 per gig.
DigitalFreak - Wednesday, March 1, 2006 - link
Omid, is that you?yacoub - Sunday, February 19, 2006 - link
Should have run the 3DMark benches with the 7800GTX like all the other boards so at least we could see if the board itself (the object of review) offered any particular performance gain or loss. :[yacoub - Sunday, February 19, 2006 - link
oic now, thanks. :)green bars. tricksy hobbitses!
Missing Ghost - Sunday, February 19, 2006 - link
I am unhappy with the pictures of the board included in this review. I can't see anything on them because they are too dark. I couldn't even tell if they were a firewire port on the back.Wesley Fink - Wednesday, March 1, 2006 - link
The pictures are not overly dark on several monitors we tried in reading the review. I'm sorry I don't have advice in that area.As stated in the review, both Firewire ports are on an accesory bracket included with the motherboard. The bracket will fit in an empty slot or can be routed to case firewire ports.
Googer - Sunday, February 19, 2006 - link
What Phase Power is this motherboard using? 2,3,4,8,24?Beenthere - Sunday, February 19, 2006 - link
Any properly designed 3-phase or greater CPU vcore circuit that complies with AMD's VRM64/T specs will work just fine. If however a mfg. delivers a poor circuit design or uses inferior MOSFETS, caps, etc., then you experience Vcore instability which causes all kinds of operational Hell. More phases just lowers the ripple and spreads the load across more MOSFETS.Beenthere - Sunday, February 19, 2006 - link
BTW, if you check the A8R-MVP, the A8N series and the Asus P5GL-MX you'll see that all of these mobos have been confirmed to have vcore instability problems when tested at the mobo with a DVM or scope. Asus seems to have some significant mobo engineering issues they can't resolve... and that are not present on other brands of mobos using the same chipsets.Ecmaster76 - Sunday, February 19, 2006 - link
Do you work for DFI or Abit or something? This is the third site where I have ran into you flaming Asus constantly!(where did I put that troll repellant)
Seriously, link some proof of said Vcore instability. Show me scope printouts of the Vcore lines (and the 12v rails that were used to drive it)
Beenthere - Monday, February 20, 2006 - link
No flames at Anandtech. Asus is the mfg. and the one responsible for delivering a proper vcore circuit design, using quality components, etc.Don't shoot the messenger for stating the facts. If Asus didn't have design and engineering problems their mobos wouldn't have these confirmed issues reported by numerous hardware review sites.
arswihart - Sunday, February 19, 2006 - link
Do you have to use the same color RAM slots on ASUS boards for dual-channel, as shown in the pic in this review?Shimmishim - Sunday, February 19, 2006 - link
it's good to see you catch your mistakes from your previous reviews. i hope next time you'll take users comments/emails more seriously than just brushing it off simply as "others can do it..." other than that. this board looks great! its a shame all this good stuff is coming out 1/2 quarters before AM2 is being released.godrod - Friday, February 17, 2006 - link
I need to know on this board if you only have one video card (x1800XT) can you put it into the upper PCI-E slot closest to the CPU socket or does it have to go into the lower slot like the SD480 boards.Wesley Fink - Friday, February 17, 2006 - link
A single video card can go into either x16 PCIe slot. We tried both slots and it will work wekk in either.arswihart - Sunday, February 19, 2006 - link
this looks nice, I haven't moved from AGP yet, this may just make me do itBeenthere - Friday, February 17, 2006 - link
After Asus's false advertising of the A8R-MVP as being designed for "Serious Overclockers"; After Asus's failure to fix the long list of defects on the A8R-MVP which include 1T memory, Vcore instability, BIOS issues, etc.; After Asus's failure to acknowledge the known problems with the A8R-MVP; After Asus's refusal to even discuss the problems of the A8R-MVP with customers; After Asus's refusal to provide a proper BIOS upgrade to correct the defects in the A8R-MVP; After Asus's denial that the A8R-MVP mobo even existed after people bought it; After Asus's refusal to provide the same BIOS to consumers that they provided to Anandtech...there will never be another Asus product purchased by our company. Asus can stick their entire product line where the Sun don't shine. They've burned us for the last time. They may think they got away with defrauding consumers with the defective A8R-MVP mobos but they are in for one big surprise.
DanaGoyette - Sunday, February 19, 2006 - link
Refusal to provide the same BIOS...Hey, that gives me an idea! I wonder if Anandtech still has their A8R-MBP -- if they do, they should make a bios backup and post it!
matthewfoley - Wednesday, March 1, 2006 - link
If any of you read the article they offered anyone who emailed them a copy of the same bios that they used. If you really want it I can get it for you.DanaGoyette - Sunday, March 5, 2006 - link
Oh, I don't even have the board, but shouldn't it be easy to post the BIOS on the site rather than just through e-mail?BPB - Friday, February 17, 2006 - link
This doesn't make sense: "there will never be another Asus product purchased by our company". Why would a business care about overclocking? A business should care about STABILITY.DigitalFreak - Friday, February 17, 2006 - link
They should have moved the only PCI-E 1x slot to the left. They way it is now, you lose that slot when using a dual slot cooler in the PCI-E 16x slot closest to the processor. Hopefully that will be changed on the AM2 version of the board.aguilpa1 - Friday, February 17, 2006 - link
a 7800 and 1900 this way we can better gauge the mean performance of the "board" with identical comparison to other previously tested boards because not everyone is going to run out and get a $600 1900 ATI just for this board.Wesley Fink - Friday, February 17, 2006 - link
We DID test the A8R32-MVP with both the X1900XT and the 7800GTX. If you closely at the standard gaming performance graphs on p.9 you will see the orange bars are the A8R32-MVP test eith the X1900XT and the green bars are the same A8R32-MVP tests with the 7800GTX. The other board results are with the 7800GTX so if you compare the green bar to all the blue bars you are comparing 7800GTX performance on ATI and nVidia. In addition, all the bars are labeled with the test board and test video card to prevent confusion.This is explained in Test Setup on p.6, and in my comment above, "We reported both results so you could compare 7800GTX performance to the previous boards also tested with the 7800GTX. Since the X1900XT is the latest and fastest video card the results were included for Reference only. As someone else pointed out, when testing Dual X16 Video you have to run SLI on nVidia and Crossfire on ATI (or Intel)."
aguilpa1 - Friday, February 17, 2006 - link
never mind, I see someone asked the same question, but were not given a reasonable answer anywaysBPB - Friday, February 17, 2006 - link
This is exciting news. But I plan on getting the X1900 AIW, which won't do Crossfire. So, when are we going to see non-Crossfire (Xpress 200-type) versions of this chipset? In the end I may get this board, but I'm hoping I can save a few bucks by getting one without the added cost of Crossfire.Wesley Fink - Wednesday, March 1, 2006 - link
RD580 is only available as the dual x16 version. With both x16 lanes off the north bridge you can't really leave out a chip, as you can in the nVidia version right now, and lower the price. The single X16 slot and dual x8 Crossfire will be provided by RD480.n7 - Friday, February 17, 2006 - link
Looks like a superb motherboard for the price!Zebo - Friday, February 17, 2006 - link
Look perfect to me. Black, high clocker, built like a tank and relativly inexpensive. I wish they had this two months ago - U seen my DFI chipset mod what a PITA to get silent chipset sitting right under card.:( Not only is ATI chispet seemingly cooler leaving us with passive solutions they clock at least as well if not better.Zebo - Friday, February 17, 2006 - link
Also the gap between PCIe cards is perfect to run water blocks too and well as nV/ATI silencers w/o touching or being cramped..SuperStrokey - Friday, February 17, 2006 - link
i assume that was not the gtx512 was it? If so wowDeathBooger - Friday, February 17, 2006 - link
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?Web...">http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?Web...If you do a currency conversion it's $217USD. Some lucky guy actually got to buy it before they were supposed to sell it. http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=...">http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=...
Egglick - Friday, February 17, 2006 - link
Why would you use two different videocards when benchmarking a motherboard?? This really tells us nothing about the motherboards performance in relation to the others, because you have another huge variable.Wesley Fink - Friday, February 17, 2006 - link
As we stated in the test setup we ran BOTH the 7800GTX and the X1900XT video card on the Asus A8R32-MVP. We reported both results so you could compare 7800GTX performance to the previous boards also tested with the 7800GTX. Since the X1900XT is the latest and fastest video card the results were included for Reference only - many would have asked for X199XT results if they were excluded.As someone else pointed out, when testing Dual X16 Video you have to run SLI on nVidia and Crossfire on ATI (or Intel).
andrewln - Friday, February 17, 2006 - link
because you can not run SLI in Crossfire motherboardstuteja1986 - Friday, February 17, 2006 - link
Why didn't Asus include the cool feel as they did with the ASUS A8N 32-SLI. Like the 8-Phase Power and the cool looking Fanless Motherboard cooling system.mino - Friday, February 17, 2006 - link
Just wondering. maybe 8-phase is a waste for ~60 watt Athlon64s. Also why do a fancy(an expensive) "cool looking Fanless Motherboard cooling system" when chipset is cool and doesn not need one at all???I.m glad someone has a sense and doesn't produce third central heater in the system(after CPU & GPU).
Hoping SB600 will be a good one.
Wesley Fink - Friday, February 17, 2006 - link
The RD580 chipset also ran very cool on this board, so there may not be the need for the more exotic passive heatpipe cooling used on the A8N32-SLI.Wesley Fink - Friday, February 17, 2006 - link
The A8R32-MVP was designed to sell for a lower price - probably around $130 to $150, where the A8N32-SLI was designed to sell for $200+. While the A8R32-MVP isn't 8-phase, it actually overclocked ba bit better and gave up nothing to the more expensive and excellent A8N32-SLI in performance. This board can also run dual X1900XT cards in Crossfire mode.tuteja1986 - Friday, February 17, 2006 - link
I wonder how much will it sell for and if it goes arround same price as Asus A8N 32-SLI (220ish). if it cost that much then i will end up buying DFI RD580 motherboard if its got no issue bugs like the 1st rev of DFI RD480 CRossfire.Paratus - Friday, February 17, 2006 - link
If i win the X2 4600 I'm buying this board!BPB - Wednesday, March 1, 2006 - link
It's $280 at ZZF. Not exactly cheap. Certainly not what the article estimated.DigitalFreak - Wednesday, March 1, 2006 - link
ZZF is a pretty good outfit, but they will rape you on pricing if you want something on "day 1".Gary Key - Wednesday, March 1, 2006 - link
The board should settle to the US $130~$150 price range. The prices will run high at first until supply meets demand. We are a little unsettled with the current trend of pricing by the resellers at product launch but it will continue to occur as long as people are willing to pay the price to be the first to own. ;-)
tuteja1986 - Wednesday, March 1, 2006 - link
dude the board isn't offically out :! march 2nd launch date i think or its March 3rd :!