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- Date:
- Monday , January 30, 2006
- Author:
- Daniel Dobrowolski
- Editor:
- Kyle Bennett
- Google +1
ASUS A8N32-SLI Deluxe
ASUS has added the A8N32-SLI Deluxe motherboard to their already successful and highly-acclaimed A8N series. Is this board a worthy successor to the A8N line?
BIOS
ASUS used the American Megatrends BIOS with the A8N32-SLI Deluxe. We had issues with the initial release BIOS; therefore, we had to use BIOS 0806 obtained early from ASUS. Until updating to beta BIOS 0805, I wasn't able to get a stable installation of Windows XP. After obtaining BIOS 0806, all the board’s issues were solved.
The main settings tab is where the familiar time and date settings are found, as well as the drive detection options. You will find this page looks and functions like the main pages of most BIOSs found on every board. However, at the bottom of this page is the IDE section, which configures settings for the NVRAID controller. Here, SATA controllers 1 and 2 can be enabled or disabled. Under that are the main NVRAID settings. Here you choose RAID or SATA mode. Finally, there are the SATA1 or SATA2 controller RAID enable or Disable settings.
Under the Advanced Tab is where the majority of the board configuration takes place. The first heading under this tab is LAN Cable Status, which provides a virtual loopback tester for testing the network card and network cables. Under that are AMD's Cool 'N Quiet Configuration settings.
The ASUS JumperFree configuration utility contains the CPU and chipset frequency settings. The first setting is AI Overclocking. This setting is responsible for controlling CPU clock speeds. The first selection is manual, fallowed by auto, standard, overclock profile (for preset overclocking settings), and AI NOS. Manual allows the user to specify all the desired settings. You can set stock clock speeds or overclock speeds by increasing the FSB speed, which is done in increments of 1MHz. The auto setting simply leaves the CPU at its default speeds, and it allows control through the Windows-based Ai Booster utility. Standard sets the CPU's default frequency and nothing else. Next is the Overclock Profile setting, which uses %-based profiles (1%, 3%, 5%, 8% and 10%) that are static. AI NOS uses exactly the same percentage-based values, but it keeps the CPU at stock speeds and increases the clocks when load is placed on the CPU. Therefore, when the system is idle, it runs at the default CPU clock speed.
Next is voltage selection. ASUS has included some over voltage adjustments for CPU Vcore, NB and SB Vcore, and for the HyperTransport links as well. These can be helpful when overclocking as it allows for the possibility of improving stability at higher FSB speeds. These settings did come in handy in our testing (more on that in the overclocking section).
ASUS has some unique functions in the BIOS that I haven't seen on any other motherboards to date. The SB to NB frequency setting is the next setting after the CPU settings. This setting is for the bus between the NB and SB. There is the potential to increase performance somewhat with these settings; however, I haven't been able to discern any performance impact by changing these settings. PCI-E frequency selection is standard fare, offering speeds up to 150MHz. The PEG Link mode is a kind of overclocking for your PCI-Express graphics cards bus. Whereas PCI-E frequency affects the entire PCI-Express bus, PEG Link mode only affects the two PCI-Express x16 slots.
Under CPU configuration, there is a list displayed of the memory-related settings such as CAS latencies and timing rate. There are two headings there, Memory Configuration and ECC Configuration. To adjust the settings, you must go to the Memory Settings tab, and then to Memory Configuration submenu. From there, the first setting you will find is MemClock Mode, which has an Auto and Limit setting. The Auto setting configures the memory by the RAM’s SPD values. Limit, as it would imply, locks the memory clock frequencies to whatever settings you specify. Memory divider ratios are controlled in this way. There are values from 100-250MHz available in 16MHz and 33MHz intervals. MCT Timing Mode is where you will find the actual CAS latency adjustments, as follows: CAS, TRAS (Min Ras Active Time), TRP (Row Precharge Time), TRCD (RAS To CAS Delay), TRRD (Row to Row Delay), TRC (Row Cycle Time), TRFC (Row Refresh Cycle Timing), and TRWT. MCT Extra Timing Mode has additional latency settings for even further tweaking. TREF, TWCL, and R/W Queue Bypass Count, Bypass Max, Idle Cycle Limit, and Dynamic Idle Cycle Center are all listed there. Next are the DDR Input Strobe Skew and DDR Data Driving Strength settings, fallowed by an additional User Config Mode section that has Read Preamble and Async Latency settings. Bank Interleaving has two settings below that, Auto and Disabled. Burst Length and Hardware Memory Hole configuration settings are the last items on this page of the BIOS configuration.