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- Date:
- Wednesday, March 01, 2006
- Author:
- Daniel Dobrowolski
- Editor:
- Kyle Bennett
- Google +1
ASUS A8R32-MVP Deluxe
ATI's CrossFire Xpress 3200 motherboard chipset makes its debut in the form of the ASUS A8R32-MVP Deluxe. This is the first ATI-based motherboard we would consider using ourselves. ASUS has built a solid product with a well-engineered chipset.
ASUS Utilities
The A8R32-MVP Deluxe comes with ASUS' bundled ASUS Utilities. First is ASUS PC Probe II and the second is ASUS Update. The first is a thermal monitoring and reporting tool. It is useful for system information and monitoring, as well as controlling alarm thresholds for various motherboard temperatures and fan monitors. The second is for updating the system CMOS while still being in a Windows environment.
The ASUS PC Probe II utility allows the user to monitor voltages, temperatures of the CPU and other monitored temperature zones. By default, power, chassis, and CPU fans are monitored. Voltage status for VCore, +3.3v, +5v, and 12v are all monitored. CPU and motherboard temperatures are reported as well. The voltages and thermal readings are all shown in rectangular boxes. They have magnet symbol icons at their top right hand corners, and when clicked, they disconnect the status display from the one above. Once they are separated the displayed data cells can be moved around your desktop easily. You can therefore configure the layout of the status windows anyway you see fit. The main part of the PC Probe application, is a hexagonal window and when the green arrow tab is clicked, the hexagon expands allowing configuration of the utility itself. Just to the right of that, is where you'll find detailed DMI, WMI, PCI and usage information. There is an alert log also, that shows any kind of errors reported by the motherboard such as abnormal fan speeds, or thermal alerts.
The usage information is shown in the form of graphs, very similar to Windows drive usage pie charts. These pie charts show CPU, memory, and hard drive usage. Also, just under the ASUS logo is a reporting tool. This tool shows detailed system information for the purpose of giving to ASUS tech support should it be needed to troubleshoot an issue.
ASUS Update gives the end user the ability to update the BIOS within Windows rather than by using a floppy disk. This is good for two reasons. The first of which is that you don't have to have a floppy drive in your PC to do the update. The second is that it is considerably easier to perform an update this way rather than create boot disks without memory managers and so on. The ASUS utility also gives you several options to update the BIOS, either from a file or from the ASUS FTP site. Also, it works in conjunction with ASUS My Logo, which allows you to customize your BIOS.
ASUS My Logo gives the end user or an OEM the ability to customize the motherboard's boot logo with any bitmap they choose, provided it meets the requirements. Large images of course can not be used due to the fact that a BIOS ROM is relatively small. Images up to 256-bit color at 640x480 pixels are supported. The utility is very easy to use and should be no problem for intermediate or advanced users. The use of My Logo does require already having a copy of the desired BIOS version on the systems hard drive. You can then browse to the image you wish to use and the final screen merges the two files together into a custom BIOS. Then the BIOS can be flashed with the customized logo completing the customization process.