A8V Deluxe Recommendation

  • Thread starter Thread starter name
  • Start date Start date
N

name

Hi, I'm new to this ng and hope someone can help.
I'm a pc tech and network engineer, no heavy multimedia, gaming, etc....
and I'd like some info on the A8V Deluxe.
I'm interested in whether this board is stable and able to OC reasonably
well. I'm keeping my existing AGP vid and IDE drives and later getting
some SATA drives. I considering this board because of several reviews
I've read and because this seems to be the most active ng, as opposed to
Soltek, Gigabyte and Soyo.
And, lastly, I thinking of the 3500+, any discernible difference between
the Newcastle and Winchester cores?

TIA,
john
 
Can't address the OC aspect, because I don't do it, but I've
had the A8V Deluxe with a Newcastle 3500+ running for about
45 days now with absolutely no stability problems.

IIRC, the Winchester core is 90nm technology as opposed to
the Newcastle core with 130nm technology. The Winchester
is supposed to run cooler. However, in an Antec Sonata case,
my no-load CPU temp is only 45C and at full load it's 51C,
so I have no temperature problem with the Newcastle.
 
Forgot to mention that I'm running an IDE drive as
well as two SATA drives too. No problems at all.
 
CapeGuy said:
Forgot to mention that I'm running an IDE drive as
well as two SATA drives too. No problems at all.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the info. I'll go with the Winchester. I have an Antec full
tower with 3 fans and with no intensive cpu loads I'm not worried about
heat. How's the RAID software with this board?
 
name said:
Thanks for the info. I'll go with the Winchester. I have an Antec full
tower with 3 fans and with no intensive cpu loads I'm not worried about
heat. How's the RAID software with this board?
Click to expand...

Sorry, but I can't comment on that. I'm not running RAID.
 
Quoth The Raven "name said:
Hi, I'm new to this ng and hope someone can help.
I'm a pc tech and network engineer, no heavy multimedia, gaming,
etc.... and I'd like some info on the A8V Deluxe.
I'm interested in whether this board is stable and able to OC
reasonably well. I'm keeping my existing AGP vid and IDE drives and
later getting some SATA drives. I considering this board because of
several reviews I've read and because this seems to be the most
active ng, as opposed to Soltek, Gigabyte and Soyo.
And, lastly, I thinking of the 3500+, any discernible difference
between the Newcastle and Winchester cores?

TIA,
john
Click to expand...

I just OC'ed my 3000+ up 600MHz to a 3800+ equivalent cpu. not bad on this
board. however I am having voltage problems and a slight instability with
Pime95. games run great though, no crashes. I use a Winchester core as it
has the 90nm tech, while the Newcastle has the older 130nm. you can over
that 3500 close to a 4000+ or more with this board on that cpu, while still
being 90nm.
 
A word of caution:

The A8V Rev 2 requires BIOS version 1007 or later, to work properly with
Winchester CPUs. Some of the newer CPUs want BIOS 1009.

http://www.asus.com.tw/support/cpusupport/cpusupport.aspx

It may be possible to update the BIOS if you have a Winchester CPU, but I've
not done that. (My 3500+ is a Newcastle, purchased last summer. The
Thermalright XP-120 heatsink that I'm using with it is probably absurd, but
it weighs less than some smaller all-copper ones.)

I've had no trouble with the Via SATA RAID controller, with a mild overclock
(220 MHz FSB, AGP/PCI lock set to 66/33 MHz). This is with a pair of
WD1600JD drives in RAID 0. Some recommend using the Promise controller
instead, but I haven't tried it.

HTH.

Bob Knowlden

Address may be scrambled. Replace nkbob with bobkn.
 
Bob said:
A word of caution:

The A8V Rev 2 requires BIOS version 1007 or later, to work properly with
Winchester CPUs. Some of the newer CPUs want BIOS 1009.

http://www.asus.com.tw/support/cpusupport/cpusupport.aspx

It may be possible to update the BIOS if you have a Winchester CPU, but I've
not done that. (My 3500+ is a Newcastle, purchased last summer. The
Thermalright XP-120 heatsink that I'm using with it is probably absurd, but
it weighs less than some smaller all-copper ones.)

I've had no trouble with the Via SATA RAID controller, with a mild overclock
(220 MHz FSB, AGP/PCI lock set to 66/33 MHz). This is with a pair of
WD1600JD drives in RAID 0. Some recommend using the Promise controller
instead, but I haven't tried it.

HTH.

Bob Knowlden

Address may be scrambled. Replace nkbob with bobkn.
Click to expand...
That's important to know. There's not too much of a price difference,
so whatever is easiest to setup. I'm more concerned about the right
heatsink and grease, probrably Thermalright and Artic Silver, but I'm
ordering from newegg.com and there good about letting you know what you
need. I'm ordering RAM from Mushkin and their reps are, also, very
knowledgeable. I'll play around with both RAID controllers and see what
happens. I'm not sure which controller I'm going to boot from, it
depends if I'm going with SATA drives now or later.

I thank you for all your help.
 
I'm running 2 sata 160 gig drives in Raid 0. I'm using the Promise Raid. I
initially setup using the Via Raid but as soon as I overclocked to 10% the
Via Raid config was lost. I have seen a lot of posts about the Via Raid not
functioning well with any overclocking whereas the Promise can handle it
well.
I am very pleased with this board as the performance and stability is
fantastic.

Antec SLK3700AMB
Enermax 420W
A8V Deluxe.
Newcastle 3500+
1 Gig PC3200 setup in Dual Channel
BFG 6800 Overclocked.
 
Hi, all A8V's have the correct bios now, mine was purchased last nov and
worked with a Winchester right out of the box....
ChrisC
 
Back
Top