ASUS A8R32-MVP Deluxe Motherboard Review

By

The ASUS A8R32-MVP Deluxe Arrives

Image Description

When ATI released the RD480 chipset, commonly known as the Radeon Xpress 200 CrossFire, it turned out to be a hit or miss affair for the motherboard partners. Some manufacturers boards were unstable and released with poorly implemented BIOS menus. When we looked at a number of the boards all we encountred was problems. I personally got owned by one of the problem partner boards when I showed off the just released AMD Athlon 64 FX-60 processor with ATI’s most recent verison of CrossFire cards on one of the early revision DFI Lanparty UT RDX200 CF-DR boards. In the middle of the presentation our system had several Blue Screens of Death (BSOD) and our brand new installation of Windows XP Professional was dead. The most upsetting part about our whole expierence was that the ATI reference board worked perfectly, overclocked like mad, and was rock solid. The problem was with the board partners and ATI and Legit Reviews both knew that. Fast forward several months and ATI launched a new program called ATI Certified Motherboards. This program makes sure the board, manuals, and packaging meets ATI’s standards and that is something Legit Reviews fully supports. Kudos to ATI stepping up to the plate and fixing something before it got out of control!

Today Legit Reviews takes a look at the ASUS A8R32-MVP Deluxe motherboard, which is the first and only CrossFire Xpress 3200 chipset board that is certified by ATI Technologies Certification Program. When you are looking to buy an ATI chipset motherboard make sure the symbol below is on the box!

ATI Certified Motherboard

Without further delay Let’s take a look at the specs of the ASUS A8R32-MVP Deluexe motherboard!

CPU
Socket 939 for AMD Opteron?/Athlon? 64 FX/ Athlon? 64 X2/ Athlon? 64
AMD64 architecture enables simultaneous 32-bit and 64-bit computing
AMD Cool ‘n’ Quiet!? Technology
AMD HyperTransport Technology
Chipset
ATI? CrossFire? Xpress 3200/ULI M1575
Front Side Bus
2000/1600 MT/s
Memory
4 x DIMM, max. 4GB, DDR 400/333/266, ECC and non-ECC, un-buffered memory
Dual Channel Memory Architecture
Expansion Slots
2 x PCI Express x16 slot with CrossFire support at full x16, x16 mode
1 x PCI Express x1
3 x PCI
CrossFire
Support ATI CrossFire graphics cards (both at x16 mode)
Storage/RAID
ULi M1575 South Bridge:
– 2 x UltraDMA 133/100/66/33
– 4 x Serial ATA I/II 3.0Gb/s with RAID 0, 1, 0+1, 5 and JBOD support

Silicon Image 3132 SATA controller supports
– 1 x Internal Serial ATA 3 Gb/s hard disk
– 1 x External Serial ATA hard disk (SATA On-the-Go)
– Support RAID 0, 1

Audio
Realtek ALC882 8-channel CODEC
Universal Audio Jack
Multi-Streaming
Coaxial / Optical S/PDIF out ports on back I/O
LAN
Marvell 88E8053 PCIe Gigabit LAN Controller, featuring AI NET2
Marvell 88E8001 Gigabit LAN Controller, featuring AI NET2
IEEE 1394a
TI 1394a controller supports:
– 2x IEEE 1394a connectors at midboard
USB
Max. 8 USB 2.0/1.1 ports
ASUS AI Life Features
Stack Cool 2
SATA on the Go (External SATA on back I/O port)
Overclocking Features
Intelligent overclocking tools:
– AI NOS? (Non-delay Overclocking System)
– AI Overclocking (intelligent CPU frequency tuner)
– ASUS PEG Link – Automatically performance tuning for single/dual graphics cards

Precision Tweaker:
– vDIMM: 12-step DRAM voltage control
– vCore: Adjustable CPU voltage at 0.025V increment
– vNB:Northbridge provides independent voltage adjustment at 0.1 V increment for core power,HT bus and PCI Express bus.

SFS (Stepless Frequency Selection)
– FSB tuning from 200MHz up to 400MHz at 1MHz increment
– PCI Express tuning from 100MHz up to 150MHz at 1MHz increment

Overclocking Protection:
– ASUS C.P.R.(CPU Parameter Recall)

Special Features
ASUS MyLogo2
Multi-language BIOS
CrashFree BIOS2
ASUS AI NET2
ASUS Q-Fan2 Technology
ASUS EZ Flash
Back Panel I/O Ports
1 x PS/2 Keyboard
1 x PS/2 Mouse
1 x Parallel
1 x Coaxial S/PDIF Out
1 x Optical S/PDIF Out
1 x External SATA
2 x RJ45
4 x USB 2.0/1.1
8-Channel Audio I/O
Internal I/O Connectors
2 x USB 2.0 connector supports additional 4 USB 2.0 ports
2 x IEEE1394a connectors
5 x SATA connectors
2 x IDE connectors
1 x Floppy disk drive connector
1 x GAME/MIDI connector
1 x CPU/ 2 x Chassis/ 1 x Power FAN connectors
1 x COM connector
24-pin ATX Power connector
4-pin ATX 12V Power connector
Chassis Intrusion
CD audio in connector
Front panel High Definition Audio connector
System panel connector
BIOS
8Mb Flash ROM, AMI BIOS, PnP, DMI2.0, SM BIOS 2.3, WfM2.0
Manageability
WfM 2.0,DMI 2.0,WOL by PME,WOR by PME, Chassis Intrusion, PXE and RPL
Support CD
Drivers
ASUS PC Probe II
ASUS Update
Anti-virus software (OEM version)
Accessories
User’s manual
5 x Serial ATA cables
2 x 2-port Serial ATA power cables
1 x 1-port Serial ATA power cable
2-port IEEE1394 module
1 x 2-port USB2.0 / Game module
COM port module
1 x UltraDMA 133/100/66 cable
IDE cable
FDD cable
I/O shield
InterVideo Media Launcher
Form Factor
ATX Form Factor, 12″x 9.6″(30.5cm x 24.5cm)

The ASUS A8R32-MVP Deluxe Motherboard

Ok, let’s move on and take a look at the layout of the board.

Comments are closed.