A8N-SLI Deluxe & ATI

[Forrest]

I'm wanting to buy this mobo but I didn't find any info on ATI's website on SLI. Does this mean that the A8N-SLI Deluxe doesn't support ATI graphics cards?

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Forrest on 02/19/05 04:35 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[Forrest]

Ok, I've done some further searching and it looks like all that I have to do is wait for ATI to make an SLI ready graphics card.


Pulled from ASUS website:
- Under SLI mode : support two identical SLI-ready graphics cards
- Under Default(Single VGA) mode: supports all PCI Express graphics cards
- ASUS EZ Plug
- ASUS SLI Warning LED
- ASUS EZ Selector
- ASUS two-slot thermal design
- ASUS PEG Link for dual PCIe graphic cards - ASUS PEG Link for dual PCIe graphic cards

 

[Guest]

At this point ATI's highest end grafix cards like x850xt and x850xt platinum edition will run most games about as well or better than sli, unless you want to run your games in super high resolution. Check out the THG comparisons for more info.

<font color=green> Woohoo!! I am officially a <b> Journeyman </b>!! </font color=green>

 

[tweebel]

It is very well possible that an ATI SLI solution won't be compatible with nVidia chipsets. It is even very well possible that nVidia cards will never be compatible with the SLI solution from VIA. ATI will probably launch its own chipset for that because they will have to license nVidia's SLI solution or build a new one themself.

 

[Forrest]

It says under VGA mode that it supports PCIe cards. Does that mean that I could (if I wanted to) use a Built By ATI X850 (PRO/XT/XT PLATINUM) card in this mother board or is this board limited to SLI nVidia cards?

I am four days from ordering this board along with the rest of the PC parts. I'm starting to think I should wait it out a couple of months to see what becomes avialible.

 

[Rugger]

The board will take any PCIe card, but only nVidia cards will be able to use the SLI functionality now. More than likely ATIs SLI solution will not be compatible with nVidia - them being competitors makes it a near certainty. I can't imagine ATI wanting to have to pay nVidia for the rights to use nVidia tech. Even if they did, i would think the price nVidia would charge would make the deal untenable for ATI. Instead of ATI making thier ownchipset, I think it's more likely that they would team up with another chipset maker for their SLI solution. Any way you look at it the added competition will be good for us, the consumers.

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[Forrest]

Thanks for the info fellas,

Man, I'm at a loss here. I really want a kickin system. This will be the first time I'm building my own. I didn't want to list off all the components because I wasn't sure if this would be the right place to post. I've been digging and noticed some PC lists here so I guess I won't get the boot lol. Any help on this would be greatly appreciated.

CPU: AMD 64 3500+
There are a couple reasons I chose this chip. Mostly because I did a ton of research and found out that AMD chips are more likely to deal with video gaming better than Intel chips. Another reason is that I'm assuming (yes I know, don't assume anything) that the 939 socket is a great socket to go with for upgrading at a later time. I'm hoping that AMD will stick with it for awhile so I can see better chips to upgrade to later on as the prices come down. A huge deciding factor for this specific model was the price vs power. It just looks like a good deal to me.

New Heatsync:Thermaltake SILENT BOOST For AMD Opteron and Athlon 64 (All Copper) -RETAIL
Its copper and it fits AMD 64 socket 939 chips. Not sure if theres anything better.


Case: Lian Li PC-v2100B
I know this is one huge case. It’s stated as a full tower. I've chosen this case due to the sheer size and future upgradeability. First time I saw it I fell in love lol. It’s pretty inspiring

Mother Board:ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe
I'm a little confused at the moment as to whether or not I should even be looking at this board. I originally loved it for the duel PCIe slots and amount of RAM it'll hold. I like the fact that it will hold two video cards but I don't like that it won't be able hold two ATI cards.

RAM: CORSAIR XMS Extreme Memory Speed Series, (Twin Pack)
I decided on this because it came with 2, 1 gig chips for a total of around 2 gigs of RAM. The info on them looks promising.

HardDrive:Western Digital Raptor 74GB 10,000 RPM SATA
What can I say? The more speed the better right?

DVD RW/CD RW DRIVE: Plextor 16X Dual Layer DVD+/-RW SATA Drive, Model PX-716SA/SW
Never had a DVD burner before but this looks fast and it’s a SATA interface.

DVD READ/CD READ DRIVE: Can't find one

PSU: Antec 550W Power Supply, Model "TRUE550" “24 PIN CONNECTOR”
This looks pretty good. I don't know anything about what PSU to pick but I have been reading up on it through some articles on tomshardare. This one seemed to get a good rating. I've chosen a 550w because I may need the power later on when I'm upgrading. Even if I don't upgrade I can't see why it would hurt, or am I wrong here?

Video Card: Haven’t decided yet. Maybe an X850 XT if I can get a hold of one.

I think that’s all the important stuff. If anyone sees any problems or doesn't think that one of these parts are compatible, reliable, or just useless please post and tell me why. I'm up for suggestions at this point.

I'll be using this PC for gameing, online gameing, enternet use, 3d modeling, and school work. I'm willing to shell out some extra cash but I would like it to be under $2,800 or near that amount. I've priced out all these parts on newegg and almost placed the order but I just want to make sure it'll all work out. I've heard some horror stories and I don't want the same things to happen to me.

I forgot to mention that I'm not too comfortable with OC'ing anything. I've never done it and really don't want to.

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Forrest on 02/21/05 02:53 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[Guest]

If you decide to go with the ATI card, I'd say to go for one of DFI's lanparty nforce4 boards. Nice features, solid board, great for OC, and you can get sli or not depending on which of the 3 boards you choose. You should check them out

<font color=green> Woohoo!! I am officially a <b> Journeyman </b>!! </font color=green>

 

[Rugger]

If you're going to get an ATI card, then don't get an SLI motherboard - you're wasting money. Go with a mobo that has the nF4 Ultra chipset something like <A HREF="http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?description=13-136-152&depa=1" target="_new">DFI Lanparty UT nF4 Ultra-D</A> or the <A HREF="http:// www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?description=13-127-196&depa=1" target="_new">Abit Fatal1ty AN8</A>.

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[TAZ]

got to agree with rugger, don't bother with SLI if your definetly set on an ATI GC.

make sure you RAM is compatable with this board, she's fussy. off the cuff i think your safe but it would be a good idea to check the data sheet on the ASUS website.

on another note you might want to look in to the PSU a little more, 550W should be fine but there are new spec PSU out now (v2.0's) which run more stable right up to the redline. check out the antec neopower range.

also, any DVD reader drive will read cd's, if you want a second drive just get a DVD/CD-RW combo drive, they ain't expensive these days.

the 3500+ is nice, i have one, runs nice and cool though so unless you're planning a lot of overclocking i'd just stick with the boxed cooler and maybe change for a better grade thermal paste. the athlons have always had a better architecture for gaming than the P4, it's just a better processor for multitasking which is what games require, the P4 always had the speed on it's side though and it's only now that the athlon is starting to get the credit that it always deserved. i've been building athlon based gaming systems for years now.

as for the 939 upgradability thing i heard a whisper that it may even support the dual core architectures when they arrive. anyone care to comment on this as i'm entirely uncertain?

first time i've come across an SATA optical drive, we don't have them in europe yet , let me know how that goes.

good luck and have fun, it's a great feeling when you bring a computer to life...

be sure to invest in some anti-static/ESD(electrostatic disipative) gear, wristband and mat should suffice. it's a lot cheaper than buying a new MOBO or processor after the static in your lovely cotton t-shirt ruined it on you.

 

[ChipDeath]

First off, I agree that SLI is completely pointless if you want an Ati card. It also doesn't help all that much, and by the time you <i>need</i> a vid card upgrade, you'll likely find there's a better alternative single card anyway...

Save the cash and don't get an SLI board, basically.

If you're not overclocking, just buy a boxed CPU then you get the AMD retail heatsink, and won't need to bother with that thermaltake thing. I'm using the stock HS on my 3200+ A64, and I'm overclocking, so it'll be fine for a non-oced system. (although I'm shortly going to get a ThermalRight XP-120 anyway, so I can overclock and suffer less noise at the same time).

Also, if you can, try to get a 'Winchester',(90nm) core A64 instead of the Newcastle (130nm) (IIRC the 3500+ is available in both cores). It runs a little cooler than the newcastle. Not that much in it, but every little helps

Aside from all that, I can see you've already put a decent amount of research into this. Well done! Quite rare to see that, normally people don't bother, but that's a bit lazy really....

Don't forget you need to get an OS too. Windows XP is not cheap (unless you happen to have the right friends of course... *cough*oneswithafastinternetconnection*cough*)

For office stuff (word, excel, etc) there's openoffice.org. I've been using it for a month or two, it can read and write files in Excel/PowerPoint/Word format, and is a completely free and legal ~50Mb download. Hell, I use it at work even though we have MS Office here, because I don't think it has pinball/flight simulators/etc pointlessly built in & consuming resources.

---
"Sex without love is an empty experience...
But as empty experiences go, it's one of the best" - Woody Allen

 

[ChipDeath]

Oh, and one other thing:
With the size of games increasing, with many now available on DVDs, even if you don't store any movies and a huge music collection, you'll probably find that 74Gb dissapears quite quickly. I would suggest using that one as the System disk, and have all the most used stuff on there, but get a bigger cheaper drive as well, like some 250 or 400Gb monster.

I think all my games take up more than 80Gb now, and having to remove a game to install another is a pain. Been there with a 386 with a 60Mb Hard disk, don't wanna be there again! :lol:

---
"Sex without love is an empty experience...
But as empty experiences go, it's one of the best" - Woody Allen

 

[Forrest]

Thanks for the feed back guys, good info .

That ABIT Fatality A8N looks good. More than likely that’s what I'll get. I would much rather have the options to buy a card from either ATI or gForce if I wanted to.

I have already purchased Windows XP PRO for this PC (the pc I'm typing on). Will I have to buy another copy or can I use the same one?

I haven’t read anything solid about AMD 64's overheating but I have an AMD 1900+ and the fan that came with it was a little wimpy. It was overheating and I had to buy a new heat sync. So I bought a copper one and it works great now. Also it looks like there is only one 120mm fan on the case and I've seen where people were saying it wasn't enough. That info on the 3500+ makes since, I saw two of them listed in newegg and couldn't find out why one was more than the other lol.

I was thinking of "stripping" (I think that’s what it's called) two of those 74-ers together in the raid 0 thing. I'm just hoping that I'll still be able to hook up the SATA DVD RW/ CD RW drive.

For the PSU. I'm looking at the info on newegg for the Fortron Blue Storm 500w ATX12V V2.0 and the Antec NeoPower 480 watt. There is something in the info listed as "PFC" and I can see that one is "active" and the other is "Passive". What does that mean?

I found an anti-static wrist band but couldn't find a matt on newegg. The wrist band is only 10 dollars so I think I buy it. Thanks for the info on that


I'll let you guys know how that SATA DVD/CD drive works out as soon as I can get it up and running.

 

[ChipDeath]

My cpu is a 3200+ winchester. That's 2Ghz, 1.4V at stock speeds. It's currently running @ 2580Mhz, 1.53V, and a load temp. of 47C. Current Uptime is around 30 hours I think. So the chip is damn good, but the stock cooler's pretty good too on these .

Striping 2 Drives in RAID 0 should give performance benifits for some things, but most people don't think it helps much most of the time. I have two 80Gb disks in RAID0, and I quite like the performance myself ... But then I've never used those disks singly anyway...

I've never bothered with any anti-static measures. All I do is install the PSU first, and plug it in to a socket that's switched off. That way the whole case is an excellent ground, so you keep naturally ridding yourself of any static whilst installing components. I've not killed anything (thru static ) yet, and hope I'm not tempting fate by saying so :lol: .

---
"Sex without love is an empty experience...
But as empty experiences go, it's one of the best" - Woody Allen

 

[ChipDeath]

I have already purchased Windows XP PRO for this PC (the pc I'm typing on). Will I have to buy another copy or can I use the same one?

Well, technically you're supposed to stop using that PC to use the other one. I'm not sure how happy the activation would be on a new machine, but I think if you 'phone microsoft you can get it activated....

<pre>You can get cracks for these things too, of course, if you're that way inclined. </pre><p>---
"Sex without love is an empty experience...
But as empty experiences go, it's one of the best" - Woody Allen

 

[Forrest]

For XP I did originally have a hacked XP PRO on this pc. I went to update and got an email from Microsoft lol. So I went out and bought a good version of XP PRO. Funny thing is that when I went to install it wouldn't take... now every time I reformat I have to use the hacked version first, then reinstall windows with the good version... its a pain, trust me. So I think I'll just give them a call just to make sure

About these PSU's, which is better the Antec Neo or the Fortron Blue Storm?

Stripping... will this lower the life expectancy of my HD's? It just seems to me that it wouldn't be any worse off than using only one HD.

 

[Guest]

I'm partial to the blue storm, but i suppose either is good

<font color=green> Woohoo!! I am officially a <b> Journeyman </b>!! </font color=green>

 

[TAZ]

i can vouch for the neopower 480W, lovely unit, very quiet. to answer an ealier question on active/passive PFC, as far as i know PFC == power fan control. active == auto control, passive prob means you can set it yourself. there is no speed control on the neopower fan but you *really* don't need it, the thing is whisper quiet.

striping won't damage your HD's, all it does is write half the data to one and half the data to the other in a "striped" fashion. the big plus is the referencing and write speed bonus, the BIG minus is that if one drive fails, you've lost half of every file you have. personally i have never bothered with a striped raid array i don't think that it's necessary although there are plenty who will say otherwise. however, given the nature or todays bigger drives tending to fail after a depressingly short period of time, i am a big fan of the mirrored raid set. again you'll get arguments for and against but at least i know that if the seagate 200GB which i paid pennies for decided to die on me, all i have to is dump it, get another one and rebuild the array. ie: ZERO data loss!

 

[TAZ]

i was wrong about that PFC thing, just had a look into it after digging out my PSU box to be sure.

PFC stands for Power Factor Correction.
not to get to technical with this, power factor correction has to do with accounting for inductance in the load(ie: the PC) on the PSU. properly set, it effectively means that the power supply uses less power from the mains to deliver the same amount of power to the computer. in short, it's much more efficient.


________________________________________________________
know your limits, and never stop trying to exceed them!<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by TAZ on 02/22/05 09:08 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[Forrest]

Thanks for all the info guys. I'm ordering most of this stuff within the week and the rest when it becomes availible. I'm sure I'll be back with questions.

thanks again

 

[lonewolf1215]

I've heard that ATI is coming up with there own form of SLI. One that doesn't use the SLI Adapter between the cards as Nvidia is requiring. As for whether it will be compatible with the ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe mobo or any Nvidia based mobo. I don't forsee it happening. I will do more research and get back to you.

 

[apesoccer]

Gotta give ya a hard time chip!

You must then plug the psu in to the wall right? Cuz if you don't... =D Not that it really matters...If there is a surge of electricty on/or near any electronical equipment you have the chance of loss. Any cmos chips on or near where you've discharged, have a pretty good chance of being damaged. That being said...i've never lost data to sd myself. Professors like to harp on this stuff tho, so it's stuck in my head.

Current machines running F@H:
Athlons: [2000+][64 3500+][64 3000+][366][1.3x2][2500+]
Pentiums: [P4 1.4][X 3.0][P4 2.4x5]

It's not worth saying unless it takes a really long time to say!

 

[ChipDeath]

umm..

You must then plug the psu in to the wall right?

..
..

All I do is install the PSU first, and plug it in to a socket that's switched off

What exactly do you think that says? :tongue:

---
"Sex without love is an empty experience...
But as empty experiences go, it's one of the best" - Woody Allen

 

[Codesmith]

I would only consider the SLI version of a motherboard if I was planning on buying two 6800's now.

I don't see much point in paying extra for a feature when its likely you will never use it.

 

[apesoccer]

=P

I thought you were say'n u were grounding it by plugging the mobo into the psu. =D

Current machines running F@H:
Athlons: [2000+][64 3500+][64 3000+][366][1.3x2][2500+]
Pentiums: [P4 1.4][X 3.0][P4 2.4x5]

It's not worth saying unless it takes a really long time to say!