A7N8X Possibly the Best AMD Board Ever!

I Finally bought the A7N8X Deluxe. And I must say this is the best board I've ever used for an AMD setup. No more Via chipsets for me, This is the most stable board I've used on the AMD side yet. I also bought a Stick of OCZ 512MB PC2700 DDR with Copper heatspreaders. And man what an increase in speed from my SDRAM board. I previously had the A7V133, and the SDRAM was killing my performance. With this board I got a 1500point increase in 3dmark. And thats at 133/133 with the Fastest Ram timings Cas 2 2-2-5 1T. I'm planning on unlocking my XP chip in the next week so I can run a 166 FSB. But even without my chip unlocked I already had it running stable @ 145/145 and a 1.775 Vcore so that took my XP1800 to 1.667 or XP2000 speed and system was rock solid. that overclock alone gave me another 1000 points in 3dmark.

Good bye Via and good ridens! Now all I need is another stick of OCZ memory and a XP2600 333fsb .

I don't think I can say anymore about this board other than it Awesome and I recommend it to anyone out there looking for new motherboard. Once you go Nvidia you won't want to go back to Via!

Also I noticed about a 8c temp drop in my idle reasons which were 42c and now 34c. But I think the reason for this is reading are now coming from the thermal diode in my XP1800.

Can someone who owns one of these boards how do you disable the Serial ATA controller?

My specs
<A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?rigid=16172" target="_new">http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?rigid=16172</A>

My new 3dmark score with Everything @ stock speed
Xp1800 @ 1.53 Radeon 8500 275/550 Catalyst 2.4 Drivers
<A HREF="http://service.madonion.com/compare?2k1=5263880" target="_new">http://service.madonion.com/compare?2k1=5263880</A>

Yeah, it's a great board until you find out that there is apparently no way to get DMA working under Win2K on this board right now. The nForce2 driver set does not contain an IDE driver and defaults to the slow-ass Microsoft driver which only uses PIO. SiSoft Sandra benchmarks my ATA133 7200RPM drive at 3 MB/s. Pathetic ...

Hmmm I'm using Windows XP and no issues with DMA.

Will Win98 still work with the A7N8X? Or was there some sort of problem with DMA with that aswell?

Any chance you are looking to get rid of the A7V133 cheap? I want to make a CS server for my school LAN and have everything except the motherboard..

let me know.

-Cratos

hey download version 2.0 of the Nforce drivers off Nvidia's site. It has an IDE installer that is not present in the drivers off the CD. However these drivers don't work with the Onboard sound with the Asus board or the chaintech.
so if you using onboard sounds stick to the Drivers off the CD or the manufactures website

I know the board supports dual channel. But I went with 1 stick of 512 so I can put all 512 sticks in. After Xmas I'll buy a second Stick and have 1GB of ram. Which is better than going with 2 sticks of 256Ram. I can wait for the dual channel. Will be better to go with the bigger sticks in the long run!

I've often wondered why memory modules only go up to 512MB. I see manufactures stating that "this board can have a max of 3GB of ram," but I never see 1GB modules. I would like to buy two 1GB modules of DDR400, wouldn't you?

Well, i don't know. Just wondering. They should make them, though.

here u go, found this - 1Gb sticks
http://www.eclipse-computers.com/c [...] ?mode=java

i like to play...

A lot of people wouldn't buy 1GB sticks because of the cost. That's probably why you don't see them everywhere.

Top Processor=$799
Mobo=$150
RAM=$300
Video Card=$500
HDD=$120
Case=$180
DVD-ROM=$50
DVD-RW=$300
Putting it all together and hearing several loud pops=Priceless

I just ordered a Epox 8RDA+ and am glad to hear (again) that the nforce2 is a stable chipset.

I too am tired of messing around with via and I was saving up for a P4 setup until i heard so many good things about the nforce 2.

In my current computer I have an audigy and decent nic so I waited a long time to take the plunge in a nforce but I figure that from the benchmarks i've seen via has held back the athlons for a long time now and we're probably finally seeing the maximum performance that athlons are capable of, I can get rid of my audigy (bye bye creative!) and my two crucial pc2100 sticks (2x256mb) will be put to good use.

Athlon 1700+, KT266A, 512MB PC2100, Geforce 3, Audigy, Z560s

As for the noise its not that bad. It depends on the CPU HSF you buy. I'm using a Volcano 7+ and usually leave it on the medium fan setting and its perfectly fine for gaming and other Cpu intensive task. I only set it to high during the summer when temps are up. But Also I have 3 Thermaltake 80mm Case fans in my tower and might be adding a 4th soon.

But if I do i'm thinking about getting a Fan control in my 5 1/4 bay cause now the case fans are surpassing my CPU HSF on the Low setting. Which is great if you sleep in the same room as your computer.

my Case fans are rated for
2900RPM but run at around 3300
37CFM
30dB(A)

The dB(A) levels are good but when you have 3 of them it gets slightly noticable.

do you really think its better than the nforce audio?

im not going to test quality differences myself, probably go off of what you suggest.
I do think the audigy probably has lower cpu usage than the soundstorm, and i suppose if the audigy gives trouble (it wouldnt, its not a via chipset and ive never heard creative giving any major problems, such as reboots, on anything but via.. but i do believe their driver support isnt very great)

Athlon 1700+, Epox 8RDA+ (Nforce2), 2x256mb Crucial PC2100, Geforce 3, Audigy, Z560s

Yes I was reffering to Windows XP. I haven't tried using Win2k on this board. I was running it before cause XP was giving me problems with my previous setup. But now XP runs great and I doubt I'll go back to win2k.

I also tested my boot times. With Serial Ata controller disabled. when I hit the power button to the desktop only took 35secs. Another reason I like XP over Win2k.

Hmm for most performance HSF's its not wise to run them off the motherboard. You can fry one of the headers! So just be careful!

I would go for DDR400 SDRAM CAS2 memory to be better prepaired for future upgrades - AMD 400MHz DDR FSB Barton processor. In which case, you could run your memory synchroneous with the FSB, 400MHz/400MHz - better performance. I'm sure corsair DDR333 overclocks well but I still would get the DDR400 cas2 too be sure.

<A HREF="http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=527833#527833" target="_new">Official Asus A7N8X Thread</A>

<i>It's your world kid!!!</i>

I would get the Corsair XMS2700 over the Kingston Ram! Also the DDR400 suggestion is a good idea. But you must check the rated timings for the RAM. I was looking @ getting DDR400 Memory. The only performance memory I could get locally without ordering over the net is OCZ. And there PC2700 comes with Cas 2 2-2-5 1T timings. Why there DDR400 memory comes with Cas 2 3-3 rated timings. So I picked the memory with the fastest timings. I know some will say I can just run the DDR400 @ 333 speeds and get the same timings, but price was also a factor. And when i'm ready to get DDR400 memory to match a 400fsb athlon I'll get it alot cheaper than buying it now. And probably with faster timings!

I'm in Canada so there is a limit to some of the brands here. That you would find in the states. And ordering online would have just cost me more money.