asus A8N? wtf?

[TdC]

hello all!

I've been tempted into purchassing a 64bit AMD cpu, and want a decent mobo to go with it. The closest poota-parts-protal stocks a thing by Asus called the A8N in the 939 socket, which seems to be ok. Now they stock three variants

• the A8N /SLI
• the A8N /SLI "deluxe"
• the A8N /SLI "premium"

afaIct, the deluxe version gives you SATA/RAID, 2x FireWire and an extra NIC on top of the standard variant, and the premium takes 1FW off that and doesn't seem to do anything else to add pits and bobs.

now, which one? the standard one seems to do everything I want and isn't terribly expensive. the deluxe one adds some stuff that I don't really need, and what the premium one does I can't rightly tell. help0r!

 

[TdC]

oh, and does anyone know if they all support X2 cpus? I've been hearing conflicting stuff about that :/

 

[Herbal]

According to the asus web site only the premium version will support x2 chips.

All 3 support amd 64 and fx chips, the only difference i can see between the deluxe and premium is x2 support and a heat pipe on the premium.

 

[TdC]

hmm, the way I read it all A8N sli mobos support X2. anyway, I've got the deluxe varient nore on a whim. it wasn't that much more than the standard one.

imo it's fab. ASUS has packaged it very nicely, all the cables and pcbs are in their sealable baggies / anti-static bags res. the manual is HUGE, but there's a quick-start booklet and a mobo "map" sticker included too, for the hasty. there's an insert on the box outlining the major bells and whistles that ASUS have built in to the mobo.

at a glance there's been some thought put in to the layout, which is a plus. there's a large "open" area around the 939 socket allowing for some pretty huge heatsinks to be installed though there could be a tad more to the top left of the board. still, given that the cpu will lift the cooler up a bit I gather that most will clear the hardware that ASUS has left nearby. left with a reason I surmise, because the fittings will benefit from the possible presence of a fan there, or any system airflow at all.

the cooler I have is a Coolermaster Hyper48, a towering mass of copper and heatpipes topped with a branded 92mm fan that is billed to be "silent". we'll see about that. to fit the fan some work has to be done to the mobo, removing the heatsink guide and bottom plate and installing Coolermaster's own. These seem well made enough, especially the baseplates which come in Intel and AMD flavours, are made of metal and are insulated on both sides. Coolermaster's manual is a single sheet printed in multiple languages, but it's clear enough and the screws needed are easy to work out even though they don't specify which ones. I'm slightly concerned about the heatsink's plastic guide being able to take the strain of the two clips that will be holding all that copper to the cpu. if it's anything like a Zalman there will be some pressure on those, and plastic is plastic regardless of it being made by Coolermaster or Willy Wonka.

I should be having more parts in saturday and will let you know how I get on

 

[Panda On Smack]

where did u buy it all from?

 

[TdC]

well, I'm being lazy and taking it directly out of nearby stores. Normally, I'd be scouring the interweb to have the cheapest delivered.

I got the mobo and cooler from a place called Funprice Computers. I'm getting the cpu from a mate. It's a 64bit 3200+, to tide me over till the X2 3800+ becomes more readilly available. I intend to OC the hell out of it if at all possible, so you'll be hearing from me about that if it works.

I've sold my 6600GT agp variant to a mate, and I'm somewhat in doubt what to get back for it on my new PCI-e mobo. the 6600GT is a brilliant card imo, but the 6800, the GT variant and the Ultra are better still. Then there's the 7* series from Nvidea that may ro><or even more...
Atm I'm inclined to go the route of either two 6800's or a single 6800GT, with another one in a month or so. There is a shop called Paradigit nearby where I can get an XFX GeForce 6800GT 256MB DDR3 DVI PCI-E for 319 euros (times .60 for squids) or the XFX GeForce 7800GT 256MB 2DVI VIVO PCIe for 449 euros. I'm very tempted by the 7800GT tbh

 

[caLLous]

Get 2 7800gtx's... g'wan...

 

[TdC]

hehe I'd like to but I'll pass on that silly money for those atm oO I've narrowed the field to either 2 6800GT's or a single 7800GT. you knows it

 

[Embattle]

Personally go for a single 7800GT.

 

[Draylor]

The price and performance of both options are fairly similar, going for the 7800GT allows the option of adding another for some SLI fun later.

Simple choice, isnt it?

 

[TdC]

which I have done

and I couldn't contain myself and got an extra gig of memory too oO so much for the not getting anything other than what I needed

 

[Embattle]

I've held off upgrading now for over a year, most probably won't do anything until end of this year or start of next year.....which is some achievement for me

 

[TdC]

yeah, me too Emblet, until I caved in last month that is hoping I can go at least two years with the upcoming system!

 

[TdC]

raaah! the bloke bringing me my CPU has managed to drop it thusly I've refused it on general principles and am now waiting to hear what's going to be arranged

 

[TdC]

woot! I now have a cpu! it's a 3200+ of the older BP varient, E3 stepping or whatever for the nerds anyhoo, it seems that these cores OC to 2.7GHz! not that I'd ever do such a thing ofc *ahem*
not bad for something that's come to me via a most roundabout means. if the cpu plays nicely I'll be keeping it till the X2/3800+ becomes more readilly available, but if it plays *really* nicely I may well just keep it.

I'll let you all know what happens

 

[TdC]

oh for crying out loud

my new A8N mobo requires a 24 pin ATX power plug instead of the 20 pin one (which tbh I always thought to be standard). they go as far as to call it EATX.

ofc, my year old Enermax EG465AX-VEW doesn't have one, just the 20pin main and a "standard" 4 pin 12v one. FFS!!! now I have to get a new PSU as well


male chicken badgers

 

[TdC]

arrrr, avast me hearties! there be 20 -> 24 pin adapters to be had! and they only cost a pound or so. jeebus I want this cursed computer done

 

[TdC]

yay, it works!!

the 7800GT is teh yum, running HL in 1280x1024 with everything maxed out. BF2 on the other hand...max everything and it runs like a dog. I've got the game set to "high" via the pre-select thingy with meduim lights and no (wtf?) AA. lets see how that goes.

as to the CPU, it's a 3200+ that was clocked to 2000MHz. I've set it to 2200MHz with default voltages and that runs just peachy. anything over that and my (cheep-arse) ram starts to go wonky. tempted to fiddle with the voltages now. better not hehe

 

[Jonty]

Hey Teeds

Make sure you're running the Forceware 77.77 drivers or later, as only these officially support your swanky new 7800 GT Also, whilst I don't own a copy myself, I have heard BF2 isn't exactly optimised in terms of the strains it puts on one's system. There's a TweakGuides.com BF2 Guide which may be of some use in that department, though.

Kind Regards

Jonty

P.S. Your system should run HL2's forthcoming 'Lost Coast' bonus pack fine with your new kit, unlike many other people's systems

 

[TdC]

cheers Jonty, I'm indeed running the 77.77 drivers atm. I'll give my BF2 settings a look after reading that doc you linked to, thanks again!

 

[Clown]

the 7800GT is teh yum, running HL in 1280x1024 with everything maxed out.

I think my 9800 Pro did that
I don't like that the 7800GTX won't play BF2 with everything at max - it's even worse that I have such a big odd resolution

 

[TdC]

hehe I seem to recall that my 9700pro certainly did not

the nasty is that all other games seem to run just peachy, for all that I've only tried BF2, HL2 and FarCry. both the latter run in 1280x1024 with everything maxed, while BF2 managed to limp along at 1024x768 with medium and low settings :/ playing it on the 7800GT makes me pine for my 6600GT because, and I'm not kidding, that ran the game better.

I'm going to reinstall tonight, we'll see what that brings.

 

[Jonty]

With regards game settings, sometimes games are designed to go beyond what today's hardware can really handle, e.g. Doom 3's 'ultra' mode (to some extent), Half Life 2's 'Lost Coast' chapter, Far Cry 'custom' mode. That said, Battlefield 2 does seem to be a troublesome little fella. Good luck in sorting it TdC

Kind Regards

 

[TdC]

a mate claims it's battlefield. he says I'm to take BF2 off, uninstall every driver there is, install fresh ones, install BF again. I dunno, I'll give it a shot tonight!

 

[Jonty]

Good luck with it, TdC Be sure to reboot after uninstalling the graphics and nForce drivers as I've had problems uninstalling and trying to immediately reinstall (I really should take heed of the 'Please restart now' messages ). Hope it sorts of the problems.

Kind Regards

Jonty

P.S. Don't forget to patch BF2 too

 

[TdC]

hehe right you are Jonts tbh I think that is how I managed to bugger it in the first place, installing drivers that is.

imo the easiest way it to just re-install doze (again) and see what happens. once apon a time I had a doze ghost image on a cdrom....

 

[Jonty]

I must admit my notebook comes with a fancy Symantec image restoration utility (on a hidden partition) and it's proven so useful in starting afresh. Installing from the CD, even in unattended mode, takes ages in comparison. Apparently Windows Vista's install time has been dramatically cut, although they'll be shipping it on DVD so it's likely to be quite a big beast.

Kind Regards

 

[TdC]

knowing MS it will prolly be "cut"as in "we'll install half the stuff later yo, just after you really need it"

anyway, this is what I discovered at 4 am yesterday: BF2 disliked my 10% overclock! turn the clocks back to normal and it runs nicely, turn them back up and it runs like a dog! when will this madness end?

something has gone wrong obv (I kind of suspect the cpu >< PCIe communications being out of sync or something like that) and BF2 being bothered by it. ah well, all is back to normal and I can play BF2 like I used to. more eye-candy though: I never knew that the ground had rocks and pebbles and things on it for example. also when a tank drives by it throws up stones and crud from it's tracks. never seen that before either

*slightly more pleased tdc*

 

[Jonty]

Hey TdC

John Carmack remarked that back in the day Doom 3 may suffer in performance or image quality if users overclocked their systems. Perhaps something similar is going on with Battlefield 2, although I haven't heard of anything like that other than the usual stuttering problems etc. Certainly some of the benchmarks show that at low resolutions performance gains are minimal anyway (e.g. a 7800 GT being 0.1-0.2 fps behind a 7800GTX or 7800 GT SLI setup at 1024x768 w/4xAA and 16xAF).

Kind Regards

 

[TdC]

that could be it tbh. I'm semi sure that old JC knows his sh*t

my BF2 thing now runs with everything on "high" (except dynamic shadows, which are on "low" cos they piss me off even though they are pretty), 4x AA and AF set to "high" whatever that means...prolly 8x or so. if the performance is sustained online I'm a very happy bunny

I'm slightly ticked off that BF2 won't let me play in 1280x1024, which is my tft's native rez, and thusly looks extra nice. HL2 in that rez with everything full looks absolutely stunning imo.

I'm also wondering what the results will be if I set AA and AF manually, outside the games, and turn it off ingame. I'm intrigued by the posiblities, as the control panel offers such candy as gamma- and alpha-correct AA, quincunx or whatever it's name is and 16x AF, while most games do not (though "old" Neverwinter does, strangely enough). so much to do