ASUS A8V Preview - Page 1

ASUS is one of the first companies that announced support for the upcoming AMD Athlon 64/64FX socket 939 processor. Among the very interesting new features, the motherboard is based on the new VIA K8T800Pro+VIA8237 chipset.

The new Athlon 64 processor codenamed "Newcastle" with 939 pins (socket 939), supports dual channel DDR memory and integrates 512KB of L2, only half of the size incorporated into today’s 754-pin chips. However, the Newcastle series will benefit from very efficient dual-channel memory controller that is likely to decrease the impact of cut-down cache and even improve performance of 939-pin chips over 754-pin processors with 1MB on-die secondary-level cache. The AMD Athlon 64 FX parts will continue to have 1MB of L2 cache after the transition to Socket 939.

The available processor speeds vary from 1.8GHz to 2.4Ghz. AMD has announced the release of another 939-pin processor (codename Winchester), later in September-November timeframe. The Winchester will be build upon a 90nm process, while for the Newcastle series AMD used the 0.13-micron process .

The new CPU uses the AMD HyperTransport technology at 1000MHz, which is faster by 200 MHz than the usual clock speed currently found at 754 socket motherboard kits. Another interesting feature of the new 939 socket motherboard is that VIA's K8T800 PRO allows user to change the AGP/PCI values, which means that the board would be ideal for overclockers. On the other hand, the Athlon 64/64FX CPU multipliers are locked.

AMD will demonstrate the new Athlon 64/64FX in the upcoming Taipei Computex next month, according to online sources.

- ASUS A8V Deluxe Specifications Summary

- The package

Below you can see the ASUS A8V Deluxe retail package:

Information for the Asus features and technology patterns used for the motherboard are available on the back of the package.

The speed benefits of the DUAL DDR memory channels are yielded in the corresponding graphical presentation:

The contents of the retail package are the following:

• The board itself (A8V)
• ASUS motherboard support CD
• 4 x Serial ATA cable
• 2 x 2-port Serial ATA power cable
• 1 x 2-port USB2.0/Game module
• 1 x IEEE1394 cable
• 2 x 80-conductor ribbon cable for Ultra DMA 133/100/66 IDE drives
• 1 x 40-conductor IDE cable
• 1 x Ribbon cable for a 3.5-inch floppy drive
• WinDVD Platinum
• Instant Music Lable
• I/O shield
• Bag of extra caps
• User guide

The software CD-ROM includes:

• Drivers (AMD Cool&Quiet, Audio, Lan, Promise, VIA USB2, VIA 4in1, VIARAID)
• Software (Acrobat, BIOS Flashers, ASUS Update, DirectX, I'm InTouch Remote Access Application)
• Manual (FastTrak 378, SATA 378, VIA8237 SATA Quick setup guides)

In addition we really enjoyed the attached ASUS Wi-FI 802.11g PCI (WL-130g) card with an external antenna kit.