Asus A8V-E (PCI-E mobo not AGP!)

[Ackbar]

As the topic suggests, I'd like to start a discussion on this particular mobo (PCI-E not AGP). It seems to me that people that are interested in a non-SLI PCI-E mobo should at least consider the other options available. I personally can not find a single review for this mobo which is very discouraging especially since these mobos are actually available for purchase! The features look very good, including "System Bus 2000 MT/s" when the plain nForce 4 (non-Ultra/SLI) has 1600. If anyone is interested in a 939 mobo with PCI-E (non-SLI), shouldn't this mobo be on the list of options? I think basically, I'd like to know what makes this mobo that much worse than the plain nForce 4 (non-Ultra/SLI) that no one is taking notice of it.

Would anyone else like to weigh in his/her opinion on the matter? I can not seem to find a lack of features that would be indicative of the lack of attention this mobo is getting. Please let me know what you guys think. I actually am trying to decide on what mobo to get, but I find it hard to make an objective decision when there are endless reviews for nforce 4 mobos (practically non-exist supply though) and non-existence of reviews for the A8V-E mobo (decent supply). Can someone enlighten me?

Edit: Fixed spelling as someone pointed out.

 

[ChineseDemocracyGNR]

The name is actually A8V-E, not AV8-E.

Another thing, plain nForce4 supports 2000 MT/s system bus. Only the nForce4-4X is limited to 1600 MT/s.

Here are some comments on this board I posted somewhere else:
1) price. I think ~ $160 is too much for a VIA K8T890 board. Price is high because of the onboard Wi-Fi, which is useless to me.

2) some cost-savings apparentely. The PCB has a place for a third PCI-E slot but it seems they didn't want to solder one. Also missing on the PCB is a SATA controller which would add 4 SATA ports, which would be nice since 2 may not be enough these days specially on a $160 board. Even nicer would be a PCI-E controller with NCQ support. Finally, they use a cheaper heatsink on the vcore regulator than it's pictured on their website.

3) one small loud HSF for the northbridge. It looks to me they use that for purely aesthetic reasons, which is not something my ears appreciate.

 

[Ackbar]

Originally posted by: ChineseDemocracyGNR
The name is actually A8V-E, not AV8-E.

Another thing, plain nForce4 supports 2000 MT/s system bus. Only the nForce4-4X is limited to 1600 MT/s.

Here are some comments on this board I posted somewhere else:
1) price. I think ~ $160 is too much for a VIA K8T890 board. Price is high because of the onboard Wi-Fi, which is useless to me.

2) some cost-savings apparentely. The PCB has a place for a third PCI-E slot but it seems they didn't want to solder one. Also missing on the PCB is a SATA controller which would add 4 SATA ports, which would be nice since 2 may not be enough these days specially on a $160 board. Even nicer would be a PCI-E controller with NCQ support. Finally, they use a cheaper heatsink on the vcore regulator than it's pictured on their website.

3) one small loud HSF for the northbridge. It looks to me they use that for purely aesthetic reasons, which is not something my ears appreciate.

Good comments, I appreciate all points of views on this matter. Personally,

1) Wi-Fi is important to me. I'm sure that's not the case for most people, but I could really go either way with it being integrated.
2) In the forseeable future, I can not really see myself buying more than 2 PCI-E (non-video) cards so that's not an issue for me that they do not include 3. I totally agree with the NCQ and SATA, but again I don't particularly see myself having a ridiculous number of hard drives although I know it is common for people to have a multitude of them.
3) You could always take the fan off, and whether or not its loud is left to be seen since there has not been any reviews.

 

[Ackbar]

Bump ^ so others can add opinions. Opinions?

 

[Ackbar]

Anybody??

 

[Ackbar]

I'm guessing no one has bought or even seen one of these...

Well, if anyone has any comments about this thing, please feel free to PM me.

 

[Hughdb]

Hi,

Just joined the forum to post my experiences with this board, which I bought last week without enough forethought.

I'm running:

A8V-E deluxe
Athlon 3000+ winchester with AMD fan
Gigabyte 128Mb 6600GT fanless
Seagate SATA HDD
Corsair TWINX512-3200C2
Antec sonata case

The most important thing to say about this mboard is that it is very very noisy because of the Northbridge fan.
I didn't realise it had a fan - I picked this at the last minute when the A8V was out of stock because I wanted the wi-fi.

I've had some stability issues - probably down to the graphics card though. Switching from nvidia 66.93 to 71.24 seems to have cured most of the problems though I still get occasional freezes in games.

I've taken the northbridge fan off the board as I bought a Zalman ZM-NB32J to fit instead. However, after cutting off the ASUS push-pins (couldn't push them back thru) I could not remove the remaining heatsink from the chip. I'm guessing it is glued on. So I am just running without it.

I don't find the northbridge gets hot in my system - its not got over 30C at all so far as I can tell.

The graphics card has been up at 77C after playing games for an hour.

The A8V-E seems to have a lot of features for overclocking automatically or manually, but I don't expect to try them out myself with adding more cooling.

If anyone can advise on removing my northbridge heatsink I'd be grateful. Otherwise I think I'll probably replace my cpu fan with a Zalman fan which should direct more air over the remaining heatsink.

 

[ChineseDemocracyGNR]

Hey Hughdb,
thanks for posting your experiences. Try flashing to the 1002 BIOS, that may cure your problems:

1. Fixed PC Prob2 show fan speed error when use low speed FAN.
2. Add monitor +12v in PC Prob2.
3. Fixed Chassis FAN2 speed error after resume from S3.
4. Fixed cant read Chassis FAN2 speed.
5. Fixed S3 resume time more than 5 sec.
6. Fixed PC Prob2 cant show Power,Chipset,Chassis FAN2 item status
7. Fixed PC Prob2 show +5V voltage error.
8. Fixed install ASUS Update V5.30.02 will show "Unable to detect ASUS BIOS" issue.
9. Fixed Press F8 cant stop Memory Testing and enter Boot Menu.
10. Set USB Legacy default mode to AUTO.

 

[DerKaiser]

I think the Abit AX8 boards will perform as well and be significantly lower in price than the Asus K8T890 boards. Unfortunately, they are not yet widely available.

 

[ahurtt]

Well this board can't have been available for too long now since there was a problem with VIA getting enough of their K8T890 chipsets out to motherboard makers for most of the boards to go into mass production. I was actually looking into the Abit AX8 when I was going to build my new system but it just was not available then and I still don't think it is. So that might explain why you don't see many reviews on the board you are talking about. As for the 1600 vs 2000 MHz System Bus, I am pretty sure that difference has to do with whether the motherboard is socket 754 (1600) or socket 939 (2000), and not so much the chipset it uses.

[EDIT] And to answer your question:
"I think basically, I'd like to know what makes this mobo that much worse than the plain nForce 4 (non-Ultra/SLI) that no one is taking notice of it."

This motherboard is NOT (obviously) an nForce motherboard. It is a VIA. Some people just want nVidia nForce and are willing to pay for it. Plus, the nForce 4 actually is more widely available on store shelves.

 

[Tero]

I couldn't either get the northbridge cooler with the fan away from the mobo.
Which is sad 'cause I have the Zalmans heatsink already waiting.


It would be VERY interesting to see which way the original fan/ heatsink can be removed.

 

[Macro2]

RE:"This motherboard is NOT (obviously) an nForce motherboard. It is a VIA. Some people just want nVidia nForce and are willing to pay for it. Plus, the nForce 4 actually is more widely available on store shelves."

From what I read on BBs and reviews, the VIA 890 chipset seems to be less trouble than the nf4 chipset/
So why does anyone want the nf4 other than SLI?

 

[Uclagamer_99]

I'm having problems with this mobo.

I can only run my memory in single channel mode.

if I try running two sticks of PC3200 I get no post (single beep error code)
I can run two sticks only in single channel mode...WTF is going on here? My ram sticks are on the list of compatible configurations. I've tried three different pairs of Kingston modules...running 1003 BIOS

 

[imported_sphinx]

To think I was going to upgrade. I was all for PCI-E. I wanted to get the VIA chipset, not the nVidia. It just looks like I'll have to wait. Although, I was looking at the Soltek for awhile. I was drawn off by the layout of the board though.

 

[CALIKUSH]

SIS is also supposed to release a pci-e mobo for both socket 754 and socket 939.