ASUS A8n-e Premium NForce 4

[AD2019]

You may not need Wifi right now but later, who knows ?

As for the firewire port, one day, you may have friend or a member of your family that give you a DV camera and ask to create a DVD ? Personnaly, i like the fact that many features are directly included on the motherboard. So you don't have to add specialised cards later.

Anyway, this is a personnal choice.

 

[geogecko]

I think the issue here is that the A8N-E is not a crappy board. It's a low-end, or possibly at best, a mid-end category motherboard. There are several ranges of boards, for instance, that is why they make the nForce4 in 3 flavors. It all depends on what you want. Personally, I don't need firewire, but with the new standard that says that all STB's (set top boxes) will have to have a firewire port on them (if requested by the customer), this could be good for the HTPC market, and you would need the firewire port. Someone that wants to build a media server, might need the 8 SATA ports. It's a matter of choice.

I basically wanted the 8 drive SATA support most, as in the future, I plan on possibly using a mass storage case that holds 4 hard drives, and running them in a stripped RAID configuration. Then, using two hard drives on the other SATA controller in a mirrored RAID configuration as the OS drives.

 

[mattburk]

Any update on theA8N-E Premium?

 

[ihill]

I have ordered the Mesh machine. It is hard to say which board it is, as it is customised for them. I am going for the non SlI version. I suspect that the whine of the chipset fan is going to drive me mad. I wonder about trying to get a quiet version. Does anyone think this is a runner?

 

[GyleForEver]

Zalman Zm-NB47J can be to use with the proviso of having a ventilator case in frontage.
On the other hand the rad Thermalright NB1 it seems to be definitely better adapted. The Delta ventilator which of origin turns to 6000 rpm was "undersupplied" to turn only to 3000 rpm, it is very discrete and the system is stable. In total liability that's not sure. But due to the fact that this rad is installed in an angle of 45°, the graphics card longer than the 6600GT pose problem, for exemple the 6800GT.

From the FAQ of hardware.fr

 

[ihill]

Thanks - I will investigate your info. I take it that was translated from French?

 

[GyleForEver]

Sure

 

[Mari0Br0s]

The non-premium version (A8N-E) is finally available.

see: http://cgi.ebay.ca/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=6751090538

 

[KDKPSJ]

ZZF has A8N-E in stock for $135 shipped.

ZZF

 

[afireinsideme]

Yeah i took the plunge w/ zzf for 135.

I have firewire on my audigy 2 and have never used it.

 

[jose]

afireinsideme,

Did you get the board yet ? How is it ?

Regards,
Jose

 

[AD2019]

Hi guys,

So, I gave up. I've ordered today the DFI LanParty nf4 Ultra D. I'm defintly bored waiting for the Asus A8N Premium to be released...
More over, the DFI has some nice features that i like :

- the in-bios control of the CPU, case and chipset fan speed by specifing minimum and maximum RPMs.
- the features of the chipset fan that use kind of magnetic levitation. It has been reported as being pretty quiet.

What i don't like (nothing is perfect)
- location of the chipset fan, straight behind the PCIe 16x slot
- it's not Asus...

Let's hope it's going to run fine...

 

[joshd2012]

I'll be firing up my board for the first time tonight (hopefully). Videocard comes today, so after I mod the cooling on that, I'll plug it up and start the system for the first time.

Wish me luck.

 

[afireinsideme]

I received the board today from ZZF, but i'm waiting for my 3200 from newegg and my Thermalright XP90. Should have everything on by Friday these week.

 

[Waylay00]

It's listed in stock at Newegg.

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=19-103-501&depa=1

 

[mattburk]

New link

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=13-131-530&depa=1


Any new word on the premium?

 

[geogecko]

I've not heard a word. E-mailed ASUS again, this time asking for a release date of the A8N-SLI PREMIUM along with if they planned on releasing an A8N-E PREMIUM, but nothing has been returned. My guess, is that if it's not released with the SLI PREMIUM, we won't see this board for a long time, if ever.

The thing is, that the A8N-E board layout looks to be able to house a "Premium" version, since it has footprints for several chips that aren't in place on the A8N-E. The only noticeable difference from what we saw in the past, is that if they use this board for the PREMIUM version, we don't get WiFi on-board, as it doesn't look like there is a footprint for a SMA connector on the back side of the board (WiFi antenna).

Personally, I've given up on the A8N-E Premium. While I still haven't bought my MB, I'm planning on going with the SLI Premium, unless it just so happens that the E Premium comes out at the same time. At least we see BIOS revisions going on with the SLI Premium. There has been nothing as far as BIOS updates for an E Premium, yet.

 

[marky9074]

I couldnt be bothered to wait anymore and ordered the Gigabyte GA-K8NULTRA-9 & Gigabyte GV NX66T128VP, both passively cooled....

I'll let you know how I get on....

Mark

 

[stickybytes]

has anybody installed their new a8n-e board yet?

 

[joshd2012]

I'm up and running on my board right now!

Everything is going great.... for the most part. I had some trouble getting my power cables to reach, but that is only because I am using the Mobo up-side-down. Also, you definitely NEED that 4-pin 12v connection (the one that is square). The mobo will fire up, but it won't even give you a beep (good sign the memory is underpowered). But after I got power extenders, it fired right up and is pretty quick.

I'm just going through the regular hassles of dealing with x64 when no one supports it. My biggest grip is that the 64-bit audio drivers that come on the CD don't work! I'm using Windows XP x64, and it won't recognize those drivers as x64 drivers. Not sure if this is a Windows issue or a RealTek issue, but I am downloading the drivers for x64/Windows 2003 Server from RealTek right now and hope that they work. It would help if their FTP wasn't so slow.

The standard Windows drivers really do bottle neck the system. As soon as I installed the nForce drivers off the CD, I saw HUGE improvements in performance.

I'm still working on the internals of the system before I do some stress tests, but the Mobo is very solid. Glad I waited for it.

 

[jose]

Any more info from you guys that got the A8N-E ??

Regards,
Jose

 

[GuitarDaddy]

Thinking about getting one of these, I wonder if there are any overclocking improvements over the SLI version? Or does it have the same limits

1. Can it go over 245-250mhz with ram @ 1T?
2. Whats the max vcore in bios (Winchesters)?
3. Adjustable chipset volts?

And does it have the same chipset fan?

 

[afireinsideme]

I was thinking I could use my 512mb Hyperx 3500 + my 256*2 Hyperx 3500 with the A8N-E, didn't know the 64 can't use 3 sticks.

I don't know if it was my memory but when using the 256*2 in dual channel I could barely overclock the HTT, but could overclock the memory to 220 fsb.

I could go upto 220 using 1:1 but as soon as I started using the memory divider, I could barely be stable at 195 fsb on the memory.

So I hope this is all just a memory error. I orders some Corsair 3200C2PT from zzf and should be here on Wednesday.

Would really like to see 2.4 Ghz somewhere in the 200 fsb memory range.

Thinking about getting one of these, I wonder if there are any overclocking improvements over the SLI version? Or does it have the same limits

1. Can it go over 245-250mhz with ram @ 1T?
2. Whats the max vcore in bios (Winchesters)?
3. Adjustable chipset volts?

And does it have the same chipset fan?

1) Not sure
2) 1.55
3) Not that I could see, does the a8n-sli have this?

Same chipset fan going at 8,000 RPMs, but I don't notice it that much.

 

[GuitarDaddy]

Thanks for the info. It looks like same specs as the SLI

Max vcore for winchesters 1.55

Adjustable chipset volts = NO

The 245 1T issue is yet to be seen



And make sure you check the DDR volts. The SLI version tends to set it too low at default. You should probabally increase to 2.75

And make sure you drop the HTT multi to 4x (220-260mhz) or 3x (260+mhz). And use nTune to check and make sure its set properly. With the SLI version in some of the bios it would stick with 5x even if set otherwize in bios

Try the dividers again! If they cause stability problems somethings wrong with the CPU or board. You should be able to get your best O/C with the DDR333 or DDR266 dividers

 

[Tiorapatea]

Can anyone with an A8N-E tell me if there is any indication on the motherboard of a board revision number?

This quote from HardOCP's review of the SLI Deluxe may help you find it:
"The board tested was a version 1.02 product, with the board?s serial number located just under the 24-pin ATX power connector"

To reiterate, I am interested in the serial number of an A8N-E because I want to know if these are likely to be newer board revisions than the SLI Deluxes, which were released earlier.