Originally posted by: CubicZirconia
Well I'm a bit confused. Seems like most people here have had nothing but problems with this board, yet it is the recommended mobo in AT's
March Cutting Edge System. From the article: "Having extensively tested the K8V Deluxe, we can assure that you will indeed enjoy a reliable and trouble free experience for the most part." So what exactly is the verdict on this board? Worth getting? Or should I look elsewhere?
Lots of people have trouble with boards that just come out. It can be totally related to BIOS issues, chipset driver issues, etc. The ASUS A7N8X Deluxe was widely considered a troublesome board when it originally came out and is now a stellar, stable nForce2 motherboard and the best of its kind (IMO). It takes a few weeks for the kinks to get worked out in drivers and BIOSes. I've built two tweaked out systems based on the K8V Deluxe, so I know it well. It's produced nothing but good things, literally not a single thing has gone wrong with either build, and we're going on 5 weeks now. Basically, make sure you pick the right memory (Level One for example), relax timings (2-2-2 is a no no) because A64 boards on the whole don't handle super tight timings well, and you're set to go.
To be fair, Wesley (our primary S940/S754 editor here) has had nothing but trouble with this board and hates it. I don't know when's the last time he tested the K8V Deluxe, but that was the case for him. Then again, these things just happen. I had a terrible experience with two bad P4C800-E motherboards from ASUS before I finally decided to just purchase a new one from a local retailer to see if the problems could be replicated from the two P4C800-E samples ASUS sent me that I was having so much trouble with. Low and behold the P4C800-E turns out to be a great board from the retailer I purchased it from, Wesley had great success with it, and most importantly users had great success with it after the initial BIOSes and driver kinks were worked out.
EDIT: Take a look at some user reviews of the K8V Deluxe here:
http://secure.newegg.com/app/CustratingReview.asp?item=13-131-473
And in case you're wondering, there was apparently a bad batch of K8V Deluxe (low quality capacitors) that were released to the public that got yanked fast, and so a lot of early adopters received them and reported their poor results on the Internet. Reputable resellers no longer sell these boards, and if you have one of these old K8V Deluxe boards (RLZ0333 capacitors) you should return it for the newer version. They were only out a week or two as far as I understand.