ASUS A8R32-MVP: Taking the Overclocking Route via the 0404
by Gary Key on April 20, 2006 3:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
System Configuration
We did not utilize the original board in our review and instead opted to purchase a retail board from NewEgg. Our test unit sports revision 1.03G and arrived with BIOS 0201 flashed on the board. We promptly flashed the board to BIOS revision 0311 in order to run our base test numbers before loading BIOS revision 0404 for testing. Our drive image consists of our full test suite along with AVG anti-virus and QuickTime Pro 7.0 running in the background during testing. All operating system updates for Windows XP SP2 have been installed along with the Windows Firewall being activated during all tests runs.
Worth noting is that our board does emit the humming or whining noise associated with certain Infineon based memory modules from varying suppliers. While the 0311 BIOS and subsequently the 0404 BIOS have reduced this sound, it has not been eliminated. New board replacements have solved this issue for the majority of users, so we can only assume that a substandard lot of boards was initially shipped to retailers. We will be returning our board for replacement shortly.
Our goal is to ensure the software load mirrors that of a typical user system during testing. Our test results utilize current game engines that are balanced between CPU and GPU operations except for F.E.A.R. which is GPU constrained. Our hardware choices consist of high-end components that certainly assist us in reaching the reported results but should be seriously considered when purchasing an enthusiast level board. Our recommendation is to not skimp on the power supply, memory, or video card choices when building this level of system.
| System Configuration | |
| Processor: | AMD Athlon 64 4000+ (San Diego) |
| CPU Voltage: | 1.575V (1.400V default) |
| Memory: | 2 x 512mb OCZ Technology PC4800 Platinum Edition DDR-400 CL2-2-2-7, 1T base settings |
| Memory Voltage: | 2.70V standard, up to 2.85V overclocked |
| HT Multiplier: | 5x - 200HTT ~ 254HTT 4x - 255HTT ~ 350HTT |
| Cooling: | Tuniq Tower 120 |
| Power Supply: | PC Power and Cooling 850 SSI |
| Hard Drive(s): | 2 x Maxtor MaXLine III 7L300S0 300GB 7200 RPM SATA (16MB Buffer). |
| Video Cards: | 1 x EVGA 7900GTX (PCI Express) for all tests. |
| Chipset Drivers: | ULi 2.20 M1575 |
| Video Card Drivers: | NVIDIA nForce 84.21 WHQL |
| Operating System: | Windows XP SP2, full updates |
We did not utilize the original board in our review and instead opted to purchase a retail board from NewEgg. Our test unit sports revision 1.03G and arrived with BIOS 0201 flashed on the board. We promptly flashed the board to BIOS revision 0311 in order to run our base test numbers before loading BIOS revision 0404 for testing. Our drive image consists of our full test suite along with AVG anti-virus and QuickTime Pro 7.0 running in the background during testing. All operating system updates for Windows XP SP2 have been installed along with the Windows Firewall being activated during all tests runs.
Worth noting is that our board does emit the humming or whining noise associated with certain Infineon based memory modules from varying suppliers. While the 0311 BIOS and subsequently the 0404 BIOS have reduced this sound, it has not been eliminated. New board replacements have solved this issue for the majority of users, so we can only assume that a substandard lot of boards was initially shipped to retailers. We will be returning our board for replacement shortly.
Our goal is to ensure the software load mirrors that of a typical user system during testing. Our test results utilize current game engines that are balanced between CPU and GPU operations except for F.E.A.R. which is GPU constrained. Our hardware choices consist of high-end components that certainly assist us in reaching the reported results but should be seriously considered when purchasing an enthusiast level board. Our recommendation is to not skimp on the power supply, memory, or video card choices when building this level of system.
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cornfedone - Thursday, April 20, 2006 - link
It's been known by experienced PC builders for several years that Asus has been shipping mobos with a laundry lists of defects. This has been documented by any number of hardware review sites and hundreds of thousands of consumers. In addition Asus has been completely arrogant about these defective products, failing to properly fix or replace them and completely ignoring their customers after they were duped in to purchasing these defective products via misleading advertising and bogus reviews of hand-picked mobos.Asus needs a good class action lawsuit costing them a few hundred million dollars to get their act together and stop defrauding consumers. As long as people buy the defective products Asus has been shipping there is no incentive for Asus to sell properly functioning products. Asus has been on a downhill spiral since they launched the defective SLI series and every model mobo since seems to have major issues including vcore, memory, BIOS, etc. this is simply unacceptable for ANY mobo, let alone mobos being sold at a premium price and being marketed as "designed for serious overclockers" - which is blatant fraud IMNHO.
Until foolish sheep stop buying these defective mobos Asus won't provide a properly functioning Mobo.
phusg - Monday, April 24, 2006 - link
What SLI mobo manufacturer do you recommend then? I agree motherboards shouldn't be brought onto the market when they are nowhere near mature, but I doubt ASUS is alone in this...classy - Thursday, April 20, 2006 - link
When I see the results from overclocking it really makes one wonder why AMD is moving to ddr2 at this time. It is clear that there is still much life and very healthy life at that in ddr if amd went with a higher fsb.Gambit2K - Thursday, April 20, 2006 - link
They never answeared the question if the new bios fixed the problems people are having with soundblaster cards, the boot, the hickup issues most people are having. I recently flashed the 0404 bios and the hickup and the cold boot issues remains.Oh and I can't overclock my Samsung TCCD 10 mhz over stock, tried just about every bios setting there is. On my DFI Ultra-D my ram did 275-280 mhz without me even tweaking any of the settings.
When I buy a board I expect my computer to be able to restart and post 100% of the times, not 50-75% of the times too. I'll give ASUS until Conroe arrives to fix all of the issues or im selling the board and going on the intel train.
Gary Key - Thursday, April 20, 2006 - link
The SB X-FI needs to uninstalled when utilizing the Asus update program for bios changes, there is still a driver issue between the two items. I have a new set of X-FI beta drivers I will try shortly.
The only boot issue that remains in our testing is a limitation of the chipset when changing the HT multipliers. The board still requires a power down but this occurs on other ATI chipset boards. The warm reboot issue and power up issue with an overclocked setting was solved (at least for us and many others) with the 0311 bios.
We have no longer have the pauses in games with either the dual-core or single-core CPUs since the 0311 bios.
Actually, Samsung TCCD memory was our memory of choice on this board for overclocking. Email us and we will see if we can assist you.
ElFenix - Thursday, April 20, 2006 - link
pauses in games?i get pauses in movies and games with my A8R-MVP, i wonder if the fix that they applied here works and has been applied to the first A8R?
InuYasha - Thursday, April 20, 2006 - link
pow! right in the kisserFireTech - Thursday, April 20, 2006 - link
Can't wait for the DFI & ABIT test results....goinginstyle - Friday, April 21, 2006 - link
Hopefully the DFI/Abit reviews will show this kind of detail in overclocking and system settings. Really enjoyed the article and it is about time someone showed the effects overclocking the system has on gaming. Where are the min/max numbers? Your articles usually have those in the gaming scores.Marlowe - Thursday, April 20, 2006 - link
I've got the Sapphire A9RD580 PURE Crossfire here.. looks great, but very complicated to overclock.. I might just be very noobish though.. since it's my first AMD64 system.Board suffers from not having any supported voltage/temp monitoring programs tho.