Specification
The first mainboard based on VIA K8T890, which we managed to get in our testlab was ASUS A8V-E Deluxe. ASUS decided to use NVIDIA chipset for its expensive mainboards with SLI support, and for the mainstream solutions they turned to VIA K8T890 plus a few extra controllers. Here is what they managed to design:
The formal specification of this board looks as follows:
ASUS A8V-E Deluxe |
CPU | AMD Athlon 64 for Socket 939 |
Chipset | VIA K8T890 (VIA VT8237R South Bridge) |
HyperTransport bus | 1GHz |
Clock generator frequency | 200-400MHz (with 1MHz increment) |
Overclocking friendly functions | Adjustable Vcore, Vchipset and Vmem. |
Memory | 4 DDR DIMM slots for dual-channel DDR400 SDRAM |
PCI Express slots | 1 x PCI Express x16
2 x PCI Express x1 |
PCI expansion slots | 3 |
USB 2.0 ports | 8 (4 ?on the rear panel) |
IEEE1394 ports | 2 (1 ?on the rear panel, via TI TSB43AB22A controller) |
ATA-100/133 | 2 ATA-133 channels (in the chipset) |
Serial ATA | 2 Serial ATA-150 channels
(with RAID support, in the chipset) |
ATA RAID support | RAID 0, 1 in the chipset |
Integrated sound | 8-channel AC97 codec: Realtek ALC850 |
Integrated network | Gigabit Ethernet (Marvell 88E8053 controller)
Wireless LAN 802.11g(b) (Marvell 88W8310 controller) |
Additional features | None |
BIOS | Phoenix-AwardBIOS v6.00PG |
Form-factor | ATX, 305 x 244mm |
If we take a closer look at the mainboard we will see that the PCB has special spots reserved for the additional Serial ATA RAID controller for four ports and for one more PCI Express x1 slot. However, there are no corresponding components in these spots. ASUS doesn抰 have any other mainboards in their current product range, which would use the same PCB. So, they apparently left these spots on the PCB for some future products, or on the contrary, ASUS engineers had to remove the components from these spots to ensure stable and reliable functioning of the board.
Accessories
The box with ASUS A8V-E Deluxe also contains the following:
- A CD disk with the standard set of drivers and utilities and a CD disk with the WinDVD Suite;
- Two Serial ATA cables and one power cable for two serial ATA HDDs;
- One black 80-pin Parallel ATA cable and a black FDD cable;
- A bracket for the case rear panel with two High-Speed USB ports and a Game port;
- A bracket for the case rear panel with one FireWire port;
- A bracket for the case rear panel with one Serial port;
- I/O shield for the case rear panel;
- An Antenna for the Wi-Fi controller;
- User抯 guide.
As we see, ASUS A8V-E Deluxe boasts a pretty rich bundle. We were especially happy to see a variety of brackets, which allow using most ports laid out on the mainboard PCB.
