PCB Design

The design of ASUS A8V-E Deluxe PCB didn?t promise to be very complex because the board was not equipped with too many additional controllers. However, since ASUS engineers decided to reserve a few spots for the additional Serial ATA controller and an extra PCI Express x1 slot, the mainboard turned out overloaded with electronic components in the end. And we do know that in this case it is really difficult to suggest a successful design solution. Unfortunately, this is true for the mainboard reviewed today: ASUS A8V-E Deluxe has a lot of drawbacks as far as the components placement is concerned.

In fact, there are very few components that can boast very convenient and smart locations on the PCB. These are the FDD and Parallel ATA HDD connectors, as well as the ATX power supply connector, which are all situated in front of the DIMM slots. All other connectors are placed in far not the best way I should say.

I would like to begin with the additional 12V power connector that is located at the back edge of the PCB, right behind the CPU, so that the cable going from it will inevitable hinder the processor cooling. The same inconvenient location was assigned to the COM port. It is situated at the very front edge of the PCB, however, it should be connected to the rear panel bracket with a special cable, which will have to go right across the entire case this way.

But the most questionable solution is actually the great number of various connectors and jumpers right next to the PCI Express x16 slot. They placed Serial ATA ports right in front of the slot, so that the HDD cables may become a serious obstacle in case large graphics cards are installed. The additional USB slots pin-connectors to the left of the PCI Express x16 slot will be hard to use if the installed graphics card is equipped with a massive cooling system. And in conclusion I would like to draw your attention to the Clear CMOS jumper, which finds itself almost under the left end of the notorious PCI Express x16 slot, so that you will only be able to use it if the graphics card is completely removed from the system.

However, things are not hopeless and ASUS A8V-E Deluxe does boast a few indisputable design advantages as well. The major one is the PCI Express x16 slot, which has been moved away from the CPU and memory slots, and a PCI Express x1 slot right next to it. This clears off quite a lot of room around the CPU, so that you can easily install any type of massive cooling system and make sure that the proper airflow cols the processor. Secondly, the installed graphics card will never prevent you from putting in or taking out the memory modules. And thirdly, the installed graphics card with massive cooling system onboard will not block the three PCI slots of ASUS A8V-E Deluxe. It means that even if you are using the latest graphics accelerator all three PCI slots will still be available to you. You will only sacrifice the not yet very popular PCI Express x1 slot in this case.

Another peculiarity of the ASUS A8V-E Deluxe design is the fact that DIMM slots assigned to the same memory channel are placed at a distance from one another on the mainboard PCB. This is a very rare occasion when DIMM slots are placed this way on a Socket 939 mainboard, however, it is a highly advantageous solution. When you install a pair of modules into this system there is a lot of room between them, which ensures excellent cooling of the DDR SDRAM.