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We never had any problems with the quality of ASUS mainboards and the A7N8X is no exception. What we do criticize, though is the red pen that once again has crossed out the third phase of the VRM. That is, a dual phase power circuitry is used with its known shortcomings at least in terms of long term reliability. In a market with a turnover time of some 6 months, long-term reliability may sound somewhat paradoxical, however, there are enough users keeping their systems around for 2-3 years and that's where we would expect to start seeing some drop-outs.

Dual phase voltage regulator module centering around the STMicro L6917 controller. The jumper next to the chipset cooler sets the CPU bus frequency to either 200 or 266/333 MHz. The two fan connectors next to the AGP Pro slot are for system fans only, the CPU fan header is at the top edge of the PCB.

Layout

The general layout of the A7N8X Deluxe shows one AGP Pro slot and five PCI slots. This is different from the A7N266(-E) and also different from the preproduction boards that were circulated courtesy of AMD and that featured the additional ACR slot for modem and sound riser cards. Also keep in mind that we have taken it granted for the longest time that the one AGP slot we are looking at is always the only AGP slot possible. This has changed with the definition of the AGP3.0 specifications that brought us AGP 8X mode and, among other goodies allows 2 AGP slots. On the A7N8X we are still looking at a single AGP slot, though. It will be interesting to see who will come out with a dual AGP board first.

In general, the layout is rather spacious with enough clearance around the CPU socket to allow even oversize HSF combos. Personally, I am not too fond of the North-South orientation of the CPU socket since only rarely does the case offer enough clearance towards the PSU to access the mounting clip of the HSF. If push comes to shove, there is always the possibility to take out the mainboard completely or else bend a screwdriver into shape so that it fits into the clearance and can be used to install or remove the HS.

The ATX power connector is on the far right, directly inside of the floppy connector and above the two IDE channel connectors. All additional ICs, that is the ASUS ASIC, the Silicon Image SATA Link and the ITE SuperI/O chip (plus whatever transceivers are used to interface the MCP-T with the outside world) are in the bottom half of the PCB. Those used to see Serial ATA support only in conjunction with an extra RAID / ATA133 controller will look in vain for any additional parallel ATA connectors. They are simply not there since the Silicon Image SATA Link plugs directly into the existing ATA133 controller. Needless to say that at the bottom edge of the PCB, we have the typical staggered-pin SATA150 connectors, if for nothing else, you just have to love them for their small footprint.

Like all recent ASUS mainboards, the A7N8X features two LEDs, a green one to indicate standby power, one red LED to show the wrong voltage requirement of the AGP adapter (3.3V instead of 1.5V).

Before going on, we would like to spend a few words on some features of the nForce2 chipset that we have not covered yet and that are interesting enough.

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