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ASUS M2R32 MVP Clocking like a Banshee
(Review by MS, Dec. 19, 2006)

We already touched upon the licensing of Promise's RAID controller into the SB600 South Bridge, which provides RAID levels 0, 1, and 0+1 functionality, but note that the controller has does not support any parity operations. On the other hand, the usefulness of RAID 5 in desktop is limited by the available space in most enclosures and while it is possible to run a RAID Level 5 setup with three HDDs, realistically, Level 5 becomes useful only with four or more drives in a given array. Add the extremely low write performance and there are enough reasons why the omission of RAID Level 5 is inconsequential for the desktop user.

Most recent ASUS boards feature an e-SATA port and the M2R32 MVP is no exception here. The controller brand of choice appears to be JMicro with its lineup of SATA II host bus adapters. In this case, the JMB360 single port / single PCIe lane adapter is on exclusive duty for the e-SATA extension. Legacy devices like floppy and serial ports are supported through the LPC system, in this case we have ITE's IT 8726F-S controller; IEEE1394a is enabled by VIA Technology's VT6308 PCI host controller. Network connectivity is provided through the Marvell 88E8001 integrated media access controller and Phy layer.

           

JMicro eSATA controller; S/PDIF-out header behind the I/O connector block; ITE LPC controller and VIA VT6308 IEEE1394a controller; Marvell Gigabit controller and AD1988a Audio CODEC.

Onboard Sound

One thing we liked about Sapphire's PC-AM2RD580 Crossfire board was the quality of the onboard sound achieved with the Realtek ALC 882D Azalia-compliant Dolby audio CODEC. ASUS uses the Analog Devices AD1988A HD 7.1 audio CODEC with SoundMax software. In terms of raw specs, this configuration promises a powerful combo. In reality, however, the sound quality is diminished by all kinds of stray noise as in chirping and hissing and interferences generating cackling noise like in the days of AC97. By today's standards, the audio quality is essentially unacceptable.

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