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Asus FX motherboard comparison: SK8N vs SK8V
  Manufacturer:
  Title:
SK8N vs SK8V
  Availability:
Immediately
  Author:

  Date:
4-29-2004
  Price:
Varies

Discuss this review in our forums

There are 5 parts to this review, please use the pulldown below to browse sections or simply hit "Next" at the bottom of each section to continue


Asus SK8N

 

The "older" SK8N sports plethora of goodies and the cost to this particular motherboard is a justifiable $199. Take a look at the following pictures to see how and what is packaged. Pay attention to the box art marketing.







This picture above explains everything about the motherboard.



As you can see from the picture above, uponng the box one is greeting with the necessities of starting a 64-bit computer.






In the above two pictures you can clearly see what is bundled alongside the motherboard.













As you can see, Asus included the usual PATA, floppy, SATA, a back panel I/O port for USB, and a 4 pin molex to SATA power connector. The jumpers that came with the motherboard ended up being a nice addition in that the motherboard itself had no jumper in the normal CMOS position.







Like most motherboard manufacturers, Asus included not only a drivers CD, but it included a case sticker made from aluminum!




Nowadays when anyone purchases a motherboard, enthusiast boards include a sticker like the one above, which comes in very handy. It depicts everything on the motherboard, and if you know what you are doing, you do not even need tothe manual.




Finally the last thing that is bundled with the motherboard is InterVideo's WinDVDSuite which can play DVD's and performs various other functions.

 

SK8N Motherboard Layout

 




Most reviewers do not capture any pictures of the underside of the motherboard, which is understandable by all means because there is nothing to take a picture of but the copper traces. However, flipping over the motherboard will to lead finding mosfets on the underside. These mosfets show that the Opteron and the FX chips are power guzzlers.




This metal is the mounting bracket that holds the heatsink mount, similar to Intel's Pentium heatsink mount in that goes through the motherboard.




There is ample space for large heatsinks around the ZIF socket.




Because AMD's costly solution of integrating the memory controller for performance into the CPU, more transistors therefore more money to fabricate, the archaic Northbridge/Southbridge chipset solutions are not needed. The Nforce3 150 Pro chipset is a single chipset solution and handles all of the responsibilities of what is left of the Northbridge and Southbridge chipset. Because of the lack of the Southbridge chipset, the Nforce3 is in the typical Southbridge location covered by this green heatsink, not Asus' typical heatsink design.




The SK8N is jammed packed with features as the picture above depicts that the CMOS battery cannot be placed in the usual horizontal fashion, and therefore it is placed vertically. One can see the power LED, PATA RAID, integrated speaker, floppy connection, extra USB headers, front panel leads, etc.




Smacked dabbed in the middle is the SATA solution for the SK8N, a Promise Technology chipset, and the Firewire header.




The PATA connectors and the power connectors are found on the upper right portion of the motherboard, which resulted in a perfect spot for cable/wire management for proper airflow. Props go to Asus' R&D department for the excellent design.




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A feature not seen in most motherboards are the location of the RAM sockets. These are found in the upper left of the motherboard. To my recollection, this motherboard is the third one to have the RAM sockets in this location. The first was from Asus as well in the prime days of RDRAM for the Pentium 4 not requiring 2 DIMMs for the RAMBUS. In my opinion, this position is excellent for RAM for a couple of reasons. There are 2 exhaustngs for fans right above the I/O ports. Therefore if there is a fan on the underbelly in the power supply, it would result in exhausting the hot air if any should come from the RAM from overclocking.




On the I/O side of the motherboard, we find the usual PS/2 ports for the keyboard along with mouse, legacy serial and printer port, 4 USB 2.0 connectors, Firewire 1394A (which is capable of transferring 400 Mbps), 10/100 Ethernet, and the Line-In, Line-Out, and Microphone ports for sound. Unfortunately, Asus decided not to integrate the optical out where the second serial port would be, thus occupies a PCI expansion slot.

 

 




Poll
In the next generation of technology, what would you buy?

PCI Express
DDR-II
BTX Format
Intel’s Dual core Tech
AMD’s 64-bit chips


[ Results | Polls ]


Market Watch
-CPU AMD
2400+ and below
2500+ and above
AMD MP
Opteron

-CPU Intel
P4/XE 2.4 & up
P4/XE 2.2 & down
Celeron

-Memory DDR
-Memory pc133
-Hard Drive IDE
(60G and lower)
-Hard Drive IDE
(80G and higher)
-CD/DVD/CDRWs
-nVidia video cards
ATI video cards
-LCD monitors: 15in
-LCD monitors: 17in
AMD Motherboards
  • XP:nForce2,VIA KT600
  • Opteron: nForce3, AMD8000
  • 64: nForce3, AMD8000, K8T
  • Intel Motherboards
  • Latest Chipset: 875P
  • w/Graphics: 865G
  • VIA: P4X
  • ATI: 9100 IGP
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