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ASUS K8V Deluxe

As ASUS’ forerunner in to the Athlon64 fray, the K8V Deluxe looks to be a fine competitor, packing the power of the VIA K8T800 chipset along with a hoard of other features…

Introduction

ASUS is known in the enthusiast circles for their commitment to quality. ASUS has repeatedly produced some of the most stable motherboards available, packed with some of the nicest overclocking options to match. Their latest motherboard for the Athlon64 follows this fine tradition.

The K8V Deluxe is ASUS latest motherboard, heading up their line based around the Athlon64 CPU. Built upon the VIA K8T800 chipset, the board boasts full support for AMD’s Athlon64 line of processors as well as PC3200 DDR RAM operating in Single Channel mode. As is the current style among motherboard manufacturers, this board is an all in one solution, requiring only processor, RAM, video card, and drives to get your system up and running. ASUS selected the following components to build in to the board: 3 ATA-133 ports; 4 SATA-150 ports; 8 USB 2.0 capable ports (4 in rear panel, and 2 onboard headers supporting 2 ports each); 2 IEEE 1394a capable ports (1 in rear panel, and 1 onboard header supporting 1 port); 3Com Gigabit Ethernet; ADI 6 channel audio featuring RCA and S/PDIF output ports; integrated WIFI capable header with card and antennae included; and serial, parallel, and PS/2 port support.

Main Specifications Overview:

Detailed Mainboard Specification List:

Packaging

ASUS chose to use their WIFI girl as the center piece for the front box art. Oddly enough, there is no AMD64 logo displayed on the box front though. Included in with the K8V Deluxe are the standard items, including ATA 133 and floppy ribbon cables, SATA 150 cables, a dual ended SATA power plug, the rear shield, and the normal complement of driver CDs and manuals. ASUS also included 3 brackets supporting 4 additional USB 2.0 ports, an additional IEEE 1394 port, and RCA and optical S/PDIF output ports. By far the most interesting piece of hardware included in the ASUS WIFI card. The included card supports the 802.11b standard for wireless networking, allowing for a maximum transfer bandwidth of 11 Mbps (approximately 1.375 MB/s throughput).

Board Layout

ASUS did a fine job with the board layout. There are only a few areas that might pose problems: the placement of the CMOS reset jumper right below PCI slot 2, the proximity of the Northbridge chipset/heatsink to the CPU HSF hold down mechanism, and the fact that the Northbridge is passively cooled. These problems will be discussed in more detail below. The board under test is a revision 1.12 board. Note that ASUS chose to use capacitors manufactured by the following companies for the K8V Deluxe: United Chemi-Con (USA, Japan) marked as KZE; and Illinois Capacitor Inc. (USA) marked as RLS. The capacitors marked RLX come from an unknown source.

Due to the AMD HSF retention mechanism specs and planning on ASUS’ part, the CPU socket area is clear of obstructions. The only area that might give you a bit of trouble is the Northbridge heatsink, which is in close proximity to the left edge of the CPU HSF retention cage. The factory installed heatsink is a low profile aluminum sink that will not get in the way of mounting or removing the CPU HSF unit. However, if you chose to replace the stock Northbridge heatsink with a taller HSF unit, you may run in to difficulties when trying to mount or remove the CPU HSF. The row of capacitors directly above the cage are not as close as they appear to the socket, and will not present any problems in interacting with the CPU HSF. The Northbridge heatsink itself is held to the chipset by two push pin mounts, requiring board removal from the case to remove the heatsink from the chipset. The Northbridge chipset was found to get a bit toasty during normal operation, so an active HSF for the chipset may not be a bad idea. Directly above the Northbridge is the IEEE 1394 header. There are three jumpers that are positioned just below the rear panel connectors. These jumpers control system wakeup based on activity on any of the rear panel USB or PS/2 ports. The ATX12V connector is above the CPU HSF mounting cage to the very right of the board. Its placement is optimal for minimal power trace lengths to the CPU, but could make for cable routing issues with the ATX12V connector coming from the PSU. The unmonitored PWR_FAN header is located to the right of the IEEE 1394 header, while the BIOS monitored CPU_FAN header is located between the CPU socket and the upper DIMM slot, along the board’s edge.

The K8V Deluxe comes standard with 3 DIMM slots, with support for populating all slots with PC3200 memory. The DIMM slots are placed in such a way that there is no contention between them and any other component on the motherboard, including the AGP slot. Just below the lower DIMM slot is the ATX power connector as well as the primary and secondary ATA-133 IDE ports.

The VT8237 Southbridge chipset is located just below PCI slot 1, with its 2 RAID capable SATA 150 ports sandwiched between the chipset itself and the floppy connector. Notice that the floppy connector has been rotated 90 degrees so that the cable runs parallel to the plane of the board. Just below PCI slots 2 and 3 are the CMOS battery and CMOS reset jumper. If you have any PCI cards installed in the system, this reset jumper may be a hassle to get to. Better placement would have been along the board’s lower edge or left side. Below and to the left of the CMOS battery is the Promise RAID controller, with its RAID capable ATA 133 IDE and 2 SATA 150 ports directly below it. The BIOS monitored CHA_FAN header is located along the bottom edge of the board, to the left of the lower most Promise SATA 150 port. Along the lower left edge of the board are the following headers: front panel connector, game port, infra-red, COM2, and 2 USB 2.0 headers supporting 2 USB 2.0 ports each. The green power LED is located between the front panel connector header and the BIOS chip. The power LED glows when the system is powered on.

The board has a total of 1 AGP slot, 5 PCI slots, and a WIFI connector slot. The WIFI connector slot is located between PCI slot 5 and the edge of the board. Note that the WIFI connector slot is for use with ASUS’ proprietary 802.11b WIFI card only. Just above and between PCI slots 3 and 4 is the front panel audio connector. Note that the rear panel audio ports will not function unless pins 5/6 and 9/10 on the front panel audio header are jumpered. The on board CD and AUX input connectors are located to the right of the front panel audio connector. To the right the of the CD input connector and above the 2 capacitors is the S/PDIF output header, to which the supplied bracket connects.

ASUS chose to include the following ports on the rear panel of the K8V Deluxe: PS/2 keyboard and mouse ports; a serial port; a parallel port; 1 IEEE 1394a port; 4 USB 2.0 ports, a Gigabit LAN Ethernet port; 3 audio ports; and an RCA based S/PDIF output port.