ASUS A8N32 SLI Deluxe questions

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polonyc2

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Oct 25, 2004
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I'll never understand why ASUS put 2 PCI slots in between the X16 PCI-E slots...they should have kept the layout of the A8N SLI Premium board with the 3 PCI slots at the bottom

since I will not be running my board in SLI at the moment my PCI slot usage will not be an issue...the 1st blue x16 PCI-E slot will be used for my BFG 7800GTX card...the PCI slot below that will be used for my Zalman VGA cooler...the PCI slot below that will be used for my modem...the black x16 PCI-E slot will be left blank...and finally my Soundblaster ExtremeMusic sound card will go in the slot below that

the problems will arise if I ever decide to go SLI where in that case I will have to remove my modem and put the sound card in that slot...

Question: since the 7800GTX is a single slot design do I need to have a separate VGA cooler for the second video card? if I don't then I can use the last PCI slot for my modem, otherwise I will have to ditch the modem and put the cooler in that slot

a8n324hf.jpg
 
BUMP...and...

will the fan that comes with the A8N32 motherboard fit properly with the huge Zalman CNPS9500 heatsink I plan on using?...I just saw a pic of the fan placement on the radiator and was wondering whether it is wise to have both the Zalman and this fan installed at the same time

aifan9nw.gif
 
polonyc2 said:
BUMP...and...

will the fan that comes with the A8N32 motherboard fit properly with the huge Zalman CNPS9500 heatsink I plan on using?...I just saw a pic of the fan placement on the radiator and was wondering whether it is wise to have both the Zalman and this fan installed at the same time

aifan9nw.gif
Click to expand...

You are only supposed to ues those fans if you are water-cooling. When water cooling, there is no airflow to cool those radiators. But, the airflow in a standard case together with the residual airflow from an air-cooled CPU should be enough.
 
thanks for the reply....

my friend who is using this board without water-cooling suggested that I use the included fan on the copper radiator for the heatpipe even if using a regular heatsink/fan on the cpu even if I am not watercooling. He said this helps keep the mobo temp down....
 
why in god's name are you using a modem?

the layout was designed to maximize space between SLI slots, obviously, but yeah, anyway you cut it, it's hard to have two video cards that use dual-slot cooling solutions (inevitable unless you can tolerate whiny noise forever), AND a PCI card.

personally I don't see why the wasted time with PCI-E slots other than the videocard ones, who the hell needs the speed for anything but the video cards? by the time it even goes mainstream these boards will be way outdated anyway.
 
yeah i agree that its super lame to bone over the pci users.

my situation is that i have a 39160 scsi card, and a emu 1212.....having those cards makes finding an acceptable sli mobo practically impossible :(

stuipid mobo manuf's! "oh you want sli, you must ONLY be concerned with your video cards, you must not want to use pci cards"
 
I dont have one yet, but planning to get one, can i put my X-Fi sound card in a PCI slot b/t the 2 PCI-E x16 slot ( left of the black one )
 
hi polonyc2,

you may not recognize this username, but this was my original username on ABX.

i am getting my A8N32 today :)
 
with 2 GTs and a Audigy 2 in the middle.. is the top card going to get sufficient cooling? i was thinking about getting this board. seems to be a board that will last a while
 
Warrior said:
with 2 GTs and a Audigy 2 in the middle.. is the top card going to get sufficient cooling? i was thinking about getting this board. seems to be a board that will last a while
Click to expand...


I've got a pair of XFX GTX oc with an Audigy 2 and don't have any heat problems. I can't remeber the temps exactly but they stayed the same, relativly low temps, as when I had only one card in there. I haven't tried any overclocking though.
 
I'm praying that the two 7800 GT cards I've got and my Audigy 2 Plat fit. I'm going to be so mad if I have to give up the plat for onboard audio. (I got everything ready but the motherboard is on back order, what a pain in the ass.)

And I agree why on earth waste the space with PCIe 1x slots. There is no point to it. I've looked, I can't find a single card on the market that uses a 1x PCIe slot. I found a few server cards that want 2x and 4x (SCSII controllers and FIBER)

I guess we get to wait and see right??
 
On the A8N32-SLI it ships with one fan for the mosfet block that has the heatpipes from the north/south bridge chips. The other mosfet block is (or is now) passive.

mobo2small.JPG


You can see the single blower fan in it's plastic bag.

Here's a decent shot of the mosfet blocks:

moboshotsmall.JPG


HTH
 
CompMage said:
I'm praying that the two 7800 GT cards I've got and my Audigy 2 Plat fit. I'm going to be so mad if I have to give up the plat for onboard audio. (I got everything ready but the motherboard is on back order, what a pain in the ass.)

And I agree why on earth waste the space with PCIe 1x slots. There is no point to it. I've looked, I can't find a single card on the market that uses a 1x PCIe slot. I found a few server cards that want 2x and 4x (SCSII controllers and FIBER)
Click to expand...
you can put cards in the pci slots that arent blocked by the vid card cooler (if you have dual slot). its a super tight fit, but it fits. this is verified by someone else here on [H] that posted pics of his A8N32SLI.

having pcie 1x slots does indeed seem kinda lame, prolly sound cards will use them in the future tho.

also can you give me links to pcie scsi cards?
 
yes XP90, has kept my 3800X2 under 35C at full load on my DFI. i think the ASUS reports temps higher, so that kinda sucks, but oh well.

the fan is a Thermaltake SilentCat, I bought both from frozencpu about a month ago. The fan comes white, which was ungawdly ugly, so i painted it orange.

i will have a few more shots soon
 
actually most are in focus 3 are not, Macro mode works best if you set it on a surface, and i was just holding the camera, so they are pretty good for those reason.
 
brschmid said:
yes XP90, has kept my 3800X2 under 35C at full load on my DFI. i think the ASUS reports temps higher, so that kinda sucks, but oh well.

the fan is a Thermaltake SilentCat, I bought both from frozencpu about a month ago. The fan comes white, which was ungawdly ugly, so i painted it orange.

i will have a few more shots soon
Click to expand...
yah i could tell it was painted! but thanks for the info!
 
get an external modem, chief. as far as needing anotehr pci-x slot, besides the ones for the video card: there will be plenty people that need as many extra high-speed slots for high-end add-in RAID controller cards as they can get. 1 for the gfx card and 2 more for RAID boards. yes i know the a8n32 has raid controllers built in, but i said HIGH END.
 
Hey, which SATA drivers are you guys using for this board?, the nvidia nforce4 x16, or the Sil 31xx drivers?
 
brschmid said:
hi polonyc2,

you may not recognize this username, but this was my original username on ABX.

i am getting my A8N32 today :)
Click to expand...

FB!!!!

good to see you back at ABX and over here at [H] as well...

good to see people finally getting this board...
 
okay i put a NV Silencer on my 7800GT and put a firewire card in the slot next to it here is the pic if the firewire card was any longer it would start to hit where the cover of the cooler starts to curve.

nv528gh.jpg
 
BoySetsFire said:
get an external modem, chief. as far as needing anotehr pci-x slot, besides the ones for the video card: there will be plenty people that need as many extra high-speed slots for high-end add-in RAID controller cards as they can get. 1 for the gfx card and 2 more for RAID boards. yes i know the a8n32 has raid controllers built in, but i said HIGH END.
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yeah and everyone that has legacy pci stuff is boned over :(

i have a 39160 and emu 1212m, im boned over on the majority of sli mobos :(

pcie just isnt common enuf right now :(
 
i only bought this board for 8phase power and ASUS stability. i could care less about SLI
 
for the person wondering about the clearances of the cnps9500 on the a8n32...here is a pic
seems to be plenty of clearance for everything. mounting it was hella easy too.

i didnt keep the chipset fan on there because it really doesnt seem necessary. only needed for fanless systems. the fan had a warning sticker on it saying not to use it with active cooling because it can disrupt airflow...

opteroncomplowres042.jpg
 
Javelin3o4 said:
okay i put a NV Silencer on my 7800GT and put a firewire card in the slot next to it here is the pic if the firewire card was any longer it would start to hit where the cover of the cooler starts to curve.

http://img296.imageshack.us/img296/88/nv528gh.jpg
Click to expand...

Ah shit. Seriously starting to doubt that I'll be able to fit my audigy 2 ZS between two 7800GTX 512's since they're dual slot cooling. Crap. :rolleyes:
 
Javelin3o4 could you or someone else that has a 7800GT w/ AC Silincer on it test to see if a audigee plat 2 will fit in the slot without blocking the intake?

Personally I don't see why they don't stick the SLi slots all the way down, leave nothing or little inbetween like ECS's newest board. And stick the Legacy PCI slots at the top where they will not block anything else.

After looking at that PCIe 1x slot up top. HOLY SHIT, there is no way in hell you an fit ANYTHING there it will run into the heat pipe. Perhaps that is what they are fixing rumored Rev 2.0.

All I want is SLi and a good sound card. Is that to much to ask for??
 
trxjw said:
Ah shit. Seriously starting to doubt that I'll be able to fit my audigy 2 ZS between two 7800GTX 512's since they're dual slot cooling. Crap. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Actually I've seen some pics of an X-Fi Platinum (its a Platinum so there was a cable to connect to the front port) between 2 GTX 512s on a hardware review site. I'll edit this post if I find it. The airflow definitely looked reduced though.

EDIT: http://www.bjorn3d.com/vimage.php?img=nvidia7800gtx512/ref7800gtx512_sli4.jpg
 
Yea but the question is. Is there enough air flow between them cards to keep the temps on the video cards cool?
 
CompMage said:
Yea but the question is. Is there enough air flow between them cards to keep the temps on the video cards cool?
Click to expand...

i read on another site (can't remember where now) that someone added another card, and there temps didn't change any. if you have a 120mm fan blowing in on that area, i don't think it would make much difference
 
Yeah it's probably also blowing at pretty low RPMs most of the time to keep with its quietness, so not a whole lotta space would be needed to get sufficient airflow.
 
floodo1 said:
yeah i agree that its super lame to bone over the pci users.

my situation is that i have a 39160 scsi card, and a emu 1212.....having those cards makes finding an acceptable sli mobo practically impossible :(

stuipid mobo manuf's! "oh you want sli, you must ONLY be concerned with your video cards, you must not want to use pci cards"
Click to expand...

They didn't. The A8N32-SLi Deluxe comes with a flexible SLi bridge. There is more than enough clearance to allow the installation of a PCI card above the second PEG slot and below the first PEG slot. Single slot cooled video cards are definately not a problem with this board.

Now I know alot of people are going to mention airflow. With the stock coolers, your right. It might be an issue. MIGHT be an issue. The reason I say that is because there were alot of 6800Ultra owners who had to use their cards in SLi with no room between them if they bought anything besides the A8N-SLi Deluxe when those boards first came out. Their systems worked fine like that. While it isn't ideal for airflow and overclocking, it is something that can be lived with.

I'd also like to point out that if you use the Zalman VGA coolers, the NV5 silencers or a waterblock, you won't have any issues with airflow. I have physically done an installation like this with an A8N32-SLi and it works fine.

You still get 1, 2 or even 3 PCI slots to use depending on your video card configuration. You always get at least on PCI left over, and there is the x4 PCI-Express slot also left open for use above the primary PEG slot.

Really, considering the motherboard is using a two chip solution for the chipset, and the board is packed with features, Asus did a damn good job with the layout. My complaint is the lack of SATA ports.
 
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