AMD Athlon 64 3200+ and the Asus K8V Deluxe

by Josh Walrath

     The layout of the K8V Deluxe is actually very well thought out. No IDE ports block any PCI or AGP slots, and the DIMM slots are placed so that users can easily swap out DIMMS without removing the AGP card. The IDE and SATA connections are all fairly easy to access, though in some cases the primary and secondary IDE slots may be in a tight squeeze. The ATX power plugs are well away from the CPU, so there is no worry about any airflow obstruction (or the CPU fan hitting the wires). There are three powered fan plugs throughout the board, which is typically more than enough for most cases (CPU fan, ATX Secondary Fan, and Case Fan).

The south side of the board is plenty busy.  The layout does not feel cluttered though, unless a user plugs in all SATA drives, floppy, and IDE cable.  Then it might get more than a little cluttered.

     Power should not be an issue with this board as it features a true 3 phase power supply for the CPU. It also builds upon the ATX-12V spec that the Pentium 4 introduced. Those that are worrying about the 88 watt power dissipation of the Athlon 64 really shouldn’t be. AMD put that number into place as a "worst case scenario" for power and heat dissipation. This number represents a future processor not yet released, but plans are in effect for. With those numbers, I would expect the part would be around 2.6 GHz running on the 130 nm process. We of course have not yet seen this particular product. As it is, the Athlon 64 3200+ probably is in the range of 65 watts, if not a little less. The cooling solution of the Athlon 64 3200+ out of the box is very effective. The heatsink rarely gets warm, and the temperature from the thermal diode reports around 39 degrees C at idle, and a max of 45 degrees C at 100% usage. AMD’s 130 nm SOI process appears to be fairly robust at this point, and the power and heat savings are pretty evident.

The extra SPDIF bracket features both a coax and optical output.

     One aspect of this board that I was interested in was the Instant Music feature. If a user takes advantage of the built in audio, they can use their computer as a basic CD player without booting into Windows. When activated the CPU spins up, and through the use of keyboard commands, a user can listen to the CD of their choice. Try as I might, this would not work at all. I tried everything that I could think of, read other reviews of Asus products featuring Instant Music, but I could not get it to work! Then Asus released a beta BIOS for this board. The beta fixed the Instant Music problem, and I was then able to utilize this functionality. The BIOS that needs to be flashed is 1003.12, and can be found in the beta section of the K8V Deluxe downloads. The feature worked as advertised, but the user needs to have an analog audio cable attached between the CD player and the motherboard. There is no digital audio extraction when using this feature.

The back ATX plate is a bit unconventional, but it works.  Note the three mini-jacks, because that is all a user will get with this setup.

     The BIOS setup is significantly different from previous products such as the Asus A7N8X. The new layout is somewhat familiar, but tweaked quite a bit to expose new functions that the Athlon 64 3200+ brings to the market, such as the CPU memory controller, HyperTransport settings, and the AMD Cool and Quiet functionality (clocks down the processor and slows down the fan when not in use or at idle). It takes a bit more digging to get to some of the timings and functions of the BIOS, but overall I think it is an improvement. There are still enough tweaks to get a user into trouble. One initial problem I had was the board crashing during installation of WinXP Pro. This problem was caused by the DDR 400 memory that I was using. The problem wasn’t the memory, but rather how the AMD Athlon 64 handles some memory timings. Running at 2:2:2:6 timings caused the board to be unstable. Switching timings to 2:3:2:6 solved the problem. I also tried the first timings with a DDR voltage increase to 2.6 v, and that also fixed the problem. The DIMMS used were the Muskin PC3200 Level 2, which are spec’d to run at 2:2:2:6 timings at DDR 400. So if the user is having problems with setting up the board initially, checking the timings and voltage could be the answer.

     Overclocking features in the BIOS are also fairly robust. In the initial BIOS, voltages to the CPU can be set to 100, 200, or 300 mv over standard. The beta BIOS shut this down to 150 mv only. CPU multipliers cannot be changed with the Athlon 64 3200+ at this time, as many suspect that only the FX series has unlocked multipliers. Bus speed can be set up as high as 300 MHz, but in reality nobody is going to get much farther than 230 MHz at this time. HyperTransport can also be adjusted for both speed and bit width. The memory speed can also be adjusted to run at different ratios than the CPU, which appears to be key to a good overclock. AGP voltages can also be adjusted, but exactly how helpful raising the voltage to the AGP slot is debatable.

The Athlon 64 snuggly fit into the motherboard, ready for the heatsink to be applied.

     The manual is very helpful, but there are quite a few editing errors throughout. There are good descriptions of the hardware, BIOS functions, and software instructions throughout. It would be very helpful for those setting up their first computer from scratch, and that in itself is fairly impressive. There are some areas where more detail could be given, such as with the memory timings and how changing these can either affect performance or stability. Simply saying, "You can change this setting to..." is just not enough. Most users would like to know if changing a setting could possibly lead to a meltdown of their computer, or conversely make it run like a 486.

Next: More Impressions

Copyright 1999-2003 PenStar Systems, LLC.