nForce4 SLI Motherboards: Premium Performance at a Bargain Price
by Gary Key on January 3, 2006 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Final Words
The Asus A8N-SLI Premium deserves serious consideration if you are looking to build a feature-rich solution and can live with average overclocking performance compared to the more expensive DFI NF4 SLI-DR and Asus A8N32-SLI boards. The stock performance is equal to or better than either board at less cost. The board ships with an extensive accessory package and proved to be extremely stable in all test areas.
The Foxconn NF4SK8AA offers solid performance, very good stability, and an attractive feature set for the price. While the board produced average results, it was still very competitive with all offerings except in overclocking performance. The board is obviously well built and has a wonderful layout. The accessory package included was very good and ensures that most drive configurations can be handled without additional purchases.
The Albatron K8SLI is a very interesting board as it offers good performance with a minimal feature set. The board layout is very compact while still providing SLI capability. If you want to set up a LAN party system with SLI, then this board will allow you to use the smaller ATX cases without issue. The accessory package was minimal and included the standard IDE/Floppy drive cables, but only one SATA cable and power connector. In fact, the system does not come with the nForce4 RAID drivers on a floppy. Other websites have reported issues getting Windows XP to load on a RAID 0 partition. We were able to load XP on our Maxtor RAID 0 setup with the 6.70 drivers, but could not load the same image consistently on our WD Raptor configuration. We have contacted Albatron regarding this issue.
With that said, let's move on to our performance opinions regarding these boards.
In the video area, all boards offer and fully support SLI operation. The Asus board utilizes Pericom switches that allow the board to be configurable on the fly in either single X16 or Dual X8 PCI Express SLI Graphics mode. In our tests, the board was capable of differentiating between a single SLI capable video card, two SLI compatible video cards, and two video cards operating independently of each other. Asus includes their AI Selector software that allows you to set up your video card mode within Windows. You still need to use the SLI bridge on SLI compatible video cards and setup SLI mode within the NVIDIA drivers.
The Foxconn board utilizes the traditional paddle card method to switch between single and dual card mode. The Albatron board takes a slightly different approach with SLI switching. While Albatron's method is referred to as digital switching, in reality the two PCI-E x16 slots are pre-routed with 8 lanes each. This means that your single video card is only running in PCI-E x8 mode. We did not notice any performance degradation at our stock benchmark resolutions, but with the right application and resolution, you could see a performance drop.
In the on-board audio area, the Asus and Foxconn boards utilize the Realtek ALC850 while the Albatron board utilizes the Realtek ALC655 codec. The audio output of these codecs in the music, video, and gaming areas is sub-par while performance in games is decent. If you plan on playing on-line or value audio quality, we highly suggest a dedicated sound card at this time, but the onboard capabilities of these chipsets will satisfy the majority of office users.
In the storage area, the Asus board offers the greatest amount of storage options with additional SATA ports from the Silicon Image 3114R chipset. The Asus and Foxconn boards offer the standard ten NVIDIA USB ports while Albatron offers eight. Only Asus packages the external USB panels that allow you to take advantage of the USB connectors. You are limited to four USB ports on the Albatron and Foxconn boards unless you purchase the external panels. The Asus also offers two IEEE 1394a ports via the TI 1394a chipset. However, we believe that Firewire 800 should have been offered on the Asus board, since it is their premium offering.
In the performance area, the Albatron and Foxconn boards offer solid performance, very good stability, and decent feature sets for the price. In fact, if you are looking for basic SLI capability, then either board would be a bargain compared to the more expensive Asus board. At this time we would recommend the Foxconn board over the Albatron board due to the RAID 0 issues and a more extensive feature set for slightly more money. However, if NVIDIA SLI is not your priority, then we still recommend the Asus A8R-MVP as the value and performance leader for the AMD enthusiast.
The Asus A8N-SLI stood out from the rest of the field by consistently offering the best overall performance of the boards tested and, at times, exceeding those of the more expensive DFI and Asus flagship boards. If you require a fully featured board and can live with its overclocking capabilities, then the Asus board should be at the top of your list. In this case, a premium price does ensure premium performance.
The Asus A8N-SLI Premium deserves serious consideration if you are looking to build a feature-rich solution and can live with average overclocking performance compared to the more expensive DFI NF4 SLI-DR and Asus A8N32-SLI boards. The stock performance is equal to or better than either board at less cost. The board ships with an extensive accessory package and proved to be extremely stable in all test areas.
The Foxconn NF4SK8AA offers solid performance, very good stability, and an attractive feature set for the price. While the board produced average results, it was still very competitive with all offerings except in overclocking performance. The board is obviously well built and has a wonderful layout. The accessory package included was very good and ensures that most drive configurations can be handled without additional purchases.
The Albatron K8SLI is a very interesting board as it offers good performance with a minimal feature set. The board layout is very compact while still providing SLI capability. If you want to set up a LAN party system with SLI, then this board will allow you to use the smaller ATX cases without issue. The accessory package was minimal and included the standard IDE/Floppy drive cables, but only one SATA cable and power connector. In fact, the system does not come with the nForce4 RAID drivers on a floppy. Other websites have reported issues getting Windows XP to load on a RAID 0 partition. We were able to load XP on our Maxtor RAID 0 setup with the 6.70 drivers, but could not load the same image consistently on our WD Raptor configuration. We have contacted Albatron regarding this issue.
With that said, let's move on to our performance opinions regarding these boards.
In the video area, all boards offer and fully support SLI operation. The Asus board utilizes Pericom switches that allow the board to be configurable on the fly in either single X16 or Dual X8 PCI Express SLI Graphics mode. In our tests, the board was capable of differentiating between a single SLI capable video card, two SLI compatible video cards, and two video cards operating independently of each other. Asus includes their AI Selector software that allows you to set up your video card mode within Windows. You still need to use the SLI bridge on SLI compatible video cards and setup SLI mode within the NVIDIA drivers.
The Foxconn board utilizes the traditional paddle card method to switch between single and dual card mode. The Albatron board takes a slightly different approach with SLI switching. While Albatron's method is referred to as digital switching, in reality the two PCI-E x16 slots are pre-routed with 8 lanes each. This means that your single video card is only running in PCI-E x8 mode. We did not notice any performance degradation at our stock benchmark resolutions, but with the right application and resolution, you could see a performance drop.
In the on-board audio area, the Asus and Foxconn boards utilize the Realtek ALC850 while the Albatron board utilizes the Realtek ALC655 codec. The audio output of these codecs in the music, video, and gaming areas is sub-par while performance in games is decent. If you plan on playing on-line or value audio quality, we highly suggest a dedicated sound card at this time, but the onboard capabilities of these chipsets will satisfy the majority of office users.
In the storage area, the Asus board offers the greatest amount of storage options with additional SATA ports from the Silicon Image 3114R chipset. The Asus and Foxconn boards offer the standard ten NVIDIA USB ports while Albatron offers eight. Only Asus packages the external USB panels that allow you to take advantage of the USB connectors. You are limited to four USB ports on the Albatron and Foxconn boards unless you purchase the external panels. The Asus also offers two IEEE 1394a ports via the TI 1394a chipset. However, we believe that Firewire 800 should have been offered on the Asus board, since it is their premium offering.
In the performance area, the Albatron and Foxconn boards offer solid performance, very good stability, and decent feature sets for the price. In fact, if you are looking for basic SLI capability, then either board would be a bargain compared to the more expensive Asus board. At this time we would recommend the Foxconn board over the Albatron board due to the RAID 0 issues and a more extensive feature set for slightly more money. However, if NVIDIA SLI is not your priority, then we still recommend the Asus A8R-MVP as the value and performance leader for the AMD enthusiast.
The Asus A8N-SLI stood out from the rest of the field by consistently offering the best overall performance of the boards tested and, at times, exceeding those of the more expensive DFI and Asus flagship boards. If you require a fully featured board and can live with its overclocking capabilities, then the Asus board should be at the top of your list. In this case, a premium price does ensure premium performance.
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Gary Key - Wednesday, January 4, 2006 - link
As stated in the article the current pricing structure lends itself to the purchase of an SLI capable motherboard if the nForce4 is your chipset of choice. Even if you do not utilize SLI you at least have the option of doing so, if not for gaming, then for multiple monitor support and excellent performance utilizing two x8 lanes. If you look at the current support from the motherboard suppliers and product plans it is very obvious that SLI/CrossFire capable motherboards are becoming the standard across all price points. Our statements were based on these facts regarding the motherboard choices available. If you consider the potential cost/performance benefits then why pay the same amount of money for a board that is not capable of SLI or CrossFire and will probably not receive the same level of support over the lifespan of the product.
bob661 - Wednesday, January 4, 2006 - link
Isn't this a contradiction?
Capt Caveman - Tuesday, January 3, 2006 - link
What are you talking about? You can get a SLI board for $70.andlcool - Tuesday, January 3, 2006 - link
for the asus one, it should be ddr and not ddr2.ElFenix - Tuesday, January 3, 2006 - link
still, should be a good price for stock speed boardsElFenix - Tuesday, January 3, 2006 - link
looking at the first chart i mean. doesn't seem to fall off much eh?<--- wants an edit function
Gary Key - Tuesday, January 3, 2006 - link
The Foxconn board offered excellent stability throughout testing although it certainly is not targeted at the overclocking crowd. The performance was certainly acceptable and without the benchmarks you probably would not be able to tell the difference between it and the other boards. The layout is really nice unless you plan on utilizing two video cards with two slot cooling solutions as the space becomes very tight between the two x16 slots.I would like an edit function also. ;->