ATI RADEON Xpress 3200 Shootout: ASUS A8R32-MVP Deluxe -v- Sapphire PURE Crossfire PC-A9RD580

Thoughts and HEXUS.awards

If you're an overclocker or you're looking to run high-end Crossfire, we can recommend the ASUS A8R32-MVP. Cheaper than its nForce4 SLI cousin, the A8N32-SLI, by about £20, the board managed 300MHz HTT while still maintaining a 5x HTT multiplier and the voltage ranges available should see almost any CPU and memory pushed to its reasonable limits.

The feature set is strong, ASUS adding strong additional ICs to the Xpress 3200 northbridge to produce a mainboard that gives little or nothing away to its peers in terms of on-paper feature lists. eSATA, HD Audio and good expansion posibilities (you keep 2 PCIc slots even with dual-slot Crossfire hardware) round off what we tested as a great high-end Socket 939 board. Your author ponders a swap to one, such is its quality.

It's a shame we can't say that about the Sapphire. The board's layout and provision of only one PCIc slot means that the strong performance, both in our benchmarks and while overclocking (300MHz HTT with 5x HTT multi, 340MHz with 4x), means that even a lower price of just over £100 can't see us recommend it.

The ASUS is worth the extra money and Xpress 3200 proves itself worthy on Socket 939, competing with nForce4 in terms of standard performance and overclocking, something which it was designed for.

The ASUS is possibly ultimately outclassed by DFI's Xpress 3200 when pushed to maximal limits, DFI's Oskar Wu overseeing engineering of that board to an extent where it's entirely overengineered for most uses.

I'm personally pondering a 300MHz x 9 overclock using an Opteron 165, Samsung TCCD-based memory and the ASUS for my own personal system. The mainboard can handle that overclock with ease at 5x HTT multiplier and I can see that combination or something very similar (maybe with single-core Opteron or Athlon 64, or a different memory choice, but the same overall goal) appealing to many of you.

The best Athlon 64 mainboard currently available? With true x16 dual graphics, easy high-end overclocks and a good feature set it's hard to say otherwise. DFI would say no, but then at over £165 inc. in the U.K. for their CFX3200 (at the time of writing), your wallet might too.

So, finally something to dethrone DFI's nF4 LanParty boards, or ASUS's own A8N32-SLI? For reasonable money we argue it probably can. Highly recommended.