ASUS K8V Deluxe and K8V Deluxe Wireless Edition

Overclocking and Conclusion

Overclocking

Overclocking on K8T800 isn't the satisfying foray into free performance that it should be. Not locking the primary PCI bus and AGP clocks is the main reason why, along with a limited set of multiplier adjustments on many boards.

You can drop multiplier and go for high driven clock speed and a decent memory clock, but PCI and AGP stop you from going much past 225MHz. Then you can't increase CPU clock by multiplier, since you can't go above the boot multiplier, 10x on Model 3200+ and Model 3000+. Expensive Model 3400+ when that appears wont make things much more attractive really.

Be thankful that performance is so excellent at and around 2 to 2.2GHz, the reasonable upper limit on most K8T800 boards just now. The Model 3200+ CPUs themselves seem capable of ~2.4GHz with a bit of voltage, but you need locked AGP realistically, even if you do hang your disk drives off a controller that happens to be on the locked secondary bus.

I managed 225MHz on both K8V samples before PCI speed would corrupt the bootloader on the 8237 attached Raptor disk and an OS reinstall was needed. 2250MHz and overclocked graphics card was enough for nearly 24000 3DMarks, pretty impressive.

Boards need to lock AGP and all PCI busses before things get much better. The memory controller on the CPU seems happy to run at increased frequency when everything else permits. We hope for a friendlier next generation of boards.

Conclusion

My first look at Model 3200+ Athlon 64 on K8T800 was an encouraging one. K8V is a well featured, well presented, well laid out board. It performs well, K8T800 deserves the plaudits and the bundle options mean a decent choice of K8V options at retail.

High cost of entry due to CPU pricing lets the platform down a little, but that's not ASUS' fault. They've put together a strong set of packages you can be confident in buying.

I can't recommend it just yet, it's the first board I've had the pleasure of looking at, and the second board I have is pretty good too. Plus the GeIL memory in the tested WiFi bundle is just plain wrong, a curious inclusion, one that shouldn't have happened. It's entirely unsuited to the board it's bundled with.

AD1980 audio was a highlight and the WiFi will be a more than welcome inclusion for some.

A strong board, definitely one for your shortlist. The cost of the bundled GeIL in the Wireless Edition gets a point knocked off for pointlessness. If you run Opteron or Athlon FX, look out for the SK8V version with Socket 940.

Score

K8V Deluxe

K8V Deluxe Wireless Edition

Pros

Good performance
Good features (AD1980 and digital audio especially)
Well presented
Quite cheap for K8T800 (non Wireless Edition)
WiFi capable
Flexible fixed disk setups are possible

Cons

Daft inclusion of 256MB of PC4000 memory (Wireless Edition)
No PCI and AGP lock (secondary PCI is locked though)
It doesn't seem to like memory timings that deviate far from the SPD limits