ASUS K8N-E Deluxe
| ASUS K8N-E Deluxe | |
| CPU Support | All Athlon 64 Socket 754 processors |
| Northbridge | NVIDIA nForce3 250Gb |
| Memory Support | 3 slots, DDR400, 3GB max, single-channel |
| AGP | One 8X slot |
| PEG16X | None |
| Southbridge | None |
| Audio | Realtek ALC850 from 250Gb feed |
| Audio Connectivity | 8 port backplane speaker, S/PDIF optical output, digital coax output |
| PCI | 5 x 32-bit 33MHz PCI 2.1 slots |
| PCI Express | None |
| IDE | 2 ATA133 compliant ports from 250Gb |
| IDE RAID | RAID0, RAID1, RAID0+1, from 250Gb |
| SATA | 2 ports from 250Gb, 4 ports from Silicon Image 3114 |
| SATA RAID | RAID0, RAID1, RAID0+1 on 250Gb ports, RAID0, RAID1, RAID0+1 on Sil3114 ports |
| Networking | Marvel Alaska 88E1111 single port Ethernet PHY from 250Gb MAC, 10/100/1000Mbit. On-board hardware firewall and packet filter. |
| USB | 8 possible, 6 supplied. 4 backplane USB2.0, 2 I/O USB2.0 |
| FireWire | FireWire400, 1 backplane port, 1 x I/O (powered) from Ti VIA VT6307 OCHI controller |
| Other I/O | PS/2, Parallel, 1 x Serial, Game port I/O |
Compared to the older K8V, looking past the obvious chipset-level differences that the nForce3 250Gb brings, the new board's obvious differences come in the form of the SATA support, Ethernet implementation and the sound solution. With the K8V offering a pair of VT8237-powered ports with RAID0 and RAID1, the K8N gets RAID0, RAID1 and RAID0+1 from the NVIDIA controller. The K8V used a Promise controller for a pair of extra SATA ports and another IDE channel, whereas the K8N swaps that for Silicon Image's Sil3114 4-port SATA controller, offering RAID0, RAID1 and RAID0+1 on all four supplied ports, leaving out any extra IDE channels, past the two available from the 250Gb itself.
After that, the networking available on the K8N doesn't change in speed over the Gigabit Ethernet that was also available on K8V, but the K8N pairs that speed with the nForce3 250Gb's onboard hardware firewall and packet filter.
Audio wise, K8V had the excellent Analog Devices SoundMAX AD1980 CODEC, fed by that board's VT8237 southbridge. And while the AD1980 is compatible with the nForce3 250Gb's audio output, ASUS have swapped it for Realtek's ALC850 8-channel AC'97 CODEC. The ALC850 has a quartet of stereo 16-bit DACs for output, along with a single stereo input (again at 16-bit resolution).
Like most modern AC'97 CODECs, the 850 is jack-sensing, so you can plug in your speakers to any of the ports, not caring what goes where, allowing the software to sense what's been plugged in and remap the speaker outputs appropriately. It's a step up in terms of the number of audio channels it supports and the jack sensing capability (something you can find on the AD1985-equipped SK8V), but possibly a step down from the AD1980 in terms of final audio fidelity.
Finally, ASUS drop the WiFi port that made its way onto K8V and SK8V, without replacing it with any separate WiFi solution.
So the new chipset brings upgraded base features to the K8N, with ASUS beefing up the SATA support, tweaking the audio solution and keeping the fine level of peripheral connectivity with USB2.0 and FireWire400 intact, compared to K8V. Powered by Socket 754 and affordable Athlon 64, the K8N-E seems like a worthy replacement for K8V.
Let's check out the board appearance and layout.
