I would also like to point out that the four DIMM slots available onboard allow installing maximum 8GB of memory into ASUS SK8N, although the address space supported by processors based on AMD64 architecture is much bigger.

As for other expansion slots, ASUS SK8N features an AGP 8x slot and 5 absolutely common PCI slots. Although this mainboard is targeted for graphics workstations, ASUS didn’t implement the AGP Pro slot, which is required for some professional graphics cards, such as the 3DLabs solutions, for instance. That is why you will have to choose a graphics accelerator, which doesn’t need an AGP Pro slot, if you decide on an ASUS SK8N based system. Among the available choice will be the solutions from NVIDIA Quadro family. As for the PCI slots, the limitations imposed by the NVIDIA nForce3 Pro 150 chipset make them nothing special: 32bit and 33MHz. that is why you will not be able to use some advanced controller cards on ASUS SK8N mainboard, too. This indicates once again that ASUS SK8N can hardly be regarded as a good choice for the highest-end graphics workstations.

Although NVIDIA nForce3 Pro 150 used in ASUS SK8N supports 3 ATA/133 channels, only two of them are laid out on the board. To implement the support of more hard disk drives, ASUS used an external IDE RAID controller from Promise – Promise PDC20378. This controller features two SerialATA-150 channels and one ATA/133 channel. This way, you can connect maximum 8 hard disk drives to ASUS SK8N mainboard. The onboard Promise PDC20378 controller and the nForce3 Pro 150 chipset allow building 0, 1 and 0+1 RAID arrays from hard disk drives connected to them.

Due to nForce3 Pro 150 chipset, ASUS SK8N features 6 USB 2.0 ports. Four of them are located on the rear panel and two mode ports are implemented via the onboard connector. Besides, ASUS thought it would be also good to have FireWire onboard and equipped its SK8N with TI TSB43AB22A IEEE1394 controller. As a result we can also see an IEEE1394 connector on the rear panel of ASUS SK8N mainboard. one more IEEE1394 port is implemented as an onboard connector.

Despite the fact that ASUS has been equipping all its new mainboards with Gigabit Ethernet controllers lately, ASUS SK8N features only 10/100Mbit Fast Ethernet. They used 10/100 MAC integrated into NVIDIA nForce3 Pro 150 chipset and a physical Realtek RTL8201BL controller. Faster Ethernet will be implemented in the ongoing chipset version aka nForce3 Pro 250 that is why the upcoming ASUS mainboards for Opteron processors will most probably have Gigabit Ethernet as well.

ASUS SK8N is also equipped with AC’97 sound chip. Since this mainboard is targeted for workstations, ASUS decided not to provide it with any advanced sound solutions and used a pretty simple but efficient Realtek ALC650 codec.

The PCB design and functioning of ASUS SK8N didn’t cause us any problems. The electronic components are located pretty cleverly on the mainboard PCB. All the slots available on this board are located in parallel to one another, which is a little unusual for us.

Note that you don’t need any special power supply units for a system built on ASUS SK8N mainboard. It works perfectly fine with the common PSUs complying with the ATX 2.03 specification and featuring an additional 4-pin 12V power cable.

I would like to draw your attention to the heatsink cooling down the chipset on the ASUS SK8N mainboard:

Although nForce3 is a pretty complex chipset containing both: North and South Bridges, it dissipates very little heat. The thing is that nForce3 Pro 150 appeared the first core logic set manufactured with 0.15micron technology. the result of this innovation is evident: a tiny passive aluminum heatsink is more than enough to ensure proper cooling of this chipset.