X-bit labs

ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe Mainboard Review (page 5)

Category: Mainboards

by Yury Mitrofanov

[ 04/20/2004 | 10:14 PM ]

PCB Design

The first glance at the mainboard brings you a surprise: there is no 4-pin power connector for the processor. Now there will be no cables hanging over the CPU socket! On the other hand, the additional 12V power rail adds stability to the current in case of high loads. You have nothing to worry about if you’ve got a good PSU, but a low-quality PSU may not provide the necessary current stability. The 20-pin power connector is located where it should be, provoking no problems.

The NorthBridge of the chipset has a high-profile multi-ribbed passive heatsink on. The South Bridge is not covered with anything, although it might use a heatsink: the Dolby-Digital-supporting APU may make the South Bridge heat up a lot. Overheating may lead to noise distortions in the audio tract and even make your system hang up. This also means that you must modify the cooling system if you are set to conquer overclocking heights.

The fifth PCI slot is very close to the WiFi one. As a result, when you install the WLAN card, you will have only four PCI slots available. Moreover, you are likely to lose the fifth PCI slot, which is the closest to the AGP, too. The cooling system of the graphics card will probably prevent you from installing an expansion card into the first PCI slot. Considering the numerous features of the mainboard, three remaining slots should be enough, though.

The component layout is appropriate, with minor inconveniences. The connector for the CPU cooler is placed somewhat unusually, but nevertheless it is easy to access. The pin connector to which you attach buttons and LEDs of the system case is color-coded so that you could assemble the system without consulting the user manual.

Everything is in its right place. You can use the second COM port. The connectors for the system fans are where they should be. I only didn’t like the positions of the CD-in, AUX-in, COM2 and GAME/MIDI connectors. The CD-in an AUX-in are rarely used nowadays and mainboard makers put them just for the sake of having these options. The latter two connectors seem to be intended for a panel installed into the 5.25” bay, although the manual says otherwise.

To my opinion, the PCB design of ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe is user-friendly. Of course, it could have been even better, but ASUS engineers managed to avoid all basic problems. Other things are not that important.