The first RD480 based board we are looking at today is the Asus A8R-MVP. This was delivered as an inexpensive mainstream product right from the start, as Asus knew the RD580 was in the pipeline even when developing this board. Aesthetically the A8R-MVP is by far and away the blandest looking motherboard on test, but this is of course unimportant unless you plan on showing off the board with a case window.
In terms of features, the A8R-MVP comes packed, if not overflowing with goodies. Naturally it has the twin PCI-Express slots required for Crossfire operation, as well as an additional 1x PCIe-slot and 3 standard PCIs. Rather than going with the ATi developed Southbridge, Asus has chosen to go with a ULi solution instead. This brings the benefits of native SATA2 support, as well as superior USB performance. One of the nice features of the A8R-MVP is its 100% passive cooling. This means no chance of failing fans, and 100% silent operation. To assist overclockers, the A8R-MVP has a large heat sink on the MOSFETs.
The SATA 2 controller on the ULI Southbridge provides a total of 4 SATA connectors. All of these support RAID, though we had major problems getting a mixture of RAID and non-RAID disks to work. This is true of nForce 4 chipsets as well, though in this case the workaround trick that works on the nForce (setting the single disk as a JBOD RAID array) does not work. This means that people wanting to run a mixture of RAID and non-RAID disks will need to purchase a separate PCI SATA controller card. The integrated audio on the Asus is of good quality, as it uses a High-Definition Audio ADI Soundmax chip. Slightly disappointing is the choice of gigabit LAN controller, as it is a PCI Marvell solution rather than the faster PCI-E alternatives. In terms of performance, the Asus motherboard provides extremely competative scores, and offers very solid overclocking performance as well, with a host of voltage options for the memory. Slightly restrictive is the maximum CPU voltage but for a price of £76, Asus has delivered nearly premium-quality overclocking options.
As usual with Asus boards, the BIOS is not the most intuitive, but will be extremely simple for people who have used Asus boards in the past. Setting up crossfire on this board was as simple as plugging in two cards and ticking the relevant driver option in Windows. As a mainstream product, the Asus A8R-MVP delivers quality in spades at a price that’s right, and therefore comes highly recommended.
