Got my new k8n-e board last week, and a AMD64 XP3000+ to go with it. After a week of toying around i feel the need to vent my frustrations.
ASUS you should be ashamed of yourself !!
Based on the published specs. i decided that this was the "BOARD" to host my new CPU.
Who can resist 6 sata channels, and 8 channel audio ?
Well i should have investigated more intensively before buying.
I currenly own 4 WD Raptors. Now from the specs. of the board it would be possible for me to run these in a Raid-0 configuration. I really had wet dreams of how fast this baby would be....sigh
It was possible to run 4 raptors in raid-0. In fact the board was very easy to install and configure. But when it came to testing, 4 raptors could barely exceed the performance of a single raptor when connected to the onboard SIL3114 controller.
From previous experience with raid controllers (onboard and PCI ones) i know that these are almost always related to the PCI bus in some way, and therefore only run at 33Mhz, which is way below what is needed to make 4 Raptors move.
I went to Silicon Image's homepage and checked the specs. of the SIL3114 chip. I appears that it has a 32bit/66Mhz interface (266mb/s). The question is: How is it connected to the rest of the system. According to Sissoft Sandra and Powerstrip it sits alone on PCI bus 2, which is fine. This ensures that no other device can bring the interface speed down to 33Mhz. However both programs report that PCI bus 2 only runs at PCI clk * 1 (33Mhz).
This would explain why my 4 Raptors perform so badly on the SIL controller. They are simply held back by the bus.
Can anyone verify this ?
If it turns out that ASUS are unable to get a lot more performance out of the SIL controller with future updates
i would call this an unuseable gadget. Its only there so thay can print 6 ch. sata on the box.
For those who's interested in results i can tell you that Sisoft Sandra reports a File System Benchmark average of 87mb/s (burst read is only at 70mb/s).
The BIOS of this board i to say the least, very flawed.
In order to change VCore or multipliers you need to enable a feature called "Cool & Quiet". Now this feature is designed to adjust multiplier and core voltage dynamically thus reducing the need for high fan speeds (noise).
Why would anyone want to increase VCore and then let BIOS decide when its time to raise or lower it ?
Also there are issues with the sound system. When playing Battlefield 1942 with sound hardware acceleration enabled the sound simply garbles after a few seconds of play.
There are no longer any play speach sound nor can i hear when someone drops bombs on my....another annoyance.
I did however manage to get around this by disabling hardware acc. and reducing the number of sound channels to 24.
Conclusion: If you have your eyes on this board, then wait a few months before buying. Hopefully ASUS have corrected these matters by then.
ASUS you should be ashamed of yourself !!
Based on the published specs. i decided that this was the "BOARD" to host my new CPU.
Who can resist 6 sata channels, and 8 channel audio ?
Well i should have investigated more intensively before buying.
I currenly own 4 WD Raptors. Now from the specs. of the board it would be possible for me to run these in a Raid-0 configuration. I really had wet dreams of how fast this baby would be....sigh
It was possible to run 4 raptors in raid-0. In fact the board was very easy to install and configure. But when it came to testing, 4 raptors could barely exceed the performance of a single raptor when connected to the onboard SIL3114 controller.
From previous experience with raid controllers (onboard and PCI ones) i know that these are almost always related to the PCI bus in some way, and therefore only run at 33Mhz, which is way below what is needed to make 4 Raptors move.
I went to Silicon Image's homepage and checked the specs. of the SIL3114 chip. I appears that it has a 32bit/66Mhz interface (266mb/s). The question is: How is it connected to the rest of the system. According to Sissoft Sandra and Powerstrip it sits alone on PCI bus 2, which is fine. This ensures that no other device can bring the interface speed down to 33Mhz. However both programs report that PCI bus 2 only runs at PCI clk * 1 (33Mhz).
This would explain why my 4 Raptors perform so badly on the SIL controller. They are simply held back by the bus.
Can anyone verify this ?
If it turns out that ASUS are unable to get a lot more performance out of the SIL controller with future updates
i would call this an unuseable gadget. Its only there so thay can print 6 ch. sata on the box.
For those who's interested in results i can tell you that Sisoft Sandra reports a File System Benchmark average of 87mb/s (burst read is only at 70mb/s).
The BIOS of this board i to say the least, very flawed.
In order to change VCore or multipliers you need to enable a feature called "Cool & Quiet". Now this feature is designed to adjust multiplier and core voltage dynamically thus reducing the need for high fan speeds (noise).
Why would anyone want to increase VCore and then let BIOS decide when its time to raise or lower it ?
Also there are issues with the sound system. When playing Battlefield 1942 with sound hardware acceleration enabled the sound simply garbles after a few seconds of play.
There are no longer any play speach sound nor can i hear when someone drops bombs on my....another annoyance.
I did however manage to get around this by disabling hardware acc. and reducing the number of sound channels to 24.
Conclusion: If you have your eyes on this board, then wait a few months before buying. Hopefully ASUS have corrected these matters by then.
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