Introduciton

In the past few months, we've been paying quite a bit of attention towards the multi-GPU scene, especially on the growing CrossFire enabled product base. ATI initially plugged the gap with a CrossFire Edition of their well-mellowed Radeon Xpress 200 (RD480) chipset. In our past few CrossFire motherboard reviews, the RD480 proved to be a good bargain for users to get on CrossFire without burning a hole in their pockets, but the chipset itself may not have been too appealing to enthusiasts looking to a powerful platform. ATI then followed up with the released of the high-end dual x16 CrossFire Xpress 3200 (RD580) chipset, which has so far been very well received but still limited in availability.

Imagine our surprise when the ASUS A8R-MVP (not the A8R32-MVP mind you) arrived at our labs sporting the brand new ATI CrossFire Xpress 1600 chipset targeted at the mid-range market promising to be ATI's 'performance-class multi-GPU platform'. The ATI CrossFire Xpress 1600 chipset is a standard two-chip solution and as its name implies, it is half that of the CrossFire Xpress 3200, which means it will run CrossFire with a dual PCIe x8 interface.




Déjà Vu

CrossFire Xpress 1600? There is no CrossFire Xpress 1600. Well there is, but contrary to what we initially thought, it isn't a new chipset. ATI apparently thought that since the RD580 is called the CrossFire Xpress 3200, it would make sense that its predecessor is thus similarly named. If you look past the smoke screen, the CrossFire Xpress 1600 is actually nothing more than a name change to breathe new life into the Radeon Xpress 200 CrossFire Edition. As Computex 2006 is drawing nearer, we fully expect ATI and its motherboard manufacturers to take full advantage of this.

Now that we've cleared up the confusion between the relationship of the CrossFire Xpress 1600 and the Radeon Xpress 200 CrossFire Edition, let's get right down to the board in question – the ASUS A8R-MVP. Seeing how successful A8R32-MVP is, we intend to find out if the more mainstream CrossFire capable A8R-MVP is worth considering. Breaking our own convention slightly, we'll put the stakes on the table first. The A8R-MVP costs on average US$100 while the A8R32-MVP goes for a whopping US$190. Now if that has gotten your attention, let's get on with this review.

The ASUS A8R-MVP motherboard.

The A8R-MVP comes with a nice hefty bundle that takes care of all the connectivity onboard. However, there doesn't seem to be a SATA/RAID driver diskette provided, which will be a slight inconvenience, but something users should take note of when installing Windows. Apart from that, here's a list of accessories you can expect to find in every A8R-MVP motherboard package:-

4 x SATA data cables

2 x SATA power converter cables (dual plugs)

1 x 80-conductor Ultra ATA data cable

1 x 40-conductor ATA data cable

1 x floppy drive data cable

CrossFire PCIe terminator card

IEEE 1394a bracket (1 port)

USB 2.0 (2 ports) and Game port bracket

I/O shield

Driver CD

User's Manual

ASUS A8R-MVP Technical Specifications

CPU Support	Supports AMD socket 939 Athlon 64 CPU Supports AMD socket 939 Athlon 64 FX CPU Supports AMD Cool 'n' Quiet Technology
Chipset	Northbridge: ATI CrossFire Xpress 1600 (RD480) Bi-directional 1GHz (2000MT/s) HyperTransport interface to processor Supports 1x PCIe x16 or 2x PCIe x8 graphics interface Southbridge: ULi M1575 Intel High Definition Audio Supports up to four PCI Express x1 lanes Supports up to seven PCI  v2.3 slots Supports up to eight USB 2.0 ports Supports four SATA 3.0Gbps ports (with RAID 0, 1, 0+1 and 5 capabilities) Dual-channel Ultra ATA-100 IDE port
Memory	Dual channel memory architecture integrated into processor Four 184-pin DDR DIMM sockets Supports 2.5v DDR SDRAM DIMM modules Supports up to 4GB using PC1600 (DDR200), PC2100 (DDR266), PC2700 (DDR333) and PC3200 (DDR400) unbuffered DDR SDRAM DIMM
Storage	ULi M1575 Southbridge 4 x Ultra ATA 33/66/100/133 (data transfer rate up to 133MB/sec.) 4 x Serial ATA 3.0Gbps interface Supports SATA RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 0+1, RAID 5
Audio	Intel High Definition Audio (Azalia) Analog Devices SoundMAX AD1986A HD Audio CODEC
Networking	Marvell Yukon 88E8001 PCI Gigabit LAN
IEEE 1394 (FireWire)	Texas Instruments TSB43AB22A FireWire controller 2 x 1394a ports @ 400 Mbps speed
I/O Interface	1 x Floppy connector 2 x Ultra ATA IDE connectors 4 x SATA connectors 8 x USB 2.0 ports (4 x rear, 2x bracket, 2 x header) 2 x FireWire ports (1 x rear, 1 x bracket) 1 x RJ45 LAN port 6-Channel Audio I/O ports Coaxial S/PDIF Output 1 x CD-IN 1 x Game/MIDI port (header) 1 x 9-pin serial port 1 x parallel port 1 x mini-DIN-6 PS/2 mouse port 1 x mini-DIN-6 PS/2 keyboard port
Expansion Slots	2 x PCIe x16 slots, PCI Express Bus specification v1.0a compliant 1 x PCIe x1 slots, PCI Express Bus specification v1.0a compliant 3 x 32-bit PCI slots, PCI 2.3 compliant
Special Features	ASUS PEG Link CrashFree BIOS 2 CPU Parameter Recall (C.P.R)
PCB	ATX Form Factor, 12"x 9.6"(30.5cm x 24.4cm)

Mainstream motherboard, but still packing great I/O capabilities. LAN, USB, FireWire and Coaxial S/PDIF are among the available ports. No dedicated analog ports to support the six audio channels though.