Asus A7N8X-DX (Deluxe Version)

[Chrono_Wanderer]

Originally posted by The AngeL
The A7N8X deluxe is one of the boads that has a lot of goodies ala Firewire, but for Beginners on Video-editing the Matrox RTX10 is a better solution. If u think that with only Firewire you have a PC ready for video-editing then that's a myth. Imho i would save my money to buy one of the Matorx Video-editing Boards. I am still looking a eye on to odells the RTX10 and the RTX100. Let's see...

i second what farid said. AFAIK a beginner is no where close to semi-pro, and in my mind a beginner is someone who won't be adding a lot of effects/touch-ups to his/her videos. and obviously beginners won't be using lots of real time effects. RT.X10 is a great board, but definitely an overkill for home users. IMO RT.X10 is more like an enthusiast board, while the RT.X100 is a semi-pro to a "less intensive/demanding" pro board. a home user won't need any NLE stuff. my interpretation of a beginner's video suite is a firewire card (or 1394 built on the mobo) with a tv card that is capible of video capturing/outputing, much like a RRG or WinTV card. so if you ask me a beginner (who will build an all-on-one rig) should go for:

1) a 1394 card/input
2) TV-card w/video-in or video-out
3) possibly a dvd+R/-R
4) a decent CPU
4) high quality RAMs

edit: and of course a good all-round video card

[hippie91]

forget where i read it, (might have just been marketing bs, but it said that the firewire port that was onboard would be more stable/nore likely to max out the possable bw since it's built into the chipset vs sharing the pci bus's bw

think it was either on the asus or nvidia website

[Brian Ellis]

At least Farid and Chrono-Wanderer have their feet on the ground

What can an RT card offer a beginner that an IEEE-1394 (if necessary, with an analogue bridge) cannot? The need to use something like Premiere? Get with it, Angel; you must be an RT card salesman and see your market disappearing behind RT software.

I consider myself reasonably advanced in this business and have done pro work for my ex-company. I'm currently using an IEEE-1394 card, a Canopus ADVC-100 and MSP 7. That combination is quite technically and economically competitive to an RT card with Premiere. It can do nearly everything that the RT can do, and then some. And the learning curve is easier, to boot.

Hippie: I mistrust integrated gadgets. They are often cut price, compared with the real thing. My experience with integrated sound, for example, has been catastrophic.

[Jerry Jones]

A warning for those contemplating the *deluxe* version.

I started this thread and was excited about the onboard Firewire of the DELUXE version.

But the more I thought about it, the more I asked myself the question... "What if it doesn't work?"

I already had a PCI Firewire controller.

So why pay extra for the onboard Firewire?

Rather than take the gamble, I bought the *non-deluxe* version instead (without onboard Firewire).

I'm glad I did.

Early reports from users of the DELUXE version suggest there *may* be an issue with the onboard Firewire controller.

Two posters to another forum have reported that it doesn't work for DV .avi timeline playback PRINT TO TAPE function.

Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

[hippie91]

hmmm where did you hear this?

i've not yet used mine, i got the deluxe for the nicer sound proccessing and the dual network cards (may as well free up a couple slots if i'm getting a new mb)



in testing the extra mem bw is VERY nice on programs that are limited by mem bw

3d type things in general

[Jkun]

Jerry, where did you read about the FW issues? Playback problem from timeline from which software, to which FW device?

thx
J-kun

[Jerry Jones]

Yes... the Deluxe version is nice for the SoundStorm feature alone (which the non-deluxe version does not have).

As for the onboard IEEE 1394, I have read two posts on the MediaStudio WWUG forum from two individuals who have purchased the DELUXE version.

One of them was in error about one thing, in my opinion.

He was suggesting that timeline playback doesn't work with WINDOWS 2000 due to lack of a custom IDE driver from Asus for Windows 2000.

I have confirmed during my testing that the generic IDE driver in Windows 2000 works fine.

My timeline playback is flawless.

So there's something else going on with his system - in my view - where Windows 2000 is concerned.

But he and another guy also mentioned they couldn't get the onboard IEEE 1394 controller to work at all for DV .avi timeline playback from MEDIASTUDIO.

They then added PCI 1394 boards and were able to overcome this problem (using Windows XP).

Both succeeded in getting timeline playback to work in Windows XP using these PCI 1394 boards.

So... there *may* be an issue with the onboard IEEE 1394 controller... given their experience.

I would caution, however, that the claim about timeline playback not working - even with PCI Firewire boards - in Windows 2000 is simply not true.

It does work.

Another thing to remember about these boards is how to install the ram sticks.

If you have two sticks, you're supposed to put stick #1 in slot #1 and stick #2 in slot #3.

This supposedly enables the so-called "Twin Bank" speed enhancement.

Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

[Jerry Jones]

Here's the thread started by the two individuals who couldn't get the onboard Firewire to work:

http://www.dmnforums.com/cgi-bin/displaywwugpost.fcgi?forum=uleadmediastudio&post=030012191745.htm

There's also a Firewire thread on the motherboard forum:

http://www.nforcershq.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3456

Happy reading.

Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

[hippie91]

actually i've heard that you can put the ram in slots 1&3 or 2&3

2&3 giving slightly better performance (shorter traces perhaps?)

it's just far easyier to know which slot is which and be sure you have em in the right ones by putting them in 1&3

[Jerry Jones]

Yes, 2 & 3 also work...

...and yes...

...some report that is slightly faster than the 1/3 combination.

I have mine in both 1 and 3 and everything passes Memtest-86 so I'm not going to mess with it any further.

Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

[hippie91]

hehe i agree there! if it works don't #$^%@# with it!

[Snake-Eyes]

Personally, I don't see how anyone considers 3 dimm slots with DualDDR as half-assed. It's pretty simple really. If you need gobs of memory, fit 2 large dimms, using bank 3 for one of them, and either of the other two, and you get DualDDR functionality. At least you don't have to terminate the memory.

As far as the firewire issues go- most of us that are contemplating this board probably already have (at least) one 1394 PCI card available from our present rigs. If we have problems with the onboard 1394, plop the PCI card in and use it instead for the video editing. That still leaves the onboard ports available for other things (I personally not only use my firewire for my camcorder, but also for my scanner and my CDRW, for which it seems very efficient compared to Serial/Parallel/USB/USB2, etc.). As a bonus, you still get to free up a bunch of other PCI slots, since you don't need a sound card, ethernet card, and possibly (if you use it in the near future) a Serial ATA PCI adapter. All these things are already in there.

The Asus is currently the king of the nForce2 motherboard heap, which is saying a lot, given that nForce2 in general is currently leading ALL other AMD chipsets in performance.

[wkulecz]

You can only get 2/3 rds of the possible gobs of memory with dualDDR and the biggest modules. Adding a third makes it run slower. This is my definition of "half-assed" YMMV.

The Granite Bay P4 dualDDR chipset appears to support 4 modules, I've not yet seen enough of the fine print to see if its half-assed or not.

I'm still sitting on the fence about upgrades for the time being, probably will reamin until after MSP7 is available. OTOH $99 SiS735 based ECS motherboards and Athelon XP2000+ bundles are awfually tempting bang/buck wise despite being nowhere near the leading edge.

--wally.

[hippie91]

well considering it holds a gig per slot, how many people commonly (w/o going for dual cpu platforms anyways) need more than 2 gigs?

[Snake-Eyes]

Thanks hippie. That was my point too. I personally only have 512MB RAM right now, and most likely will move to 1 GB when I get my A7N8X too. So far, 512 has been more than enough, but I plan to double it for a comfortable margin for the near future.

If you really need more than 2 GB of ram, you're probably looking for a server setup anyway, as that's practically the only application that really takes advantage of that much memory right now.