Asus P5N7A-VM Comments

Nice review, Mr Waldock. You explained it all very well and I learned a lot.

Thanks.

the MSI board with this new 9300 chipset does not have dual-link DVI (so would only output low res)
can you please tell us if this Asus does..?

I'm afraid I'd have to disagree I found this a disappointingly thin review - was it rushed?

On the 3dMark chart the labels indicate you're comparing 2 Gigabyte boards - wrong chart or wrong labels?

Ok so there is not a lot of difference between this and a G45 although the Nvidia supports faster memory and has a PATA interface. By the way it would be helpful to know the driver levels you used on the G45 comparison board.

HDMI up to 1,920 x 1,200 so 1080p
DVI up to 1,600 x 1,200
VGA up to 2,048 x 1,536
Display Port up to 2,560 x 1,600
Driver versions are bang up to date for 32-bit Vista and are nForce 20.07 and GeForce 178.13 for the 9300M and INF 9.1.0.1007 and GFX 15.11.2.1554 for G45

As for Nvidia supporting PATA there is a JMicron JMB368 controller so in that respect it is just like Intel.

@Epic. I didn't know anything about integrated graphics options on motherboards, currently available today so did find it useful in that regard. I felt that part at least was well explained.

My own interest for the board did not extend any further than this, as I have a P45 board and have no use for it. Whether the review covered over features sufficiently, I'll leave for you and others to judge.

I've been browsing through some of Leo's past memory reviews and found those interesting and somewhat enlightening, too. So, I appreciate the effort in providing a readable (though less dense) overview of the differences to some of the computer components out there today. It all helps. Cheers. :)

what CPU was used for the charts?

The CPU should have been listed on the test results - it was a Core 2 Duo E8500 running at stock 3.16GHz on 1,333MHz front side bus. 2GB dual channel DDR2 - 800MHz on the 9300M, 1,066Mhz on G45. OS was 32-bit Windows Vista Ultimate Edition.

I would say check out the: ASUS M3A78-EM
It's pretty much all the same features on 780G for half the price

Does this board have overclocking enabled for the GPU? I know Asus has been shy about allowing it on 780G boards, so I would assume it to be the same for the 9300M. It might be a good way to save some cash to look for a board that allows it.

Question: How many screens can the 9300M chip drive at the same time?

I'd love to use this as a second computer, but be able to drive my main TV to watch DVDs etc.. while still having my computer monitor plugged in.

Answer: Two
Looking at the manual on the Asus site it states you can run VGA at the same time as the DVI/HDMI. But you can't run two digital outputs at the same time. I can therefore drive my monitor via VGA (it's old) and have a hdmi connection to my TV.

Thanks for the review Leo. You helped me finally decide for this board :)

Now that i have it, i have some questions (maybe others can help too). I've mounted it on a Antec Fusion Remote Max case with a E8400 with a Xigmatek HDT-s1283 (yes, it fits inside that case). I'm only using the Antec 12 and 14 cm fans provided with the case, and I didnt check the temperature of the chipset until todays update of Speedfan wich told me my chipset was at 75 degrees celsius on IDLE!!! I've checked it with GPU-Z too. In your article you say you mounted a case fan to lower that temperature. You mean you mounted a case fan on the chipset? I'd like more info on this if possible

Thanks a lot, and keep the good work

Dote