It would be fair to say that the press briefing regarding the RD580 chipset on which this board from Asus is based pretty much claimed that it was the fastest solution ever created for the socket 939 platform. A pretty big claim to make so lets see if it lives up to some high expectations.

Packaging and Bundle

The A8R32-MVP comes packaged in a bland box. As far as information on the product goes you do get all you need such as processor compatibility and the chipset used by the board. However for something which may well be the top of the performance pile it does have a rather understated design.

Flipping up the top of the box you also get further information on the product, far more than you see on boxes from other manufacturers so in that respect Asus should be applauded.

Opening the box we can see that the usual Asus generosity continues in this model. First up we have the software and manuals.

On the right of the above picture you can see the manual for this particular product, its detailed and well written with all information being easy to find and understand. The disc in the middle features the various drivers and applications (antivirus and monitoring etc) and the sleeve also contains an Asus case sticker. The left hand side item is the Intervideo suite which features items such as WinDVD so all your media viewing and creation needs should be catered for.

The cables and accessories provided by Asus are as always plentiful. You have numerous IDE and SATA cables as well as power converters and the additional USB and firewire ports.