Review: Stuart "Veridian3" Davidson
Editor/Design: Allan "Zardon" Campbell

When we knew we were going to review the Opteron 146 we had to look at building a whole system around it. The NF7-S motherboard that had served the review system so well over the past few months uses a completely different socket/architecture to the Opteron 146. Upon looking over the options we decided upon the Asus SK8V. The original intention was to review the Opteron only however our experiences with the SK8V have persuaded us that a review of the product is essential.

The SK8V is based on a black PCB which mixed with the yellow and blue of the various slots/connectors is very cool. The board uses VIA’s K8T800 chip which is passively cooled by a stylish blue heatsink. The Southbridge is the Via VT8327 chipset. This combination gives the SK8V the following capabilities:

That’s about as fully featured as you could want your motherboard to be. 4 SATA (inc RAID) connectors, 2 standard IDE, 1 additional IDE RAID, AGP8x, 5PCI, the list goes on. The only addition we would have liked is a second RJ45 connector, not necessarily a 2nd GB Lan. If your not a fan of ad-in brackets the board is still jam packed with features. Through the onboard connectors you get PS/2, 1 Parallel, 1 serial, 4 USB 2.0, 1 Firewire , 1 S/PDIF , GB Lan and the usual audio connectors. The RAID functions are handled by 2 controllers. The Via 8237 and the Promise 20378. The SK8V supports Opteron and Athlon64-FX processors in their socket 940 model. You’ll have noticed if your reading carefully that the board gives you the option of 2 coaxil S/PDIF and one digital optical connector. All are powered from the onboard ADI AD1985 audio solution.

 

Next: the board in more detail