A7N8X or A7N8X Deluxe

[Admiral Horror]

I am trying to decide between those two board (or rather 2 flavours of the same board). As far as I see the differences between the two are firewire, SATA, sound and possibly dual lan.

I have no use for firewire or dual lan. SATA is nice but nothing breathtaking, not enough of a reason on its own to go with Deluxe. So, basically it all comed down to the sound. My desk does not allow me to setup 5.1 speaker system so in any case (Deluxe or not) I will be using 2.1 speakers with it. My question is: how is the sound of Deluxe model compares to the sound of the basic model when played over the 2.1 speakers?

Post your experiences or educated speculations.

Thank you

[PsychoSy]

Join the club as I'm in the same boat. ;)

Might just go with the Non-Deluxe and save about $30 or so.

[Riff]

I have the A7N8X Deluxe. I have to admit that I only had an AWE64 Gold on my previous system but the nvidia soundstorm audio is excellent and I could easily notice the difference with my 2.1 speakers. The MCP audio will also be less CPU intensive than most other solutions.

Also beware that some of the nForce2 motherboards (usually the non-Deluxe versions) that only supply one NIC are going with a 3COM chip instead of using the integrated nvidia nic which seems the better nic.

[ReDeeMeR]

Well 30$ aint much and it's basicaly for a nice sound card, 2.1 or 5.1 it's still a good choice to go with ;)

I'm not sure in the Nvidia drivers work with motherboards without Soundstrom.

[Firelord-OCHW]

The non deluxe version doesn't come with soundstorm ;) beware :)

The Abit NF7-S has almost all of the features of the A7N8X for an inbetween price of the Deluxe and non Deluxe version :)

It has SATA (with adaptor :)), soundstorm, firewire, LAN and lots of USB2 :)

[Hunter32]

Go with the deluxe. You may not need everything it has to offer now, but maybe later on you might want to use one of those features.

[The Baron]

Go Deluxe. SATA's starting to catch on, and probably wil continue in the next several months. But then again, there might be a SATA2 by the time that you need a SATA drive... doh.

[Nephilim]

I got a deluxe.

Get a deluxe.

Let me put it to you this way. Here was my system before the upgrade:

1.4Ghz T-bird
Gigabyte 7VTX
512MB Ram
Geforce 4 Ti4200
SB Audigy Platinum
3COM LAN (3C905-B)
3COM LAN (3C905-B)

And after:
1.4Ghz T-bird
Asus A7N8X Deluxe
512MB Ram
Geforce 4 Ti4200


Notice the difference? There are NO PCI cards in my system. None, nada, zilch, nil.

It rocks.

[PsychoSy]

That cinches it! :D
One Deluxe sold to this here goofy honky with da bald head! :p

[SavagePaladin]

I wish more dudes did the dual LAN bit.

Its just cool.

I personally don't see firewire as all that useful...but the rest is good.

Even if I don't have broadband yet <g>

[Admiral Horror]

Damn, got a parking ticket last night - $30 Canadian :-( That's the difference between plain and deluxe A7N8X

Anyway, thank you all for replying. I think I will go with deluxe mb and SATA HD for my new system.

Cheers

[vampireuk]

Nice choice psychosy:cool: I have one of these beautys on its way to me, about 2 days until I have it:D

[Geffy]

Ive got a nForce2 a7n8x deluxe, still got Audigy Player in there, remembered to disable the onboard sound before installin OS when I put it all together which was helpful

[RoJo]

Might get the deluxe myself in the coming weeks, but I'm holding back for a bit longer, as I have seen people having problems with the board on the amdmb forums.

Just want to see if anything comes of this Bios problem which some people seem to be getting.