The A8R32-MVP Deluxe is a Dual PCI-E X16 motherboard for the AMD, CrossFire based systems. All previous ASUS CrossFire models were limited to X8 bandwidth when two PCI-E graphics cards were installed. With this board, the bandwidth remains at X16, even in CrossFire mode. The framerates that we saw with the EAX1600XT, installed on the MSI K8N Diamond and on the A8R32-MVP Deluxe, were similar in most of the tested games and in the benchmarks as well, so any differences between them, which were slight, can be considered as insignificant.

The Asus motherboard comes with a full retail package, including all required manuals, cables, drivers and applications. The only thing that is missing from the applications is the AiBooster Utility, which lets you overclock the CPU from within Windows, but you can still do it in the traditional manner from the BIOS :-P. The Asus BIOS is user friendly and you can easily find the settings that need to be adjusted.

Taking a close look at the the black colored PCB, you will notice that it is of quality construction, incorporating the Stack Cool 2 technology for transferring generated heat away from critical components. The board is also equipped with dual Gigabit LAN, HD-AUDIO, SATA RAID, Dual Channel, N.O.S., etc., just some from the long list of features. However, a WiFi/WLAN and IDE RAID support would have been a great addition.

The price at the time of this review was US$172.99 from newegg.com, which is quite a reasonable price, especially if we consider that this motherboard supports PCI-E at X16, even in CrossFire mode.

Pros:

• Crossfire support
• Excellent features
• Good Retail Package
• Good performance
• Monitor utility from within Windows
• Q-Fan and AI NOS features
• Great motherboard overclocking capabilities

Cons:

• No WiFi/WLAN
• No AiBooster Utility

Like to be fixed

• IDE RAID support

Features
Performance
BIOS/Overclocking
Value for money