ASUS M3N-HT Deluxe (780a) @ [H]

ASUS M3N-HT Deluxe - ASUS comes out swinging with their latest NVIDIA chipset based AMD offering, the M3N-HT Deluxe. Based on the AMD version of the NVIDIA nForce 780a chipset, the board packs a lot of promise.

It is simply hard to get excited about this product as it seems obvious that ASUS is not too excited about it. I mean the damn motherboard’s BIOS does not even work right with overclocking Phenom processors, if you can get it to POST with one, which might be a real concern for someone sitting around with only one Phenom processor that would fit into the board. As for the fancy cooling; first sell me the basics that actually work, then we can worry about putting heatpipes on our memory. We may or may not give this motherboard another look when we get a new BIOS in, but quite frankly, it just is not that exciting given the state of the Phenom is no better than it was at launch for the enthusiast.

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i have tried 4 other AMD7-series mobos (DFI MSRS, Gigabyte 770-DS3, 780G, ABit AX78) and this Asus board is by far the easiest to work with - especially the RAID setup. I had no hassles with the BIOS so far, fortunately, and overclocking so far is just for me to up the multiplier to 14x with my 9850BE @ 1.35v. It's stable at 2.9ghz @1.425v, but my small apartment room gets too warm.

I want to stay with AMD cuz i'm a fanboy, but nvidia chipsets seem to work better with me, especially with the better southbridge that nvidia offers. The SB600 is just too outdated and hard drive performance is a bit wanting.

I find it quite encouraging to the see the PHenoms do well against a massively higher-clocked 6400+. Phenoms are pretty fast, just a bit short of the C2Qs, I am impressed by AMD's offering. But bigger kudos to Intel for executing so well.

I thank Kyle for his good review on the motherboard and looking forward to the new bios!

Well, between [H]'s review and Deliximus' comments, there is certainly a wide gulf! I think with the current state of affairs in the AMD camp, getting that 9850 BE is a must for any review. Interesting that Deliximus got his to work and [H] didn't. Kyle, an apples to apples article of Phenom boards using the same proc and ram would certainly be interesting to some of us, though I doubt you're interested in dedicating the resources in that direction.

Almost bought one of these boards about 2 weeks ago when I went to replace my Crosshair POC.

Got a Q6600 and P35-DS3P board instead. Overclocking this setup was easy too. First Intel setup I have had in 8 years.

Doesn't it seem somewhat useless to support the hybrid SLI only in conjunction with the highest end cards?

I dont own this board but own it's older brother, the M2N32-SLi Deluxe.

I can attest to quirky setup issues as Kyle mentioned in the review (As well as a few of my friends with ASUS boards), but I definitely do not see this as a negative. Most of the problems setting up an ASUS board can be attributed, 99% of the time, to PEBKAC.

The board just has so many features, you just need to set them up properly. I'm loving my ASUS board and have ZERO issues with it. I just honestly believe whenever I see a Newegg product comment, or a review where someone has something stupid not work (OC options, integrated sound not working), i generally take all of those comments with a grain of salt because the real issue is that of a hurried install with not enough attention paid to the small, seemingly insignificant options within the BIOS.

And if the BIOS really is the issue with this board. OMG wait a week, im pretty sure there'll be a few more releases. Cuz God knows there's already a new one for my 2006-released board.

Pepsiennis said:

Well, between [H]'s review and Deliximus' comments, there is certainly a wide gulf! I think with the current state of affairs in the AMD camp, getting that 9850 BE is a must for any review. Interesting that Deliximus got his to work and [H] didn't. Kyle, an apples to apples article of Phenom boards using the same proc and ram would certainly be interesting to some of us, though I doubt you're interested in dedicating the resources in that direction.

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I did get my 9850BE to work, that is how we got the benchmarks, but it took a BIOS flash to do so.

As for doing double work for a couple hundred MHz, you are right, ain't gonna happen. It really means nothing either in the big picture.

JakCrow said:

Doesn't it seem somewhat useless to support the hybrid SLI only in conjunction with the highest end cards?

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HybridPower is only with NV's top end cards, which totally makes sense. Read the article linked for an explanation.

Deliximus said:

i have tried 4 other AMD7-series mobos (DFI MSRS, Gigabyte 770-DS3, 780G, ABit AX78) and this Asus board is by far the easiest to work with -

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mmm, the M3N-HT isn't an AMD 7 series mobo but an nVidia 7 series ...
it's also 3x the price of an AMD 770/780G.
I haven't tried the others but the AX78 I find to be a very nice board, easy to work with & it's few flaws are more AMD's basic chipset problems (SB600) than abit's implementation of the chipset.

BUFF said:

mmm, the M3N-HT isn't an AMD 7 series mobo but an nVidia 7 series ...
it's also 3x the price of an AMD 770/780G.
I haven't tried the others but the AX78 I find to be a very nice board, easy to work with & it's few flaws are more AMD's basic chipset problems (SB600) than abit's implementation of the chipset.

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yes, I am aware of the fact it's from nvidia not an AMD chipset. I state the fact because I'm not posting to spite AMD but to show I have a heap of experience with AMD chipset mobos, even including some 690G mobos, to support AMD the underdog. They work fine in general, but they do give me a bit more headache, especially in the RAID department.

I really liked the AX78 at first (gotta love the CMOS reset in the back) but I had to RMA one after failing all kinds of stress programs with a 9850BE at stock speeds. Even the RMA one had problems. The moment I popped it into m3n-ht, no hiccups, period - and now Oc'd stable.

Deliximus said:

I really liked the AX78 at first (gotta love the CMOS reset in the back) but I had to RMA one after failing all kinds of stress programs with a 9850BE at stock speeds. Even the RMA one had problems. The moment I popped it into m3n-ht, no hiccups, period - and now Oc'd stable.

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PWM FTW

it may be a BIOS problem but it's not a PWM problem on the AX78 - it will handle comfortably more than 125W.

One thing i've noticed around the web is that in reviews, the 790FX tends to edge out the 780a chipset by a narrow margin. Considering that the 780a is just released, it suggests there may be a lot more performance potential in the chipset to be unlocked through Bios updates. It'll be interesting to see.