The Asus A7N266-VM motherboard is the first micro-ATX motherboard to offer complete integrated features without sacrificing performance. Built upon the advanced nForce chipset architecture, the A7N266-VM features powerful GeForce2 level 3D graphics, optional axudio and LAN for an all-in-one solution with unmatched performance and value. The A7N266-VM comes with 3 PCI slots, AGP 4X slot, and up to 6 USB ports. Users can also connect the new ASUS iPanel for convenient connectivity and system monitoring from the front panel.
The NVIDIA nForce platform processing archteture has been designed to provide users with unmatched system performance by providing a,
- distributed processing design
- patent pending system, memory, and network technologies
- NVIDIA 3D graphics and Dolby 3D audio
The nForce IGP chip is basically the northbridge of the motherboard it features,
- TwinBank Memory Architecture
- Dynamic Adaptive Speculative Pre-Processor (DASP)
- Geforce 2 GPU
- AMD HyperTransport
The nForce IGP chip is basically the southbridge of the motherboard it features,
- Audio Processing Unit (APU)
- Complete communication suite
- StreamThru Technology
- AMD HyperTransport
Key Specifications
- Supports Socket A AMD Duron, Athlon, and Athlon XP up to 1900+ and beyond
- NVIDIA nForce 220-D: NVIDIA IGP-64 north bridge and NVIDIA MCP-D south bridge
- 200/266MHz front side bus
- Integrated NVIDIA GeForce2 graphics core
- Realtek® ALC650 audio module
- 2 DIMMs up to 1.0GB of PC2100/1600 non ECC DDR memory support
- Integrated MAC in MCP-D (Optional)
- 3 PCI slots, and 1 AGP 4X slot
- MicroATX form factor
The box is smaller than the usual motherboard box because it is a microATX form factor. It is really cool looking because it has a lot of the specs on it and you know something good has to be inside of it, lets see if this holds true.
The nForce board comes with an AGP slot, 3 PCI, 2 DIMMs, and the other usual stuff that most motherboards have. It is a microATX board which I said before so it’s pretty small, it would make a good motherboard for a LAN box, or some kinda MP3 or DivX box.
The motherboard comes with a lot of extra features which we will take a look at real quick. You get the usual manual, CD with drivers on it, a case badge to sport that you have an Asus motherboard inside of your case, an IDE cable, floppy cable, some extra jumpers, and a COM port which you attach to the motherboard, we will see that later. The documentation that came with the motherboard was alright, the only thing I did not like about it was the order that everything was laid out inside of it. Everything seemed to be out of place and hard to find which I think Asus should fix.
The motherboard comes with 2 extra USB ports on an expansion card, usually you get a USB header which goes into the back of the computer, this is basically the same thing but its on a card rather than a cable. You also get a SPDIF card which will allow you to take advantage of SPDIF if you need to use it.
The back panel of the motherboard is also not the normal layout, there is the standard PS/2, USB, sound, gameport, parallel but there is only one serial port and where the other would be is a VGA connection, you also have a LAN port. The other COM port is attached to the motherboard and put in an expansion slot if you need to use that, we are getting to that part. The I/O back plane is also provided with the motherboard incase your case doesn’t have the right cutouts.
Ok we are there, you can see in this picture there is a connection for COM2 which is for the extra serial port, you can also see the jumpers for the SPDIF connection. To the right of that is the BIOS and above that you can see the 3 PCI slots and the 1 AGP slot. In the picture to the right you can see a lot of things, first is the nForce MCP chip which we discussed was the southbridge of the motherboard and controls the peripherals of the computer. There are also 2 jumpers for extra USB ports if you need them, next to that is the jumpers for the LEDs, switches, and there is also an onboard PC speaker which I always like. Also partially in the picture is the floppy controller of the motherboard.
The 1st and 2nd IDE channel of the motherboard are right next to the ATX power supply connection which is not a bad position but I am sure there is a better location for it cause it does kind of get in the way. There is a diagnostic LED on the motehrboard which basically says there is power going to the motherboard, and to the right of that is the CMOS battery, this is the first time I have seen a CMOS battery so far away from the BIOS. The socket of the motherboard has a good amount of room around it so you can fit some bigger sized heatsinks on it, the only problem might be that the northbridge heatsink might get in the way a little.
I went ahead and took off the northbeige heatsink to reveal that it has a thermal pad under it, not the best but it will work for the motherboards purposes because this motherboard does not overclock well. I was not able to get the best picture of the northbridge because of the reflection but you can see that it is indeed an nForce. Lets go ahead now and take a look at the BIOS.
For the testing of this motherboard I really focused on the video aspect of it because I thought that was the most important thing. Even though the onboard video of the nForce motherboard is only comparable to a Geforce 2 MX and the other motherboards are using a Geforce 3 and the results are going to be really different I thought this would be better for comparison because I could have put the Geforce 3 into the nForce motherboard but the results would have been basically the same. This motherboard is pretty much intended for someone who doesn’t need a Geforce 3 but wants to be able to play some games and do other things with it. All of the testing was done at 1024×768 with all of the settings at the most aggressive with all of the eye candy on.
nForce Test Bed
- Asus A7N266-VM
- 1.2Ghz Thunderbird
- 256MB XtremeDDR 3200 RAM
- Onboard video
All other motherboards Test Bed
- 1.2Ghz Thunderbird
- 256MB XtremeDDR 3200 RAM
- 3D Power Geforce 3
I first benchmarked with 3DMark2001SE and as you can see the nForce motherboard does not do that well, only scoring 1713 points while the Geforce 3 is in the high 6000s to 7000s. The reason is because 3DMark2001SE requires Geforce 3 features and wants the card to be Direct X 8 compatible neither of which the onboard video of the nForce has. Then again this is just a benchmark which proves to others how powerful your video card is.
I then tested with Serious Sam using the Karnak Demo again the nForce is much lower than the Geforce 3, at 1024×768 the nForce board only gets about 23 FPS which when playing a game will look very choppy. Games become choppy when they drop below around 30 FPS, if I were to lower all of the detail in the options I am sure the nForce would get better scores but I tested them all at the highest settings.
With Quake 3 using the Demo001 timedemo the nForce motherboard with its onboard video got 36.7 FPS which is not as good as the 150ish FPS that the Geforce 3 spits out. Like I said 30FPS should be about the minimum that you get when playing games or it will look choppy. Even with all of the settings at the most aggressive this onboard video puts out enough to keep you happy while playing Quake 3.
I bought this motherboard for a friend because he wanted a computer to do word processing, regular applications, surf the internet and maybe play some games. Because playing games was not a big factor this motherboard worked out great for him. For only $82 from Directron he got a socket A DDR motherboard with onboard sound, video, LAN and that has 3 PCI slots and an AGP slot so that if games did become something he wanted to do then he could always buy a better video card and disable the onboard video.
Overclocking for this motherboard was not really a factor either, there was no need to make it go any faster for him and the motherboard had no options to do any overclocking so that would be something you need to think about if you are looking at this motherboard.
Conclusion
I really like this motherboard a lot because of all that it has to offer, this is the first time I have used a nForce board and I have wanted to for a long time because I wanted to see how it would really perform. This motherboard is a great motherboard for those who don’t need a super fast high end computer or those wanting to build computers for people at a low cost which the nForce was intended to do. For a price of $82 you really cant complain much about this board with all that it has to offer.
There are some things that were kind of a disappointment however, I would have like to have seen some overclocking features in the BIOS and the onboard video is not the best especially for newer games. I also thought the documentation could have been a lot better than it was because it was pretty hard to find what I was looking for while I was testing.
I like that you get a lot of extras with the motherboard like the extra serial port, the extra USB ports, and the SPDIF connection so you can push this motherboard to its limit. I am going to give this motherboard a 7/10 and even though the score isn’t the highest I am going to give it the OCmodshop seal of approval because it has earned it in my opinion.
Pros
- Great price, only $82
- Has onboard video, audio, and LAN
- MicroATX design
- Lots of extras included
Cons
- Onboard video not the best
- Not good for overclockers
- Poor documentation