hmm...y not consider Abit A8N Fatal1ty Sli also

my entry level opinion... 

asus:
-betta coolin for chipset 
-8-phase power thingy 
-weird layout (pci slots) 
-bios support status unknown 

dfi:
-stock coolin for chipset not so impressive 
-betta layout 
-good support for bios 

assume both oc almost d same, asus has my vote if graphic benchies is important to u (thou just few hundreds point diff > due to 16x mode in SLi, but I assume it's import for u) 

1. I believe asus has wider gap between d 2 pcie slots, take a look closely at d pics u'll notice that. 

2. Perhaps Shamino (VR-Zone) can answer you regarding this.

3. IMO, yes.

oopss... my bad... need to get myslf eyeglasses ledi... 

not everyone here can afford asus bro, it's wayyyyyyyyyy too expensive here, expert sellin cheaper... 

DFI Expert coming out with a new revision in the coming 1-2 months if not mistaken. As for the Asus dual PCIE running at x16 each. I think some benchmarks shown that it doesn't really effect that much just yet. Not sure if it's due to graphics technology or the mobo. I think waiting for the Expert newer revision would be better.  Most newer revisions iron out the flaws and improve on things already better isn't it ?

Not at all in the same league as the two boards mentioned by kcnyc in my opinion.
I've had so far received very positive feedback regarding the Asus new board. DFI expert is a proven board with enormous potential but a bit tricky to handle. Frankly I kind of preferred the new Asus (I like the snakey heat pipe cooler).

So far I heard it's reliable (perhaps because of the implementation of 8-phase power that should deliver very consistent power to the CPU and therefore should increase overclocking performance up to par with DFI expert if not better), not very tricky and performs really well. No issues with dual channel with a command rate of 1T.

Plus it looks good too. But then comes the problem of the placing of the PCI-E slots. As we know, graphics card nowadays is getting bulkier so extra space is always good to have. Vdimm max out at 3.1v. So at stock standard, BH5 is a no go. Vcore is also limited, but I heard new BIOS should tackle the problem.

As for the two full-width PCI Express x16 slots which claim to improve the efficincy of SLI system, I'm a bit skeptical of that. While I applaud every improvements that is made, but this will not have any effect at all at least for the moment, I mean surely having this chipset is not neccesary. So Asus have no advantage having this chipset compared to the DFI. But if money doesn't grow on trees at the back of your house, I would suggest DFI expert anyday. But knowing you, I would suggest take them both and enlightened us with reviews.

Btw, sorry for the non-technical feedbacks, I haven't had the luxury of time to keep up on this hobby as much as I like nowadays.

well i've seen both boards selling very well in aus.. and 32 lanes only come in use if you have cards that need that much bandwidth..

you can call the asus future proof yes.. anyway who uses a full overclock for their rig 24/7? i'm only running 2.4ghz myself lol..

so if you have the $$ i'm thinking go Asus..

if you want to squeeze everything from your system go the DFI and you still save some $$ for other stuffs..

myself.. i'm more of a DFI user.. feels more in control.. and i don't have 2 cards to run sli

u mean the new cards out don't even use x8 x8? lol..

well me myself i have a feeling i'll be jumping on AM2 once it's out.. but remember that it took quite a long time before socket 939 is fully matured so things can get a bit buggy at first..

for ram overclocking the normal DFI will be better.. especially with TCCD.. revision ADO of the boards apparently have improved circuitry..

If you can afford ASUS, I would say go for ASUS. It is well known as a reliable brand and the warranty is 3 years compared to dfi 2 years. IF you are concern about x16/x16 then don't waste your time. That is something AGP4x vs AGP8x - no difference but somehow people care about it...hmmmm.

If you are concern about new board coming out soon. Go ahead and wait if you have the TIME. Can you wait 3 months? Then when the board is out, you have to wait 1-2 months for feedback on those boards. It might turn out to be nothing special. Can you wait that long? Like I always say, if you can wait then just wait or else get what is in front of you and forget about what's coming.

Well kcnyc, there's two sides of the coin at the moment. For the expert, there's still the issue of BIOS maturity which has spooked everyone since Pedro publicised the frying of his 4Ghz FX. Then there's also the irritation of the placement of the RAM slots which unless your gonna run barebone can be a pain to access especially when doing RAM reviews.

Meanwhile, the Asus has a more conventional design, a more stable (if not that complete in terms of volts options and timings) BIOS, but still a lack of a proven record for AMD's in terms of benchamrking (Which I presume you'd be using these boards as part of your websites reviewing repertoire?)

And abubin, trust us on the 4x/8x. I had once a Ti4200 which allowed switching between 4x/8x modes and the bandwidth differences was alot...a whole lot more then one can expect actually. It's just that for now, PCI-e GFX's which are able to exploit fully the full-duplex bandwidth of the PCI-e lane hasn't arrived yet

If you are doing review, why not request two boards and do your own comparison? Maybe u can wait till new Expert is out, and then compare it with Asus A8N32-SLi.

btw, DFI has the edge on 6 layer PCB, whereas Asus has the edge on the 8 phase power. Feature wise I'm not sure, as it's not my main concern on choosing mobo

Yeah that's true, but here's the nagging worry. He wasn't even clocking it past 3Ghz when it went puff on Expert. That's what's spooking the hell out of the OC'ers over at XS. It seems it's traced down to the cycling of the voltage signals or summat which after altering the voltages a few time causes a 3.0v spike for a few milisecond of the VCore. Got bawls with that?

whoa  can you guys show me the link? would love to see the article 
errr, n00b here. so does that mean that in every few milisecond, the VCore jumps to 3.0 from 1.xxVcore?

hehe kcnyc, decided with DFI Expert already?

Just changed to A8N32 SLI. For once, it did some improvements over my Abit Fatality SLI. Here are the findings:

1. Prime stable for my Manchester at 2.4ghz using only 1.44V. With Abit, I had to use 1.55V...yeah yeah... I have a bad cpu chip.

2. The UCCC 2GB kit can now finally run at 270Mhz @ 1T. With Abit, anything above 210/220Mhz, it will need 2T.

3. Becoz of the north bridge, the whole two pci-e slots are pushed down further compared to DFI. So, beware if you plan to run SLI with dual slot coolers and a discrete sound card.

4. The heatpipe solution is really hot unless I have an active fan on the heatsink... it really can cause a hang if you use watercooling and not have an active fan on it.

5. The Vcore limit is not high by default @ 1.55V only. However, you could enable overvolt. I tried setting it earlier on at 1.5 and the voltage went upto 1.6V. DIdn't try harder since 1.44V is all it takes to tame my lousy Manchester.

6. VDimm at 3.2V only. However, most of the Redlines or BH5 based memory are over. Most of the current TCCDs, TCC5 and UCCC doesn't need anywhere more than 2.8 or 2.9Vdimm. As a matter of fact, they do not like extreme voltages.

I do not have an Expert board to test, so I can only benchmark it against my former Abit boards. Please post here if you have further questions on this mobo. And yes, this mofo is expensive; got it at RM960 in Penang.

Why use expert to bench as venus had arrived from DFI. Heard its even better than expert as the chip are better and 100% made in japan . Duh all lanparty chip is made in japan but i find venus kinda cool as the diod chip out here and there

http://us.dfi.com.tw/Press/press_header_co...407.jsp&SITE=US