I have been planing to order a Venice core CPU and an Asus A8N SLI Deluxe motherboard as soon as a boxed cpu is offered, however I am aware of a potential problem. Because of compatibility problems, the only A8N SLI BIOS that will work is 1007 released 4-21-05. It seems unlikedy that when the boxed Venice CPU becomes available in May that the MB's in stock will have the 4-21 BIOS installed. Since I do not have an older 939 CPU there is no way to flash the BIOS. Thus a chicken and the egg problem.

I have seen a posting that if a MB and CPU are purchased together from Monarch Computer, Monarch will flash the MB BIOS before shipment. I usually purchase parts from Newegg or Zipzoomfly and I wonder how they intend to handle this problem.

Monarch will also burn in your CPU/RAM (at stock volts) if you order one of their combos...and if you're into that kind of thing, they'll also give you a free copy of FarCry and Half-Life 2, as well as a 4-month subscription to Napster . I myself pre-ordered a San Diego/DFI combo from them (supposedly shipping May 10th or so)....but I'm not sure how the other two vendors plan on dealing with this.

When the Winchester appeared, there was the same chicken&egg problem. The solution was to POST with just one DIMM (single-channel), then do the BIOS update, then install all other DIMMs. I don't remember in which slot the DIMM had to be installed (maybe it's mobo dependent?). This trick should work with the new Venice core too, IMHO.
When I got my Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe, it came with 1002 BIOS, and the official was 1003.

Tzupy,

The problem with a Venice CPU and a A8N SLI Deluxe is that reportedly with a BIOS earlier than 1007 the computer will not even post.

Perhaps you should have titled this "Venice & Asus problem." The DFI nF4 boards supposedly work fine with Venice with the originally shipping 1/25 BIOS according to DFI.

Thanks, I did not know the DFI board would work with the original BIOS. I might order the DFI. I edited my subject.

On Anandtech forums a fellow said he managed to get his Asus A8N to POST with Venice and an older BIOS. It's not clear which one...
Update: it was 1003 BIOS on A8N-SLI Deluxe.
DFI owners shouldn't bash Asus before verifying an information themselves...