The beginning
As soon as I heard ABIT were coming out with an AN8 I jumped for joy, I had been using the AN7 for a while by this time and had become very partial to it, so the next step up for the Athlon 64 S939 platform should be something special. A few weeks before Chistmas ABIT had the details up on their website for the many variations of the AN8 (AN8, Fatal1ty, SLi etc) but didn't have any pictures for the public to lay their eyes on...In time a few pictures started popping up here and there on the net from various sources with prototype boards and sneak previews to whet our appetites.
As soon as I saw the board in stock on my favourite e-tailer I snapped one up straight away, next day shipment, ready to tinker with it the following evening.
Specification
Abit.com wrote:
CPU
* AMD Athlon 64/64FX 939-pin K8 CPU with 2GHz system bus using Hyper Transport Technology
* AMD CPU Cool 'n' Quiet Technology
Chipset
* NVIDIA NF4 Ultra single chip
* Integrated NV Gigabit Ethernet and NV Firewall
Memory
* Four 184-pin DIMM sockets
* Support 4 DIMM Dual DDR 400/333/266 non-ECC memory
* Support 4 DIMM up to 4GB Max.
ABIT Engineered
* ABIT µGuru™ Technology
* ABIT OTES™ Technology
* ABIT AudioMAX™ Technology
* ABIT CPU ThermalGuard™ Technology
NV SATA RAID
* Supports SATA 3Gbps data transfer rate
* SATA RAID 0/1/0+1 JBOD
NV GbE LAN
* NVIDIA Gigabit Ethernet via NF4 Ultra
NV Firewall
* Native NVIDIA Firewall via NF4 Ultra
IEEE1394
* Support IEEE 1394 at 400/200/100 Mb/s transfer rate
Audio
* 5.1-channel Audio Card
* Optical S/P DIF In/Out
Internal I/O Connectors
* 1 PCI-E X16 slot, 2 PCI-Express X1 slots
* 3 PCI slots, 1 x ABIT Audio slot
* 1x Floppy Port supports up to 2.88 MB
* 2 x Ultra DMA 33/66/100/133 Connectors
* 4 x SATA 3G Connectors
* 3 x USB headers, 1 x IEEE1394 header
Back Panel I/O
* 1 x IEEE1394 Connector
* 1 x PS/2 Keyboard, 1 x PS/2 mouse
* 4 x USB+ 1 x RJ-45 LAN Connector
Form Factor
* ATX form factor 305 x 245mm
Package
* 1 x Audio Card
* 1 x Back panel I/O shield
* 4 x SATA cables
* 1 x ATA 133 IDE Cable, 1 x FDD cable
* 1 x USB2.0 + IEEE1394 cable
* 1 x A5 standard User's Manual
* 1 x A5 µGuru User's Manual
* 1 x B5 multilingual Quick Installation Guide
* 1 x CD title, 1 x SATA Driver Disk
* 1 x ABIT Case Badge, 1 x Jumper Setting Label
* AMD Athlon 64/64FX 939-pin K8 CPU with 2GHz system bus using Hyper Transport Technology
* AMD CPU Cool 'n' Quiet Technology
Chipset
* NVIDIA NF4 Ultra single chip
* Integrated NV Gigabit Ethernet and NV Firewall
Memory
* Four 184-pin DIMM sockets
* Support 4 DIMM Dual DDR 400/333/266 non-ECC memory
* Support 4 DIMM up to 4GB Max.
ABIT Engineered
* ABIT µGuru™ Technology
* ABIT OTES™ Technology
* ABIT AudioMAX™ Technology
* ABIT CPU ThermalGuard™ Technology
NV SATA RAID
* Supports SATA 3Gbps data transfer rate
* SATA RAID 0/1/0+1 JBOD
NV GbE LAN
* NVIDIA Gigabit Ethernet via NF4 Ultra
NV Firewall
* Native NVIDIA Firewall via NF4 Ultra
IEEE1394
* Support IEEE 1394 at 400/200/100 Mb/s transfer rate
Audio
* 5.1-channel Audio Card
* Optical S/P DIF In/Out
Internal I/O Connectors
* 1 PCI-E X16 slot, 2 PCI-Express X1 slots
* 3 PCI slots, 1 x ABIT Audio slot
* 1x Floppy Port supports up to 2.88 MB
* 2 x Ultra DMA 33/66/100/133 Connectors
* 4 x SATA 3G Connectors
* 3 x USB headers, 1 x IEEE1394 header
Back Panel I/O
* 1 x IEEE1394 Connector
* 1 x PS/2 Keyboard, 1 x PS/2 mouse
* 4 x USB+ 1 x RJ-45 LAN Connector
Form Factor
* ATX form factor 305 x 245mm
Package
* 1 x Audio Card
* 1 x Back panel I/O shield
* 4 x SATA cables
* 1 x ATA 133 IDE Cable, 1 x FDD cable
* 1 x USB2.0 + IEEE1394 cable
* 1 x A5 standard User's Manual
* 1 x A5 µGuru User's Manual
* 1 x B5 multilingual Quick Installation Guide
* 1 x CD title, 1 x SATA Driver Disk
* 1 x ABIT Case Badge, 1 x Jumper Setting Label
The bundle is pretty standard, the only advantage I can see over the A8N-SLi is the bundled rounded cabled and SATA driver disk. Theres the standard SATA cables, brackets for more USB/firewire ports, I/O shield etc just as you'd expect from a high end board. Theres an extra fancy to these SATA cables though, they have clips on them to hold them in place in the motherboard and drives, so they cannot easily be unplugged to prevent you from knocking one loose when poking about inside your case.
Look what arrived
The box is ALOT bigger than normal sized motherboard boxes, not only is it a few inches longer but it is about 6 inches deep. Its all nicely boxed up and well packaged, you can see ABIT put alot of effort into their Fatal1ty brand, and for a board as expensive of this I would expect no less.
I laid out the contents of both of these boxes, it looks as if the USB/Firewire cable isn't there but you can just make out some light grey wires but the OTES fan and the bracket just below it.
The Sound Card
ABIT took an unusual turn by having the sound based on an add-in card, it iis a very unusual way of making the motherboard as it will increase costs for having to manufacture a seperate add-in sound card as opposed to just sticking it on the motherboard itself. However, it was either onboard sound or OTES MOSFET Fans, only one of the two could sit in the I/O area. But as this is the ULTIMATE GAMING MOTHERBOARD keeping those MOSFETS nice and cool is always helpful.
One thing I disliked about this is the fact that the board is claimed to be the ultimate gaming board, yet it is supplied with 5.1 surround, i'm sure they could have used a better sound solution for the price we're paying for the board. However I am hoping that when the SoundStorm 2 gets released that they can offer a replacement add-in card using the SoundStorm 2, but these are high hopes so dont expect anything.
The card, as you can see, sports the regular 5 outputs with one sharing for a second channel (usually Centre and Subwoofer share). There are also 2 extra S/PDIF Optical ports, for Optical In and Optical Out, so you can connect other audio devices up to this sound card and use your computer for an amplifier OR have your computer use a seperate amplfying source such as a home theatre.
The Board
The board itself is very nice, ABIT have done a very very fine job with this board, the connectors are in the best places possible, the ATX 2.0 connector is on the edge of the board, it could have been more towards the top of the board but where it is at the moment is fine, the extra P4 connector is at the top of the board by the OTES fans, it MAY seem a little arkward at first but when you get the board in place you can tuck the excess wire behind the motherboard to keep things nice and tidy. The ATA connectors are also right on the edge and right angle mounted to make life a little big easier when doing a spot of cable tidying. The floppy connector is in an unusual place being right at the bottom of the board, but the cable tidying can also take benefit of this if you use a by running it behind the board, but then you wouldn't be able to use the rounded floppy cable which ABIT supply.
ABIT have been scrutinised in the past for shipping baords with poor Northbridge Fans, the NF7 series was one of these boards, it was alot better with the AN7 but it was still made of aluminium, and as chipsets become more and more complex they produce more heat, so a better solution is still needed. ABIT hit the nail on the head with this board by choosing to making the Heatsink out of Copper, which we all know is the better material for heatsinks, but copper is more expensive than aluminium, so this adds to the total cost. The heatsink on this board, is ALOT better than the one used on the ASUS A8N-SLI, which, for an SLI board is very pitiful.
ABIT also decided to add some heatsinks to the MOSFETS this time round and placed two fans in the I/O area and a shiny black shroud over it all with the Fatalt1y F stamped on it. These fans have been put in place to help cool the MOSFETS and to add that extra bit of stability to the system.
As you can also see in that picture above there aren't many ports on the back of this motherboard. ABIT removed as much un-needed components as possible for this motherboard to help free up some as many resources as they could to make this board the best there is for gaming. All you have are the Legacy PS/2 Ports, 4x USB 2.0 ports and a Gigabit Ethernet port and a Firewire port tucked between the PS/2 and the OTES Fans.
Aren't those fans going to be loud?
Not really no, even using the included OTES RAM-Flow Fans the machine is no louder than the A8N I used to use, there isn't any annoying droning noise that you would expect from such small fans. Dont get me wrong though, its quiet when idling in Windows but when you first hit the power button EVERY fan spins up to max. speed which makes things a bit more noisy, but within a few seconds µGuru™ takes over and slows the fans down, a nice thing about uGuru™ is that it ONLY cracks the speed up when its needed, you can customise the fan profiles using the µGuru™ software in Windows or by using the ABIT EQ section of the BIOS.
Along with the µGuru™ comes the POST CODE REPORTER, this is part of the µGuru™ line and is a very handy tool for overclockers, say for instance your machine just beeps at you when you start it up, just consult the post reporter and make note of the code, then have a look in the manual to see what it means, look at the solution, problem sovled.
The OTES RAM-Flow is also something worth mentioning, it is an extra set of fans which clip on to your motherboards ram slots to blow air over the ram to keep it that little bit cooler when overclocking or just general gaming. The springs in the clips are a fairly strong which makes attaching the RAM-Flow fairly arkward to attach but its good to know that it will keep it in place when moving your case about.
I installed the board onto my motherboard tray with only one little annoyance... to install the screw in the upper left of the motherboard you have to usncrew the OTES shroud, the screws are small and can be lost easily so be warned. Once I got everything isntalled on the removable tray I placed it all inside my machine and began connecting everything up and fired up the power supply.
After checking everything was ok I hit the on button and low & behold it all kicked into gear. I started playing about with the BIOS having a look to see what was on offer and to get a feel for the layout when something caught my eye...my computer is positioned on the lower left of my desk and I still had the case open, I noticed a red glow on my wall...
ABIT placed red LED's in certain on the board, with some on the front and some on the back around the edges, you get a really nice red glow appearing from behind the board and from underneath the MOSFET OTES Fans, another feature of the Fatal1ty line. The LED's are bright enough to look good but not so bright they flood everything with red light so its a nice blanace.
The BIOS
One thing older ABIT user will notice is the µGuru™ section, this used to be known as SoftMenu but seems to have lost its place to the onboard overclocking chip.
Just from looking at those last two screenshots I can imagine you'll understand what their uses are...OC Guru is the control center for overclocking and ABIT EQ is for Voltage and Fan monitoring.
ABIT EQ
In the ABIT EQ you can alter a variety of options, shutdown temps/voltages/fan speeds, alarms, which options to monitor etc
Here are a few pictures to show what I mean
As you can see it's pretty much straight forward, in the last picture you can control the speed options of the fans and when they should kick in to full. This is very handy if you require the machine to be nice and quiet when idling and not bothered about noise when you're popping caps in people's domes (or ass if you suck at headshots).
OC GURU
The OC GURU as I mentioned earlier, is the powerhouse for overclocking options.
The Power Cycle Statistic is nothing more than a log of system use, it will tell you how many times the machine has been turned on or rest using the power buttons, how long the PSU has been supplying power to the board, how long the system has been on etc etc.
There are some pretty nifty options in this section, you have the normal FSB Speed and CPU, RAM and Chipset Voltages like you would see on any other board. However, this board has a few extra features, not only do we see DDR Voltage but DDRVTT voltages too, you can also increase the PCI-E frequency from standard 100MHz all the way up to 145MHz. Theres also the option for Hyperstransport voltage which can be changed, from the standard 1.2v up to 1.45v in 0.25v increments.
(from left to right - FSB, CPU Multiplyer, PCI-E Frequency, CPU Voltage, RAM Voltage, DDRVTT, Chipset Voltage, HTT Voltage)
Yes, the Ram voltage only goes up to 2.8V at the moment, but my TCCD is running fine at 300MHz FSB with 3-4-4-8 timings at 2.8v so its not too much to worry about at the moment. I've also read that TicTac (the Guru of BIOS modding) is going to bring out a modded BIOS allowing up to 3.4V, so watch this space.
There are two options which have puzzeled me though, they are RAM and CPU reference voltage with up to +/- 100mv settings on each option, i'm not sure what these are used for but I can imagine in time they will be of some use.
They both look the same so I only took one picture, it only shows up to +/- 60 but it scales up to 100.
Advanced Options
The Advanced Chipset Options is another place us overclockers will spend plenty of time in. This is the area which controls HTT Multiplyer, DRAM options, HTT Bus Width and SSE/SSE2 Instruction options, which I have NEVER come across before in any BIOS.
Here we have the HTT Ratio options, this is where you will need to go when toying with the FSB, one of the key things to remember with overclocking an Athlon 64 system is to NEVER let the HTT exceed 2000MHz (1000MHz up, 1000MHz down) so having access to these ratios is a must. There have been some people who seem to be able to overclock the HTT bus to about 2200MHz but I do not condone it. In this section we also have control over the PCI-E Lanes, notice there are only 16x, so this must be for the graphics card, you can choose how many lanes you want to send and receive data, which are shown using corresponding arrows, for best performance 16 up and 16 down is the best configuration, a feature not seen on many boards.
This section is where it gets more insteresting, as you can see in the third picture from the left the DRAM Configuration is more complex, the days of having 4 main memory timings to alter are gone, those 4 options have now turned into many many more on the most recent Athlon 64 boards and up to 16 on this board. This is going to require learning the names of the 4 normal timings in order to be able to set the ram up correctly when overclocking, using AUTO or By SPD is ok for stock settings but AUTO doesn't always get the timings right so By SPD is your best bet for stock settings. Not much to say about the SSE/SSE2 instructions though, its best to leave them enabled as they are special mathematical instructions designed by Intel to speed up complex calculations.
This so far concludes the review, part 2 will be coming up shortly, so stay tuned...
