Abit AT8: µGuru comes to the RD480
by Gary Key on March 10, 2006 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Final Words
The Abit AT8 offers a wide range of features along with very competitive performance at a price point around US $115. The overall performance of the board was excellent and led the other ATI and NVIDIA chipset offerings in the majority of benchmarks. The stability of the board was superb with the production BIOS and soon-to-be released 1.1 BIOS. However, the memory incompatibility issues with the current production BIOS are not acceptable, to which Abit will be providing a public release shortly.
The Abit Silent OTES cooling solution worked wonderfully during full load testing and we did not see any justification for adding active cooling to the Northbridge chipset. The combination of the Silent OTES system and the wonderful Abit EQ and FAN EQ utility, which allows extensive monitoring and full control over the system's six available fan headers, should satisfy most Silent PC users. The windows based µGuru utility program, which controls the Abit EQ, FAN EQ, and OC Guru applets, is the best that we have seen from any manufacturer. The OC Guru allowed real time changes to HTT speeds along with voltage levels while performing a test verification of the new settings. The Flash Menu and BlackBox applications are well rounded and further support Abit's commitment to customer service. Further details about the µGuru technology and applications can be found here.
In the video area, the inclusion of dual PCI Express x16 connectors provides full CrossFire support with eight PCI Express lanes per graphics connector. The performance of the board under CrossFire testing was slightly better than our Asus A8R-MVP while maintaining excellent stability across a wide range of games and applications. The performance and stability with the current NVIDIA range of graphics cards was outstanding in both stock and overclocked settings.
In the on-board audio area, the Abit board offers the Realtek ALC-882D HD audio codec with full support for Dolby Digital Live, a real-time encoding technology, along with optical S/PDIF capability . The audio output of this codec in the music, video, and DVD areas is very good for an on-board solution. The audio quality in gaming was very good, but it did not match the output fidelity of the Sound Blaster X-FI. The Realtek ALC-882D offers DirectSound 3D, A3D, EAX 1, and EAX 2 compatibility along with OpenAL 1.1 compliance in games. If you plan on utilizing this board for online gaming, then our recommendation is to purchase an appropriate sound card for consistency in frame rates across a wide range of games. However, the Realtek ALC-882D is a recommended audio solution for the majority of users and is perfectly at home in a HTPC system.
In the storage area, the Abit board offers the full complement of storage options afforded by the ULi M1575 chipset. The board offers RAID 0, 1, 0+1, 5 capability, NCQ, Hot Plug, and 3Gb/s support along with dual channel ATA133 Ultra DMA capability. The board also offers eight ULi USB 2.0 ports when utilizing the two USB 2.0 headers and IEEE 1394 capability via the TI TSB43AB22 chipset. The performance of the ULi SATA and IDE controllers were excellent and easily exceeded the nForce4 solutions while matching the ULi M1697 based board.
In the performance area, the Abit AT8 generated outstanding benchmark scores across the board while maintaining very good stability during testing and general usage. The board's performance was consistently better than the other ATI, ULi, and NVIDIA chipset offerings in the majority of benchmarks and applications. However, the production release 1.0 BIOS has memory compatibility issues with the BH5/UTT and Samsung UCCC chips. We noticed that these issues were basically solved with the 1.1 BIOS; although, we still experienced some boot issues with the DRAM timing set to Auto instead of SPD or Manual. While our memory issues were being addressed, the overclocking ability of the board suffered when changing the CPU multiplier. We did not notice this overclocking issue with the production release 1.0 BIOS and would rather have improved memory compatibility than additional overclocking headroom if given the choice. Abit is fully aware of these issues and has been working diligently at providing a BIOS update to address these flaws.
The Abit AT8 is a board designed and marketed for the AMD enthusiast and it fulfills this promise in most categories. The performance of the board was stellar while providing exceptional stability under stress testing. However, the memory compatibility issues with the current BIOS are unacceptable, and otherwise, detracts from an outstanding effort by Abit. Until Abit has publicly releases a BIOS update that solves the memory compatibility issues and still allows the high clock settings present in the 1.0 bios, we are reluctant to recommend this motherboard.
Status Update - Revised 1.1 Bios
Abit provided us a revised 1.1 bios tonight (3-9-06) for additional testing and it will be available on Abit's website shortly. We will update the article after our regression testing is completed.
The Abit AT8 offers a wide range of features along with very competitive performance at a price point around US $115. The overall performance of the board was excellent and led the other ATI and NVIDIA chipset offerings in the majority of benchmarks. The stability of the board was superb with the production BIOS and soon-to-be released 1.1 BIOS. However, the memory incompatibility issues with the current production BIOS are not acceptable, to which Abit will be providing a public release shortly.
The Abit Silent OTES cooling solution worked wonderfully during full load testing and we did not see any justification for adding active cooling to the Northbridge chipset. The combination of the Silent OTES system and the wonderful Abit EQ and FAN EQ utility, which allows extensive monitoring and full control over the system's six available fan headers, should satisfy most Silent PC users. The windows based µGuru utility program, which controls the Abit EQ, FAN EQ, and OC Guru applets, is the best that we have seen from any manufacturer. The OC Guru allowed real time changes to HTT speeds along with voltage levels while performing a test verification of the new settings. The Flash Menu and BlackBox applications are well rounded and further support Abit's commitment to customer service. Further details about the µGuru technology and applications can be found here.
In the video area, the inclusion of dual PCI Express x16 connectors provides full CrossFire support with eight PCI Express lanes per graphics connector. The performance of the board under CrossFire testing was slightly better than our Asus A8R-MVP while maintaining excellent stability across a wide range of games and applications. The performance and stability with the current NVIDIA range of graphics cards was outstanding in both stock and overclocked settings.
In the on-board audio area, the Abit board offers the Realtek ALC-882D HD audio codec with full support for Dolby Digital Live, a real-time encoding technology, along with optical S/PDIF capability . The audio output of this codec in the music, video, and DVD areas is very good for an on-board solution. The audio quality in gaming was very good, but it did not match the output fidelity of the Sound Blaster X-FI. The Realtek ALC-882D offers DirectSound 3D, A3D, EAX 1, and EAX 2 compatibility along with OpenAL 1.1 compliance in games. If you plan on utilizing this board for online gaming, then our recommendation is to purchase an appropriate sound card for consistency in frame rates across a wide range of games. However, the Realtek ALC-882D is a recommended audio solution for the majority of users and is perfectly at home in a HTPC system.
In the storage area, the Abit board offers the full complement of storage options afforded by the ULi M1575 chipset. The board offers RAID 0, 1, 0+1, 5 capability, NCQ, Hot Plug, and 3Gb/s support along with dual channel ATA133 Ultra DMA capability. The board also offers eight ULi USB 2.0 ports when utilizing the two USB 2.0 headers and IEEE 1394 capability via the TI TSB43AB22 chipset. The performance of the ULi SATA and IDE controllers were excellent and easily exceeded the nForce4 solutions while matching the ULi M1697 based board.
In the performance area, the Abit AT8 generated outstanding benchmark scores across the board while maintaining very good stability during testing and general usage. The board's performance was consistently better than the other ATI, ULi, and NVIDIA chipset offerings in the majority of benchmarks and applications. However, the production release 1.0 BIOS has memory compatibility issues with the BH5/UTT and Samsung UCCC chips. We noticed that these issues were basically solved with the 1.1 BIOS; although, we still experienced some boot issues with the DRAM timing set to Auto instead of SPD or Manual. While our memory issues were being addressed, the overclocking ability of the board suffered when changing the CPU multiplier. We did not notice this overclocking issue with the production release 1.0 BIOS and would rather have improved memory compatibility than additional overclocking headroom if given the choice. Abit is fully aware of these issues and has been working diligently at providing a BIOS update to address these flaws.
The Abit AT8 is a board designed and marketed for the AMD enthusiast and it fulfills this promise in most categories. The performance of the board was stellar while providing exceptional stability under stress testing. However, the memory compatibility issues with the current BIOS are unacceptable, and otherwise, detracts from an outstanding effort by Abit. Until Abit has publicly releases a BIOS update that solves the memory compatibility issues and still allows the high clock settings present in the 1.0 bios, we are reluctant to recommend this motherboard.
Status Update - Revised 1.1 Bios
Abit provided us a revised 1.1 bios tonight (3-9-06) for additional testing and it will be available on Abit's website shortly. We will update the article after our regression testing is completed.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
42 Comments
View All Comments
Gary Key - Friday, March 10, 2006 - link
Abit plans on this board becoming a value performance leader with the AT8-32x being slightly more upscale in the price range. We will be reviewing this board once it is available. However, given the current price range of the RD580 boards, the RD480 boards are the better value at this time given the incremental performance differences of the RD580 (although this would be my personal choice).
There have been some growing pains with the ATI chipsets but there were also growing pains with the NVIDIA/SIS/VIA/ULi/ALI/Intel/etc. chipsets at product launches also. :) Overall, both the ATI RD480 and RD580 are very good chipsets, the fact the SB600 Southbridge was not available in time for either product launch is where I think ATI failed. This forced the board suppliers to utilize a Southbridge solution (ULi M1575) that was not designed in conjunction with the RD480/580 Northbridge. While it is an excellent Southbridge solution, some of the storage access and timing issues that have been reported and now solved, were not seen on the few SB450 equipped boards. I personally expect the ATI equipped boards to mature quickly and provide an excellent competitive alternative to the nForce boards. This is good for all of us.
n7 - Friday, March 10, 2006 - link
Even with the OCing issues, this is still a far better value Crossfire choice for anyone than the craptastic A8R-MVP