FIRST LOOK: Abit Fatal1ty AA8XE
by Wesley Fink on November 9, 2004 8:30 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Features and Overclocking
| Abit Fatal1ty AA8XE Motherboard Specifications | |
| CPU Interface | Socket 775 Pentium 4 (Prescott) |
| Chipset | Intel 925XE/ICH6R |
| Bus Speeds | 200MHz to 400MHz (in 1MHz steps) |
| DDR2 Speeds | Auto, 400, 533 |
| N/B Strap | By CPU, PSB533, PSB800, PSB1066 |
| PCI Express Speeds | 99MHz to 255MHz (in 1MHz intervals) |
| PCI Speeds | 33.33, 36.36, 40.00 |
| Core Voltage | CPU Default (1.575V) to 1.925V in 0.025V increments |
| FSB VTT Voltage | 1.0V to 1.8V in .05V steps |
| DRAM Voltage | 1.6V to 2.55V in 0.05V increments |
| DDR VTT Voltage | 0.8V to 1.8V in .05V increments |
| Northbridge Voltage | 1.3V to 2.1V in 005V increments |
| NB 2.5V | 2.3V to 3.0V in .05V steps |
| Memory Slots | Four 184-pin DDR2-533/400 Slots Dual-Channel Unbuffered DDR2 to 4GB |
| Expansion Slots | 1 PCIe x16 slot 2 PCIe x1 slots 2 PCI slots Dedicated Audio Daughter Card slot |
| Onboard SATA/RAID | 4 SATA 150 drives by ICH6R Intel Matrix Raid 0,1 |
| Onboard IDE | One ATA100/66 (ICH6) - 2 Drives |
| Onboard USB 2.0 | 8 USB 2.0 ports |
| Onboard Firewire | 3 IEEE1394A FireWire Ports by TI 43CR30T |
| Onboard LAN | Dual Intel Ethernet - Gigabit + 10/100 |
| Onboard Audio | High Definition Realtek ALC880D 8-Channel HD, Dolby Digital Live AudioMAX connectors for reduced noise |
| Tested BIOS | M408_10.B07 10/15/2004 |
The Abit Fatal1ty AA8XE was designed for top gaming performance and overclocking. This is reflected in the very complete selection of tweaking controls and the extended adjustment ranges. The BIOS controls with wide adjustment ranges will allow overclockers to push the Fatal1ty to wherever the processor can go.
One surprise was the lack of a higher DDR2 ram speed option in a board designed for performance. The 925XE Asus P5AD2-E, for example, has a speed option of DDR2 710 in BIOS.
The feature set is basic 915X/925XE without the additional features often seen on top-of-the-line Socket 775 motherboards. This means that the ports and options are those provided by the 925X/925XE chipset. This may not be a bad thing where stability is the primary goal, but the Fatal1ty really adds very little to the standard 925X/925XE feature set. There are provisions for Firewire and enhancements for noise reduction on the excellent Intel High Definition 8-channel audio, but you will be hard pressed to find any other new features on Fatal1ty. As with other 925X/XE boards there are provisions for just 2 IDE devices, which may be an issue if your gaming needs include several optical drives or IDE hard drives.
Sometimes gaming is as much about appearances as substance, and there is no doubt that Abit understands this. The Fatal1ty is back-lit with red LEDs, which will make the Fatal1ty stand out in any side window case.
Abit also concentrates on cooling with the AA8XE. You can see the shroud for the dual OTES cooling for the power transistors. It is carefully designed, so there is no issue with mounting a standard Intel Socket 775 cooling fan. However, if you plan to use a large custom heatsink, you are likely out of luck.
Overclocking
The Fatal1ty is designed for top performance, and top performance normally includes overclocking. We were extremely pleased to reach a stable 323x12 with our test 3.46EE. 12X is the lowest ratio available on this partially unlocked EE chip. This is a CPU speed of 3876MHZ at a bus speed of 1292. Apparently, this is the limit on air with modest voltage increases for this processor, since the stock 13X multiplier would only reach 299x13 - approximately the same speed.With water cooling or phase-change cooling, the Abit Fatal1ty would likely take this chip further, since heat was becoming a large problem with this Gallatin core CPU at nearly 3.9GHz speed. 323x12 is an outstanding overclock, but this needs to be kept in perspective. The starting point for the 3.46EE is 266, so the reach to 323 is just a 21% overclock of the FSB at the lower multiplier. If we consider the CPU is running at 3876MHz, the overclock is only 12% compared to the rated CPU speed.
Prescott core 800FSB processors will also work fine on the Abit Fatal1ty. We did a brief test with an unlocked 560 Prescott and managed to reach a stable 284x14, or a speed of about 4GHz on air. The FSB limitation here is likely the result of the 14 multiplier, which is the lowest available on the unlocked 3.6GHz processor. If lower ratios were available, it is likely that the Abit Fatal1ty could take you to the highest FSB the CPU could reach.
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46 Comments
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T8000 - Wednesday, November 10, 2004 - link
Altrough this board seems to be a good overclocker and lots of buyers will at least consider an overclock, there was not a single benchmark run with any overclock.The default clock was even lowered somewhat! Especially next to the (almost unoverclockable) AMD64 2,6 Ghz CPU's, this review seems more like a way to ask for an AMD version than to measure real gaming performance.
I mean, if you only want stock speeds, why would you buy a high-end Abit mainboard?
Also, an Abit mainboard of this performance class will likely be combined with a Prometia cooler or at least good water cooling, making the few air only overclock tests (and the remark that a big aircooler would not fit) a bit odd.
Even more because OTES was designed to keep enough airflow without aircooling on the CPU.
Wesley Fink - Wednesday, November 10, 2004 - link
Abit has replied to our questions about an Athlon 64 version of Fatal1ty:"We don’t want readers to have the wrong impression that we are not coming out with an AMD version. We will have the AMD version of the Fatal1ty AN8 coming out around December. The AA8 Fatal1ty is only the BEGINNING of the Fatality line of products. The purpose of the AA8 is to show both gamers and enthusiasts ABIT’s dedication in the gaming community. The AN8 Fatal1ty is where we are hoping to ramp up the volume because the Ultimate Gaming Platform is definitely AMD based."
dvinnen - Wednesday, November 10, 2004 - link
People laugh at him alot. He's a game hopper picking up the next big thing, gets good at it for a while, then leaves when others surpase him. Just look at his failed CS expirment. Counter strike is pretty much the only game with any following in NA currently, he tried to start a team a while ago and got stomped.Other than the fact that this board has his name all over it, it's pretty cool. I like the OTES set up, could of used a better spokesman though.
The Ksharp or Aimetti board anyone?
TimTheEnchanter25 - Wednesday, November 10, 2004 - link
In the picture that ABIT had in their forums, they also show a 2 fan cooler for the ram:http://forum.abit-usa.com/showthread.php?s=&th...
I would like to see someone do some sound and thermal benchmarks for this mobo. It would be nice to know if the fans make enough difference on the temps to justify the massive sound I assume it makes.
zyzzix - Wednesday, November 10, 2004 - link
While it appears strange that Abit would choose Intel to launch a hot concept, it's very PC for them long term. It just makes us AMD'ers put off buying anything else until the other shoe drops (kicks).nastyemu25 - Wednesday, November 10, 2004 - link
wow that picture makes fatal1ty look like a real bad-ass!and by bad-ass i mean asshat
SLIM - Wednesday, November 10, 2004 - link
"At stock settings, Fatal1ty is overclocked to 271 FSB. For a fairer comparison, the FSB was set to 267. Since most will want to see gaming benchmarks with this gaming board, the Game Accelerator was left to the default "Enabled" mode."What exactly is the "game accelerator"? The only reference that I could find was, " the AI7 also comes with Game Accelerator, a BIOS tweak that allows users to increase their performance up to 30%". That kind of sounds like marketing talk for dynamic overclocking to me. Anybody at anandtech have a better description of what exactly this game accelerator does? Point being, if you changed the FSB from 271 to 267 to make if "fair" and then enabled dynamic overclocking, that's one step forward and 5 steps back on the fairness scale.
SLIM
PS: I also checked the manual for the aa8 fatality and it was less than helpful as to the nature of this tweak:
"Game Accelerator: This item enables or disables the Game Accelerator."
Live - Wednesday, November 10, 2004 - link
Great write up. Not much more needs to be said. While the chipset is crap Abit at least made some improvements over the reference design. Now bring on the new breed of AMD boards so we can game in style.bob661 - Wednesday, November 10, 2004 - link
#11Own3d. :-)
Wesley Fink - Wednesday, November 10, 2004 - link
#20 - there ARE on-board power and reset switches. They are on the bottom right edge of the board (or the upper right edge of the picture on p.2).#23 - There are 3 Firewire ports on the Fatal1ty AA8XE. This is detailed in the specs on p. 2 and mentioned in the article.
#25 - One ATA port for 2 IDE devices is a 925X/XE limitation, not a choice by Abit. It was mentioned prominently in the 925X launch review. Abit could have added additional IDE ports with an added chip if they chose to do that.
#4 and #22 - Anand's 925XE launch article tested with the ATI X800 XT so they are not directly comparable to the results here which were all nVidia 6800 Ultra as we have used in past motheboard reviews. The point of this First Look was to test Abit's claim that this was "the best of the best gaming board".
If you will check the Anandtech data base you will see there has not been a 925XE review other than the launch article by Anand and me 9 days ago. This is the first 925XE to make it to the labs, but others are on their way. Anand also pointed out the performance of 925X and 925XE was trhe same - the XE adds 1066 but the chipset is otherwise identical. Anand also found the 1066 performance increase essentially negligible.
I considered running benches with the 3.6 on the 925XE as we have database data to compare that configuration, but then there would have been an uproar that we didn't test with a 1066 gaming chip like the 3.46EE.
We will include benches here in the future 925XE motherboard reviews. For now we ask that you try to see the points we were making in this review, and the data we used to examine those questions.