FIRST LOOK: Abit Fatal1ty AA8XE
by Wesley Fink on November 9, 2004 8:30 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Test Setup
We compared the performance of the Abit Fatal1ty AA8XE with the 1066 FSB 3.46EE to performance results with the Intel 925X motherboard. We tested the 925X with the fastest 800FSB processor available, which is the 560 at 3.6GHz. Since the fastest gaming performance we have tested is with the Athlon 64 processor, results were included for the fastest current A64 processors - the FX55 and the 4000+ on the nForce 4 PCI Express Reference board. To remove the video card as a performance factor, all benchmarks were run with the PCI Express nVidia 6800 Ultra.The configuration was kept as close as possible between the 3 motherboards, but we are forced to compare apples to oranges in some cases. This means using DDR400 memory at 2-2-2-10 on the AMD systems and DDR2-533 at 3-3-3-10 on the Intel systems, but as we saw in the DDR vs. DDR2 review, the performance of fast DDR400 and DDR533 is very close.
| Performance Test Configuration | |
| Processor(s): | Intel 3.46EE (1066FSB) Socket 775 Intel 560 (3.6GHz) Socket 775 AMD FX55 (2.6Ghz) Socket 939 AMD 4000+ (2.4GHz) Socket 939 |
| RAM: | 2 x 512MB Crucial DDR2-533 2 x 512MB OCZ 3200 Platinum Rev. 2 DDR |
| Hard Drive(s): | Maxtor 250GB MaXLine III (16MB buffer) |
| Video Card(s): | nVidia GeForce 6800 Ultra PCIe |
| Video Drivers: | nVidia 61.77 Graphics Drivers |
| Operating System(s): | Windows XP Professional SP1 |
| Power Supply: | OCZ Power Stream 520 (520W) |
| Motherboards: | Abit Fatal1ty AA8XE (Intel 925XE) Intel 925XCV (Intel 925X) Socket 775 Intel 915GUX (Intel 915G) Socket 775 |
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. Unfortunately, the only 1066 processor currently available is the $1000 3.46EE that we used for benchmarking.
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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.