nForce4 Ultra Roundup: Charting the Mainstream
by Wesley Fink on July 5, 2005 10:28 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Abit Fatal1ty AN8: Features and Layout
| Specification | Abit Fatal1ty AN8 |
| CPU Interface | Socket 939 Athlon 64 |
| Chipset | nForce4 Ultra (single chip) |
| BUS Speeds | 200MHz to 410MHz (in 1MHz increments) |
| PCI/AGP Speeds | Asynchronous (Fixed) |
| PCI Express | 100MHz to 145MHz in 1MHz increments |
| Core Voltage | Auto, 1.5V to 1.85V in 0.025V increments (with 4000+ | CPU Ref Voltage | +10mv to +60mv, -10mv to -60mv in 10mv increments |
| DRAM Voltage | Auto, 2.5V to 2.8V in 0.05V increments |
| DDR Ref Voltage | +10mv to +70mv, -10mv to -50mv in 10mv increments |
| Chipset Voltage | 1.5V to 1.8V in 0.05V increments |
| Hyper Transport Ratios | Auto, 1X to 5X in 1X increments |
| LDT Bus Transfer | 16/16, 16/8, 8/16, 8/8 |
| LDT Voltage | 1.25V to 1.4V in 0.05V increments |
| PCI Synchronization | Auto, To CPU, 33.33MHz |
| CPU Ratios | Auto, 4x to 20x in 0.5x increments |
| DRAM Speeds | Auto, DDR200, DDR266, DDR333, DDR400 (Plus DDR433, 466, 500 with Rev. E Processor) |
| Memory Command Rate | Auto, 1T, 2T |
| Memory Slots | Four 184-pin DDR Dual-Channel Slots Unbuffered ECC or non-ECC Memory to 4GB Total |
| Expansion Slots | 1 x16 PCIe Slots 2 x1 PCIe 3 PCI Slots |
| Onboard SATA | 4-Drive SATA 2 by nF4 |
| Onboard IDE | Two Standard NVIDIA ATA133/100/66 (4 drives) |
| SATA/IDE RAID | 4-Drive SATA 2 PLUS 4-Drive IDE (8 total) Can be combined in RAID 0, 1 |
| Onboard USB 2.0/IEEE-1394 | 10 USB 2.0 ports supported nF4 2 1394A FireWire ports by TI TSB43AB22A |
| Onboard LAN | PCIe Gigabit Ethernet by Vitesse VSC8201RX PHY |
| Onboard Audio | Audiomax 7.1 Audio Card with Realtek ALC850 8-Channel codec with 6 UAJ audio jacks, CD-in, front audio, and optical SPDIF |
| Other Features | AMD Dual-Core (X2) Support with 1.5 BIOS |
| BIOS | Award 1.5 (6/21/05) |
The Abit Fatal1ty AN8 is a member of the Fatal1ty series of motherboards aimed at gamers. Abit claims that everything about the Fatal1ty boards is beefed up for utmost stability in gaming situations. This "beefing-up" includes a special dual-fan OTES cooling system for the power transistors, and a dual-fan cooling device for RAM that Abit calls OTES RAMflow. These are two of the biggest heat-generating areas in modern motherboards and the Abit approach is noteworthy. With this attention to features that matter a great deal to the Enthusiast, we have great expectations of the overclocking abilities of the Abit Fatal1ty. Abit also has announced an SLI version of the Fatal1ty AN8, which adds dual-video NVIDIA SLI capabilities to the AN8 feature set.
The other side of the "beefed-up" Abit is the cost, as the Fatal1ty AN8 is by far the most expensive nForce4 Ultra motherboard in this roundup with a street price of about $185. With that kind of price, buyers will certainly expect the Fatal1ty AN8 to be head and shoulders above the other boards in the roundup. If this is too rich for your blood, then Abit also sells the more basic AN8 board for about $100 street price.
Click image to enlarge.
The 24-pin ATX and 4-pin 12V connectors are at the board edges, where they work best. It is also a pleasure to see Abit place the 4 SATA connectors and PCIe slot where they will not interfere with each other. Board makers seem to be giving more thought to IDE placement lately, but SATA connectors are increasingly a mess to work with in many motherboards. Top video cards are big, and SATA connectors behind a PCIe slot can make a decent board a nightmare if you're mounting SATA devices. Abit, fortunately, gave some thought to SATA placement.
While it's not pictured, the included "Audio Max" dedicated sound card fits in the first slot - just above the 2 PCIe x1 slots. This is a good location, which clusters sound connectors near the rear panel. While the Audio Max is powered by the very common Realtek ALC850 codec, isolating the sound hardware, like we have seen DFI do on similar dedicated sound cards, should pay off in lower noise and reduced CPU overhead for the audio hardware.
Abit boards usually have quite a few fan connectors, and this would certainly be expected on a board geared to gamers, who may have many devices to cool. Unfortunately, there are just 3 fan headers on board; after the North Bridge and CPU, there is just the System Fan header. That means that if you have a Power Supply with a fan-monitoring plug, there are no spares on the Abit. A "gamers" board really needs a few more fan headers.
The storage area is basic nForce4, which is pretty good by itself, but there are no additional RAID controllers, which you might expect on a $185 board.
The BIOS options are typically Abit, meaning that they are very good. There's just about any BIOS adjustment that you might want. One particular disappointment are the memory voltage controls, which only extend to 2.8V. Abit has fixed this option in other versions of the AN8 - the Ultra and SLI extend to 3.55V for super high-voltage 2-2-2 memory like OCZ VX and Mushkin Redline. For that reason, the other Abit AN8 boards are a better choice for the Athlon 64 enthusiast than this early AN8 Fatal1ty. The Abit AN8 Fatal1ty is one of the two boards in this roundup that supports the additional 433, 466, and 500 memory speed options on an AMD Rev. E processor.
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arfan - Wednesday, July 6, 2005 - link
"So ECS, Foxconn, Biostar - we can only suggest that you need to add features and performance that will make an AMD user want to buy your boards. "Why u think's ECS is bad ???
From your benchmark, ECS is not too bad, their ranking in the middle until top1.
Sorry, if myenglish is so bad.
smn198 - Wednesday, July 6, 2005 - link
Page 1: "There are no performance differences in the SLI and Ultra chipsets, or even the base nForce4 for that matter. These chipsets differ only in which features are available to the buyer - but they beat with the same heart."I thought the base nForce4 had a 800MHz HT where as the Ultra and SLI have 1GHz. Is that not correct?
Frallan - Wednesday, July 6, 2005 - link
For PSU requirements read the mfg websites. Especially the DFI comes with explicit requirements.480W 24pin ATX 2.0+ PSU and from experiance Id have to say that U want a 1st tier PSU on top of that. Anecdotal advices that its possible to run a DFI SLI set up overclocked from a 350W PSU exists but fact remains that a good solid 500W+ ATX 2.0+ PSU will help U with stability.
Calin - Wednesday, July 6, 2005 - link
What I want to ask: does the processor works with four DS DIMMS at 1T command rate at lower frequency? By what you say (that 2T command rate is much slower than 1T command rate), then 1T command rate at 333MHz would be faster than 2T command rate at 400MHz.Vesperan - Wednesday, July 6, 2005 - link
I love the look of that Epox board. Pity noone imports Epox products into New Zealand any more.GhostlyGhost - Wednesday, July 6, 2005 - link
Ermm.. It's "Marvell". With two l's.Heidfirst - Wednesday, July 6, 2005 - link
I think that you must have a bad example of the ABIT. A no. of other sites (HardOCP, Hexus etc.) have all been over 300 ref. clock with it.Not to mention that there is also now the non-Fatality AN8 Ultra which is cheaper & yet has better sound & 3.55Vdimm instead of 2.8V on the Fatality ...
Affectionate-Bed-980 - Wednesday, July 6, 2005 - link
I think the Neo4 should've been included even though it was in the SLI test. Same with the Asus board. Those are really important boards. I'm sure if you add up the Asus and MSI users they would outnumber Biostar + Foxconn + Chaintech + ECS. Iono. just my 2 cents. I dont want to go look at the SLI review and then compare it to this review to see other boards and do a mental benchmark merge to get hte relative performance.You know what we should make? We should make the uber super chart system. Kinda like THG's CPU charts. Just make the interactive system comparation machine. Choose a CPU, a mobo, a gfx card etc. If you bench every component (not every combo), but just CPUs vs CPUs, mobos vs mobos, you can get the relative score and construct a relative table for combinations..... hmm just a thought.
Palek - Wednesday, July 6, 2005 - link
A few mistakes made it into the final article...-------------------------------------------------
Page 7
1. The following bit does not belong in this review. Cut and paste?
"There are absolutely no PCIe slots at all on the Neo4/SLI except for the pair of x16 slots for SLI video. MSI tells us that the 2nd PCIe can function as a PCIe x1 slot if you're not using it for video, but that is it for PCIe. Does this really matter? Right now, it really isn't important, since we had a very hard time even finding a PCIe x1 LAN card for the new PCI Express. It may matter in the future, but by that time, you will likely have moved on to a newer version of whatever chipset is the latest wonder. This is particularly clear when you look at the feature set of the MSI, since it is definitely a cut above the other boards in this roundup."
2. "SPDIG" should be SPDIF, or S/PDIF if you want to be really accurate.
Page 11
1. The title row of the table is incorrect. The motherboard name should read:
"DFI LANParty UT nF4 Ultra"
2. Link to next page is also incorrect, same as above.
Page 12
1. Title of the page is incorrect, same as above.
2. Title row of the table is incorrect, same as above.
Page 13
1. "SPDIG" round two.
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Also, do guys have any idea why placing the codec on a daughter card reduces CPU overhead? Obviously there is something more going on than just the physical relocation of the chips. Any theories or explanations?
Xenoterranos - Wednesday, July 6, 2005 - link
Just a word about the soundblaster Live on the MSI board..."That price tag [200$] may be a bit high for the average gamer who just spent most of his/her savings on a Pentium II / Voodoo2 setup, however if you're going to swallow the cost of an expensive sound card it might as well be the Creative Labs SB Live!"
That was Anandtech back in '99. And you're getting this for free! (well, almost)