µATX Part 1: ATI Radeon Xpress 1250 Performance Review
by Gary Key on August 28, 2007 7:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
abit Fatality F-I90HD: Feature Set
The abit Fatal1ty F-I90HD motherboard has been a well received board in the labs as we think it has a very good blend of performance, options, and price for a micro-ATX board designed for HTPC usage. However, abit had some initial quality issues with the board that marred the launch and they have not kept up with BIOS updates. Unfortunately, this is not a good pattern and we have to wonder how committed abit is to this board. ASRock has already updated their BIOS to provide full compatibility with the newer Blu-ray drives as the SB600 firmware needed an update along with the ability to set PCI and PCI Express bus speeds.
The BIOS offers a fair amount of options for overclocking and tuning the board. The notable items that are missing include the inability to set PCI and PCI Express bus speeds along with the inability to overclock the memory. These are not major items of concern for us considering the audience the board is targeted at, but additional memory sub-timing options would have been appreciated as the performance of the board is below that of the ASRock due to memory performance. The only other item we feel is missing from this board is a Firewire 400 port, considering this board was designed with the media centric user in mind.
abit includes their EQ program for hardware monitoring and smart control over the CPU and System fan headers. This program proved to be very useful when setting our system to operate in near silent mode during video and audio playback sessions.
| abit Fatality F-I90HD Specifications | |
| Market Segment | Entry Level HTPC - $114.99 |
| CPU Interface | Socket T (Socket 775) |
| CPU Support | LGA775-based Pentium 4, Pentium D, Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Extreme, Core 2 Quad, Support for 1333 CPUs limited to 266FSB |
| Chipset | ATI Radeon Express 1250 (RS600) Northbridge and SB600 Southbridge |
| Bus Speeds | Auto, 133 ~ 500 in 1MHz increments |
| Memory SpeedDDR2 | SPD, 533/667/800 async operation |
| PCIe Speeds | Not adjustable, locked |
| Core Voltage | Auto, 1.3250V (or base CPU) to 1.7000V in 0.0025V increments |
| CPU Clock Multiplier | Auto, 6x-12x in 1X increments if CPU is unlocked, downwards unlocked, Core 2 Duo |
| DRAM VoltageDDR2 | Auto, 1.75V ~ 2.50V in .05V or .10V increments |
| DRAM Timing Control | SPD, Manual - 5 DRAM Timing Options (tCL, tRCD, tRP, tRAS, tRFC) |
| NB Voltage | 1.80V, 1.836V, 1.872V, 1.944V, 2.016V, 2.088V |
| On-board Video | 1080p support with 7.8+ drivers (recommend E6420 or above), 480i, 480p, 576i, 576p, 720p, and 1080i support, HDCP 1.1 support on data stream with on-chip key storage, integrated DVI or HDMI 1.2 interface single-link support only for HDMI, 30-bit dual-link support for DVI, 1650 Mbps/channel with 165 MHz pixel clock rate per link, DX9.0 VS/PS 2.0, max 2048x1536 resolution, MPEG-2 hardware decode, MPEG-4 simple profile support, WMV9 Hardware Acceleration, MPEG-2 hardware decode acceleration. |
| GFX Memory Buffer | 32MB, 64MB, 128MB, 256MB |
| GFX link Width | 1x, 2x, 4x, 8x, 16x |
| Memory Slots | Four 240-pin DDR2 DIMM Slots Dual-Channel Configuration Regular Unbuffered Memory to 16GB Total |
| Expansion Slots | 1 - PCIe X16 2 - PCIe x1 1 - PCI Slot 2.2 |
| Onboard SATA/RAID | 4 SATA 3Gbps Ports - SB600 (RAID 0, 1, 0+1) |
| Onboard IDE | 1 ATA133/100/66 Port (2 drives) - SB600 |
| Onboard USB 2.0/IEEE-1394 | 10 USB 2.0 Ports - 4 I/O Panel - 6 via Headers Firewire 400 not supported |
| Onboard LAN | Realtek RTL8111B - PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller |
| Onboard Audio | Realtek ALC888 - 8-channel HD audio codec, X1250 embedded HDMI |
| Power Connectors | ATX 24-pin, 4-pin ATX 12V |
| I/O Panel | 1 x PS/2 Keyboard 1 x PS/2 Mouse 1 x HDMI, 1 x D-Sub (HDMI to DVI connector included) 1 x S/PDIF Optical - Out 1 x Audio Panel 1 x RJ45 4 x USB 2.0/1.1 |
| Fan Headers | 4 - CPU/SYS/AUX1/AUX2 |
| Fan Control | CPU/SYS Fan Control via BIOS or Software CPU - Target Temp 40C~70C, Temp Tolerance 3C~15C, Fan Start - 60%~100%, Stop - 30%~60% SYS - Target Temp 30C~50C, Temp Tolerance 3C~15C, Fan Start - 70%~100%, Stop - 50%~70% |
| BIOS Revision | v1.4 |
| Board Revision | v1.00F |
The abit Fatal1ty F-I90HD motherboard has been a well received board in the labs as we think it has a very good blend of performance, options, and price for a micro-ATX board designed for HTPC usage. However, abit had some initial quality issues with the board that marred the launch and they have not kept up with BIOS updates. Unfortunately, this is not a good pattern and we have to wonder how committed abit is to this board. ASRock has already updated their BIOS to provide full compatibility with the newer Blu-ray drives as the SB600 firmware needed an update along with the ability to set PCI and PCI Express bus speeds.
The BIOS offers a fair amount of options for overclocking and tuning the board. The notable items that are missing include the inability to set PCI and PCI Express bus speeds along with the inability to overclock the memory. These are not major items of concern for us considering the audience the board is targeted at, but additional memory sub-timing options would have been appreciated as the performance of the board is below that of the ASRock due to memory performance. The only other item we feel is missing from this board is a Firewire 400 port, considering this board was designed with the media centric user in mind.
abit includes their EQ program for hardware monitoring and smart control over the CPU and System fan headers. This program proved to be very useful when setting our system to operate in near silent mode during video and audio playback sessions.
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Brick88 - Thursday, August 30, 2007 - link
doesn't anyone feel that AMD is cutting itself short? Yes Intel is their primary competitor but by not producing an igp chipset for intel based processors, they are cutting themselves out of a big market. Intel ships the majority of processors and AMD will need every single stream of revenue to compete with Intel.bunga28 - Wednesday, August 29, 2007 - link
Charles Dickens would roll over his grave if he saw you comparing these 2 boards by paraphrasing his work.Myrandex - Tuesday, August 28, 2007 - link
I don't knwo why they would ever put that name on the board. the fact that it is getting beat by a ASRock motherboard in gaming performance is pathetic, since that name is supposed to be all about gaming (no offense to the ASRockers out there, as they aren't bad boards I have more experience with them then fatal1ty's anyways).Etern205 - Tuesday, August 28, 2007 - link
On the "abit Fatality F-I90HD: Feature Set" page,that Abit EQ software interface of a car looks
familar one of those real models.
Like this one
<img>http://img404.imageshack.us/img404/8490/toyotafjhh...">http://img404.imageshack.us/img404/8490/toyotafjhh...
source:
http://www.automobilemag.com/new_car_previews/2006...">http://www.automobilemag.com/new_car_previews/2006...
strikeback03 - Tuesday, August 28, 2007 - link
I was thinking Hummer, either way...Etern205 - Tuesday, August 28, 2007 - link
Not really because the face of a Hummer is differentthan the one from Toyota. The face of a Hummer has
vertical grill bars, while the Toyota does not.
strikeback03 - Wednesday, August 29, 2007 - link
However the Hummer has the full-width chrome fascia, the Toyota has a part-width sorta satin chrome thing.I highly doubt they licensed an image of either, so it can't look exactly like any vehicle. I remember a lawsuit between Jeep and Hummer over the 7 vertical slots in eachother's grilles several years ago.
eBauer - Tuesday, August 28, 2007 - link
Why are the Xpress 1250 systems running tighter timings (4-4-4-12) where the G33 system is running looser timings (5-5-5-12)?strikeback03 - Tuesday, August 28, 2007 - link
Top of page 8
Mazen - Tuesday, August 28, 2007 - link
I have a 6000+ (gift) and I am just wondering whether I should go with a 690G or wait for nvidia's upcoming MCP 78. Can't wait for the 690G review... thoughts anyone?