Abit’s Fatal1ty AN8 SLI motherboard

The Fatal1ty series is Abit’s own top-tier product line, and its SLI support, unique OTES cooler, and numerous BIOS options are meant to differentiate it qualitatively from any other mobo on the market. Does the Fatal1ty AN8 SLI compare well to other, more conventionally feature-rich boards? Read on to find out.

The specs
The Fatal1ty AN8 SLI isn’t as packed with extras as some top-end motherboards these days, as the specs will attest.

There are a total of 20 PCI Express lanes available on the nForce4 SLI chipset, and the Fatal1ty AN8 SLI spreads them over two physical PCI-E x16 slots and a pair of x1 slots. That configuration leaves two lanes to spare for onboard devices. However, the AN8 SLI doesn’t feature any onboard PCI Express peripherals. Instead, it relies solely on the nForce4 SLI chipset for Gigabit Ethernet and Serial ATA RAID support.

The lack of auxiliary onboard peripherals suggests that this particular entry in Abit’s Fatal1ty series is designed for a buyer who places flexible configuration options and fine-grained BIOS control over sheer connectivity. The Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe is an equivalently-priced nForce4 SLI board that packs twice the SATA ports of the Fatal1ty AN8 SLI (eight total), offers three PCI slots to the Fatal1ty’s two, boasts dual Gigabit Ethernet support, and includes a breakout connector for external SATA drives. The AN8 SLI, in contrast, sticks to the I/O options supported in the nForce4 SLI chipset. The inclusion of an onboard Texas Instruments Firewire controller does give the Abit board some additional flexibility, though.

As often happens, however, spec sheets don’t tell the whole story. As impressive as the Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe’s I/O options are, there’s only a relative handful of users who need—or are even capable of simultaneously using—all the extra devices, ports, and slots. If you’re building a system meant to sit at the center of a multi-network digital content creation hub, a board like the A8N-SLI Deluxe is certainly a better option. Noise reduction and BIOS control are arguably features that appeal to a larger segment of the market than the A8N-SLI Deluxe’s frenzy of ports, so unless you have specific need for the extra connectivity, I suggest the difference be considered an area of product differentiation rather than a place where Abit fails to measure up.

The board
The Fatal1ty AN8 SLI is mainly red, though black is used to differentiate the OTES cooler, floppy drive port, PCI-E slots, CPU cooler bracket, and one set of DIMM slots. The USB 2.0 headers and IDE ports are blue for no apparent reason, though it does give the board a bit of additional color contrast without overwhelming the eye.

There are no major flaws in the board’s layout, but there are several annoyances worth mentioning. First, if you’re dead-set on screwing down every mounting bracket, you’ll have to remove the OTES cooling system to reach the upper-left-hand motherboard mount. Also, as you can see from the picture above (and as the shot below shows in more detail), Abit has chosen to put both the auxiliary 4-pin Molex power connector and the floppy port at the very bottom of the motherboard, underneath the last PCI slot. Dropping the floppy port to the bottom of the board may be useful in terms of getting it out of the way, but it can create cable routing or cable length issues, depending on one’s case configuration. Furthermore, both the floppy cable and the four-pin Molex power cable pass over a substantial section of the motherboard through space already occupied by SLI power cables, other PCI cards, and SATA cabling.

Most SLI boards only require auxiliary four-pin Molex power when running a pair of graphics cards in SLI, but the Abit manual recommends using the auxiliary connector regardless, so its placement is more important. Whether the floppy port placement is an issue will depend entirely on whether you need a floppy drive. Unless you’re slipstreaming drivers, a floppy is required to install Windows to RAID arrays running off the nForce4 chipset. However, if you’re one of a growing number of people who’ve waved goodbye to floppy drives, you may consider the port’s position an asset.

No PCI card with a significant amount of “overhang” will fit into the bottom PCI slot without interfering with standard power plugs connected to the four-pin Molex connector. Even my Audigy 2 ZS had to be coaxed gingerly into place. Note that the gap between PCI slot and Molex connector is significantly smaller than the ordinary gap between PCI slots.

Abit’s DIMM configuration is less than perfect; all four slots are jam-packed together—a highly questionable decision, given Abit’s historical focus on overclocking performance and high memory speeds. Although perfectly acceptable at stock speeds, such tight configurations make it difficult for passive or active memory cooling to work effectively, due to the simultaneous constriction of both airflow and space. The gap between the CPU socket and the first DIMM slot is noticeably smaller on the Fatal1ty AN8 SLI than on the Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe: From the edge of the CPU socket to the edge of the first DIMM, the Asus board offers 1.125 inches of clearance compared to the Abit’s 0.9 inches. Measured from the edge of the CPU cooler bracket, the Asus offers a 0.76 inch gap versus the Abit’s 0.54 inches. The difference between the two boards isn’t very large when measured in real terms, but it’s potentially enough to create a localized hotspot if combined with the lack of DIMM spacing and a larger-than-stock cooler.

This isn’t the first Athlon 64 SLI motherboard I’ve seen scrunch all four DIMM slots together or minimize the space between the CPU socket and the first DIMM slot, but most other boards that opt for this type of layout carry additional integrated peripherals whose presence helps explain the tighter configuration. I would’ve preferred a more spacious layout on this board—but there’s no demonstrative proof I’m aware of that Abit’s layout choices lower the board’s overclocking performance.

The Fatal1ty AN8 SLI’s “integrated” audio actually relies on a module that plugs into the mainboard via a proprietary slot that Abit refers to as AUDIOMAX1. Although the AUDIOMAX1 connector appears to be physically identical to PCI-E x1 slots, the slot itself sits closer to the motherboard edge than is typical for a PCI-E x1 slot and also faces the opposite direction. Abit mounts the codec chip, a Realtek ALC850, on the AUDIOMAX1 card rather than on the motherboard to help isolate it from electrical noise and interference caused by onboard components.

With the Fatal1ty board’s audio ports on a riser card, the back panel port cluster is minimally equipped. Most of the available space is occupied by two OTES fans that cool the board’s power circuitry. There are no serial ports, game ports, or parallel ports on the back panel, and no headers for such on the motherboard. This is probably not an issue for the vast majority of users, but it’s something to be aware of if you still have a legacy peripheral or two hanging about. Given the dearth of legacy connectors and the board’s position at the high end of the market, I expected Abit to include at least one additional set of external USB ports. Although the board supports up to ten USB devices, the four rear USB ports and the two more front-panel ports on the uGuru drive bay panel only allow up to six devices to connect simultaneously. The remaining four ports are accessible via onboard headers, but Abit doesn’t include any PCI back plate hardware for them.

Four SATA ports and two IDE ports are all clustered in the bottom-right-hand corner of the board. Again, there’s a potential clutter problem here, depending on how many peripherals you intend to hook up simultaneously. Blue USB headers are visible to the left of the SATA ports, with the front panel connectors below. Just visible in the upper-left-hand corner of the photo is the bottom of the second PCI-E x16 SLI slot; you’ll have to allow space for it (and its power cabling) when you hook it up.

The BIOS
Back when Abit built the BH6, the qualifying bar for an enthusiast-oriented motherboard wasn’t very high, and the overclocking capabilities of your average retail motherboard—if any existed—were utterly laughable compared to the wealth of options that end users have today. Abit was one of the early leaders when it came to building enthusiast boards that included BIOS-level overclocking options and voltage control. Such features have now become common enough that their omission is more surprising than their inclusion. Even in today’s option-happy environment, however, the Fatal1ty AN8 SLI’s BIOS stands out like a beacon. Simply put, the Fatal1ty offers more configuration options, more control, and more hardware monitoring than any motherboard I’ve seen before, including Abit’s own products. Whether you’re a hard-core overclocker or looking to utterly minimize computer noise, the Fatal1ty AN8 SLI is designed to cater to your needs.

Abit’s OCGuru adjustment page provides users with access to CPU multipliers, external frequencies, and HyperTransport multipliers. Voltage settings are also handled here, and both CPU and memory voltages can be adjusted directly by specifying a target voltage or indirectly by changing either the DDR or CPU reference voltage. Target and reference voltages can be used together to achieve extremely high voltages.

A number of motherboards have a basic hardware monitoring page that lists voltage information, but the Fatal1ty AN8 SLI offers a broader scope of information than most. It’s even possible to configure an auto-shutdown or beep warning if any of these values leave the specified safe ranges. Such options, while rarely needed, can potentially prevent a dying power supply or MOSFET from damaging the motherboard or the rest of the system.

In addition to monitoring voltages, the BIOS also tracks CPU, system, and MOSFET temperatures (labeled PWM in the photo above). MOSFETs typically sit near the CPU socket and can contribute substantially to overall heat production in that area of the motherboard. Abit’s inclusion of an independent temperature sensor allows users to monitor a potential hotspot whose temperature is often ignored.

The Fatal1ty’s six fans are monitored separately. Again, users can set warning or shutdown conditions for each monitored variable.

The last two photos are of the individual control screens for what Abit refers to as “Fan EQ”. These customizable BIOS tables provide a tremendous array of options that allow users to control fan voltages, reference temperatures, and the specific temperature at which fan RPM levels change. Raising or lowering the voltage being supplied to a fan spins it faster or slower than normal, though over-volting a fan motor could potentially cause problems or early burnout.

uGuru software and nTune support
The Fatal1ty’s BIOS-level controls are supplemented by Abit’s uGuru software package. This suite of utilities is specifically designed for users who don’t enjoy mucking around in the BIOS, or who prefer to fine-tune their settings without rebooting. The interface is basic, but virtually every setting detailed in our coverage of the BIOS is available. Memory timings, however, must still be adjusted from within the BIOS or via nTune.

Abit’s uGuru software overclocking and monitoring utility is designed to give end-users a quick overview of useful system information, with the actual tweaks and overclocking options sensibly kept under sub-menus where they can’t be accidentally activated. Clicking on the “SoftMenu” button brings up the following:

The SoftMenu dialog box offers the same voltage adjustment options as those listed in BIOS. There’s also a handy “Default” button, and an option to run the “OCGuru” software when Windows starts. Click on the “FanEQ” button, and a drop-down selection menu appears, like so:

Abit’s included software allows for each fan to be controlled individually, according to a range of temperature and speed guidelines.

Finally, if you want to see all system temperatures and voltages at a single glance, Abit includes Abit EQ monitoring software. Abit EQ can also be configured with the same warning and shutdown conditions for temperatures, fan speeds, and voltages that are available in the BIOS.

Normally, the monitoring and control tools created by motherboard vendors are only one or two steps up from useless, and present only minimal information. In contrast, Abit’s uGuru software package stands out for the flexibility and control it offers users without ever requiring a reboot. It’s much easier to tweak fan speeds and temperature settings when you can actually monitor and set such levels dynamically, while the system is actually under load.

The Fatal1ty AN8 SLI also supports NVIDIA’s nTune software. This program can be used to change some of the settings that Abit’s OCGuru doesn’t cover, including memory timings and video core and memory clocks. Between nTune and OCGuru, nearly all of the AN8 SLI’s BIOS-level overclocking options can be accessed, save for CPU multiplier adjustment.

The uGuru front panel and SLIpstream cooling system
The uGuru front panel and Abit’s SLIpstream cooling system are two of the components that make the Fatal1ty AN8 SLI unique. Below, you can see the faceplate and internals of the front panel. Abit’s uGuru panel displays a wide variety of information, including current CPU, DDR, and PCI-E clock speeds, fan speeds, and a variety of temperatures. It can even be set to notify the user when mail or MSN instant messages are received, and the screen’s backlighting can be adjusted or shut off completely, depending on your preference. Video card temperatures can also be displayed for select Abit graphics cards.

In addition to its LED display, the front panel sports a pair of USB ports, a second Firewire port, and, uniquely, a CMOS reset button. There’s no way to reset the BIOS by accident—not only is the button itself covered by a hard plastic orange cover with the radiation warning symbol, but the uGuru panel must be wired directly to the CMOS header on the mainboard in order to enable the reset function. Once this is wired up, pressing the front-panel button resets the CMOS exactly as physically removing and changing the jumper would. Those who like fiddling with BIOS settings but detest having to reach under the table or into the case every three minutes may find this feature to be a godsend.

The other major value-added feature Abit ships with the Fatal1ty AN8 SLI is the SLIpstream cooling system. As the name implies, SLIpstream is designed to be used in conjunction with a set of graphics cards in an SLI configuration. The photo below demonstrates how Abit’s SLIpstream cooler fits over both cards; it either pushes additional air between the two or pulls air out of that space and into the main case body (the fan can be configured to move air in either direction).

Two high-end GPUs running full-tilt in SLI mode could potentially form a destabilizing hotspot, particularly if the system is improperly ventilated. Abit’s SLIpstream is an innovative attempt to address this issue, and the fact that the fan can be reversed speaks to the firm’s focus on providing cooling flexibility. Unfortunately, it’s difficult to actually test whether or not SLIpstream makes a difference. Our own tests were inconclusive, and results will inevitably vary depending on case configuration, the presence or absence of other fans, and the type of CPU and video cards being used.

SLIpstream does have two notable problems. First, it’s only compatible with cards of a certain height. If your video card’s heatsink wraps around the top of the card (as the XFX 7800 GTX’s does, for example), you’ll be unable to install SLIpstream. Second, the position of the floppy drive port at the bottom of the motherboard guarantees that certain cases will force the floppy cable to pass directly over the SLIpstream’s fan. Abit still deserves credit for including the cooler as an option, but the design may need a bit of polish before it becomes truly effective.

Our testing methods
We compared the Fatal1ty AN8 SLI’s performance to another high-end contender, the Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe. All tests were run three times and results were averaged.

Both test systems were powered by an Enermax EG-565P-VE power-supply.

We used the following versions of our test applications:

• SiSoft Sandra Standard 2005 SR2a
• WorldBench 5.0
• TCD Labs HD Tach v3.01
• Futuremark 3DMark05 Build 120
• DOOM 3
• Far Cry v1.3
• Unreal Tournament 2004 v3323
• RightMark Audio Analyzer 5.5
• RightMark 3D Sound 1.24
• NTttcp
• Cinebench 2003
• Sphinx 3.3

The test systems’ Windows desktop was set at 1280×1024 in 32-bit color at an 85Hz screen refresh rate. Vertical refresh sync (vsync) was disabled for all tests. The standard 3D gaming tests were done in 640x480x32 with detail levels set to Medium. In order to accurately test the increased potential of SLI, however, we’ve also included a set of SLI gaming tests at higher resolutions and detail levels. All SLI gaming tests were run at 1600x1200x32, with detail levels maxed out and both antialiasing and anisotropic filtering enabled. SLI gaming tests were run with two identical GeForce 6800 GT reference cards.

All the tests and methods we employed are publicly available and reproducible. If you have questions about our methods, hit our forums to talk with us about them.

Memory performance

Our Asus board squeaks ahead by a nose here, but the differences are all within a tiny margin. AMD’s decision to move the memory controller onto the Athlon 64 die has largely eliminated memory performance gaps between motherboards.

WorldBench

The Abit board is ahead here, but by less than 1%.

Gaming

In our standard gaming tests, we see equal performance from these two products. The Abit’s edge in a few tests is so small, it can’t honestly be called a lead.

SLI gaming performance
All of our SLI gaming performance tests were run in 1600x1200x32, with a combination of AA and AF enabled as indicated.

High-end SLI gaming performance ends up equal. Neither board has any particular advantage over the other.

Cinebench rendering

Another suite of tests, and another effective tie.

Sphinx speech recognition

Sphinx is another test that’s heavily dependent on memory latency and memory controller performance. These two Athlon 64-based boards are essentially the same here.

Audio performance

Again, CPU usage under RightMark 3D is essentially identical, though the Abit Fatal1ty has a very slight advantage. Both boards use the same ALC850 codec and Realtek driver set, so equivalent results are not surprising.

Audio quality
I tested both audio systems using RightMark’s loop-back method. Analog output ports were used on all systems. To keep things simple, I’ve translated RightMark’s word-based quality scale to numbers. Higher scores reflect better audio quality, and the scale tops out at 6, which corresponds to an “Excellent” rating in RightMark.

Save for the intermodulation 10K test, where the Asus board edges out the Abit, we see identical results from the two mobos. Again, this isn’t surprising, considering that both boards use the same ALC850 codec. I’d hoped that Abit’s decision to mount the codec on a riser card would have a positive impact on quality, but RightMark’s audio tests don’t bear that out.

ATA performance
ATA performance was tested with a Western Digital WD800JB hard drive using HD Tach’s 8MB zone setting.

No surprises when it comes to ATA performance. Overall numbers for the Abit Fatal1ty are slightly higher, but given how small the gap is, the difference isn’t significant.

Serial ATA performance
Moving to Serial ATA, we tested performance with a Maxtor DiamondMax 10. This is the same model as our system drive, but we used a separate disk for testing.

Both motherboards are again right next to each other in terms of overall results.

USB performance
Our USB transfer speed tests were conducted with a generic USB 2.0/Firewire enclosure from CompUSA with the same Western Digital WD800JB drive we used in our ATA performance tests.

Once again, competitive results from both chipsets.

Firewire performance
Our Firewire transfer speed tests were conducted with the same external enclosure and hard drive as our USB transfer speed tests.

Firewire performance was one area where the Abit and Asus boards might’ve challenged each other, but again, both use the exact same TI chip for 1394a support.

Ethernet performance
We evaluated Ethernet performance using the NTttcp tool from Microsoft’s Windows DDK. The docs say this program “provides the customer with a multi-threaded, asynchronous performance benchmark for measuring achievable data transfer rate.”

We used the following command line options on the server machine:

ntttcps -m 4,0,192.168.1.25 -a

..and the same basic thing on each of our test systems acting as clients:

ntttcpr -m 4,0,192.168.1.25 -a

Our server was a dual Xeon system based on Iwill’s DH800 motherboard with two Xeon 3.2GHz chips (533MHz front-side bus, Hyper-Threading enabled) and CSA-attached Gigabit Ethernet. A crossover CAT5e cable was used to connect the server to each system.

The nForce4 boards were tested with the NVIDIA Firewall and Jumbo Frames disabled.

Both systems performed at the same rate, but the Abit board produced markedly lower CPU usage rates. We ran this test multiple times, rebooting both client and server in the process, in order to ensure a fair test, and we made certain we were measuring the NVIDIA GigE on the Asus board rather than the Marvell-provided solution. In all cases, the Abit board demonstrated slightly lower CPU usage.

Overclocking
Unfortunately, the results of our overclocking tests on the Abit Fatal1ty AN8 SLI were less than satisfactory. Our board was only stable with its HyperTransport link running at up to 215MHz, even with relaxed 2.5-5-5-8-2T memory timings and lower CPU and HT multipliers. The board would boot with a HT speed of 220MHz, but refused to complete a UT2004 run at that speed.

I swapped to a pair of Corsair XMS3200XL modules to see if it would make a difference, but ran into the same 215MHz ceiling. Our results were significantly poorer than we’d have expected, but numerous adjustments of CPU, DIMM, VTT, HT, and nForce4 chipset voltages failed to improve the situation. Since both of our DIMM sets are only rated up to 400MHz, it’s possible that the problem wasn’t the Fatal1ty AN8 SLI, but the DIMMs themselves. However, our Corsair XMS3200XL DIMMs have historically been strong overclockers, and have reached speeds of up to 250MHz in the older Abit IC7-MAX3.

To ensure that our memory modules weren’t holding back the board, we dropped the memory speed to 133MHz. Running with relaxed 2.5-4-4-8 memory timings and extra board and memory voltages, we were able to get the board stable with a 220MHz HT speed. That HT speed produced a 142MHz memory clock that is well within the capabilities of our DIMMs, but the board still wasn’t stable with HT clocks of 225MHz or higher.

Our Sphinx and UT2004 results with a 215MHz HT and memory clock, and 2.5-3-2-6-1T memory timings, are shown below. Both tests configurations used the Ultra XL memory modules listed in our Test Setup page. At stock speeds, system memory was configured at 2-2-2-5-1T.

There isn’t much of a performance gap between these configurations. Keep in mind that at 11 x 215MHz, our Athlon 64 X2 4800+ is running a little slower than its stock 2.4GHz clock speed.

Conclusion
Barring driver issues or BIOS problems, the performance of any nForce4 SLI board should be very similar to the results we’ve measured today. Choosing a board, therefore, comes down to which features and options you prefer rather than which offers better benchmark results. The Fatal1ty AN8 SLI’s layout isn’t perfect, and it lacks the extra connectivity options found on some other nForce4 SLI boards. Still, the software-configurable cooling and overclocking options, SLIpstream cooler, and included uGuru front panel are all evidence that Abit has targeted the Fatal1ty series at the type of enthusiast who prefers fine-tuning options over additional peripheral ports. Building video-card monitoring capabilities into the uGuru front panel (provided a compatible Abit card is used) is another welcome move, though obviously we’d prefer to see a uGuru design capable of monitoring any video card with an appropriate thermal sensor.

The board’s layout deficiencies and poor overclocking performance are its two greatest problems, although our overclocking troubles may be unique to our review unit or test setup. The Fatal1ty may be aimed at enthusiasts, but there is no warranty requirement that Abit must provide stable performance above stock speeds. Our overclocking tests attempt to provide some indication of the likelihood of higher-than-stock performance, and in this case, we may have gotten a below-average board.

It wasn’t a part of this review, but we should note that Abit also makes a Fatal1ty-less version of the AN8 SLI. The plain AN8 SLI is based on the same NVIDIA chipset, sports an identical layout, and offers passive chipset cooling. Given the Fatal1ty edition’s obvious emphasis on noise control, it’s more than a little surprising that Abit didn’t include the AN8 SLI’s unique heatpipe passive cooler on the high-end Fatal1ty board.

If you’re a tweaker who wants a product that allows for a serious amount of airflow experimentation and measurement, this board will be right up your alley. As it stands, the Fatal1ty AN8 SLI is a unique product well worth your consideration, even given the appearance of boards based on NVIDIA’s next-generation nForce4 SLI X16 chipset. To date, we’ve seen precious little evidence that the nForce4 SLI X16’s additional PCI-E lanes yield performance dividends. Marketing spin doctors will undoubtedly claim that the power of SLI can only be unlocked with “true” dual X16 support, and there may even be an application or two that demonstrates a benefit from the additional bandwidth. But the majority of applications and games will likely see no boost at all. Until such time as we see meaningful differences between the two, boards based on the slightly older nForce4 SLI chipset will remain in the running—including the Abit Fatal1ty AN8 SLI.