Abit AT8 Crossfire ?

[eva2000]

Any know anything about this board http://www.abit-usa.com/products/mb/techspec.php?categories=1&model=309 ?

[chew*]

its an ati chipset supposed to be loaded with OC and power user features although it will prolly have poor ram compatibility and 1T command rate issues as abit cant seem to get memory right on a64. It has the ULI southbridge which is now made by nvidia. Looks to be crowded as far as running crossfire goes. Other than that it will prolly be a good board at stock as the an8 series was loaded with OC features which amounted to a hill of beans because it didnt run 1/1 with memory good. O and last but not least it was supposed to be available in november.

[Mongoose420]

im guess'n it will be about as good as every amd board abits put out since the socket A days :down:

Regardless i wouldnt buy a rd480 board right now unless you dont have a crossfire board at all with x1800 master&slave collecting dust.

[Snot aap]

How about the voltage options on the board?
4 Volt vdim?

[Hazzan]

I hear vdim up to 3,5volt !

[DaWaN]

It looks a little bit like the grouper.. But that's maybe because of the place of the CPU power bit

[Snot aap]

It looks a little bit like the grouper.. But that's maybe because of the place of the CPU power bit
I thought the same in the beginning.
But when you look at the pictures of both at the same time you will see that they are totaly diverent exept for the heatsink on the power regulators.

[chew*]

4 volts to memory? Doesnt really matter even with 3.55v on the an8 series the best they could do stable was 2-2-2-5 245fsb 2T with 2x 512mb gg abit.

[Snot aap]

4 volts to memory? Doesnt really matter even with 3.55v on the an8 series the best they could do stable was 2-2-2-5 245fsb 2T with 2x 512mb gg abit.
But there is a change that this board will do better.
Let we hope so, abit needs it.

[[XC]Atomicpineapple]

Oh great, so when youve got 2 X1800XT's in Crossfire youre left with 1 PCI slot, poor design.

[Mongoose420]

what sound comes on the uli SB boards? Depending on that it prolly wouldnt make a good HTPC board with only the single pci slot(as aparently the sound on SB450 boards is pretty good). But as long as the onboard lan works what other than a sound card or a TV capture card do you use?

Now that i think about it we have had pci-e x1 on boards for a year or so now. Why is it about all you can get is a nic card in that interface?

[chew*]

what sound comes on the uli SB boards? Depending on that it prolly wouldnt make a good HTPC board with only the single pci slot(as aparently the sound on SB450 boards is pretty good). But as long as the onboard lan works what other than a sound card or a TV capture card do you use?

Now that i think about it we have had pci-e x1 on boards for a year or so now. Why is it about all you can get is a nic card in that interface?

actually you can get a sata raid card also and a ram drive :)

[althes]

I am waiting to see what happens

[chew*]

I am waiting to see what happens

I stopped waiting and bought the sapphire :stick:<<< abit

[drunkenmaster]

Mongoose, you can have high def audio(which is what makes crossfire boards good, and intel boards, where the heck is nvidia amd high def support.
anyway, in a htpc you're unlikely to be running crossfire so can use all the pci-e cards, though, how many do people use, i haven't used a pci card in like 2 years.


also abit says its got a HD audio codec so should sound a decent amount better than most/all ac97 stuff.

but problem is, its abit, downside right there, probo won't be cheap as abit's don't tend to be, and the asus board is pretty damned cheap. also the rd580 is out at end of month, though tbh it doesn't add much functionality, it will have fixed southbridge(i think available by then), but only adds 2x16 pci-e lanes for sli(makes little/if any diff), and i think the rest of the fixes we are waiting for are in the southbridge(usb speed fix, sata2).

thing is abit are struggling, selling off buildings it owns due to money troubles i don't see why they'd go and release a board that will be unsellable in 2 months max. and people wonder why abit are losing money ¬_¬

[Snot aap]

People will buy it if it clocks very well.
And there are rumors of an 2*16 lane AT8 board.
The board is taking so long because there where some production problems.
They shipped the first batch of boards but they called everything back because of high failure rate or something like that.

[Mongoose420]

Yea, thats why i was asking why its such a bad design with everything onboard these days. Granted im actualy use'n about a 4 year old nic card because the onboard lan on this 9nda3+ is very very slow. Of all the things to nit-pick on a rd480 board the lack of a pci slot should be pretty far down on the list.


the big thing with waiting for RD580 is that its ATI's 3rd try at a performance lvl chipset(3rd enthusiast lvl chipset if you count the 482 or whatever and 2nd crossfire offering iirc). It always takes a couple revisions of these new chipsets to work the kinks out. Anyone remember nforce 1? Or nforce2 non ultra? Nforce 3 150? Nforce 2 ultra and Nforce 3 250 is when they matured into good products. Rd580's due to break out for ATI i think.

It seems like they will. The technology is fast enough and, like you said, other than dual 16 lane pci-e and beefed up SB support they are not adding much so with any luck they can sort out other things pre-release. Like drivers and bios and such;)

I dont know if we will see SB600 on the first series of rd580 boards. Its the one thats supposed to have all the fixes(?) in it but aparently its going to ship with SB460(only mild tune up of sb450 pin compatable to sb600?). And most people prolly wont be pleased with SB460 if what anandtech posted is true about limited usb performance and no sata 2. People like to nit-pick such things even when it doesnt really effect most people.:nono:

[situman]

What's wrong with ATI chipset? See my sig.

[Snot aap]

What's wrong with ATI chipset? See my sig.
Slow usb performance, no sata2.

[situman]

Is that all? You're looking past the big picture. Unless you have a massive external HD and such you won't notice hte USB performance. In addition, what drive can really saturate the SATA bus? SATAII is really trivial and only for marketing purposes. What really matters is how stable the chipset is and how it overclocks and performs. Peripheral performance is secondary.

[Mongoose420]

Those are not my issues with rd480. its just to inconsistant right now be it the mobo mfg's, the chipset itself, bad bios, or what have you. The sapphire seems to be the best of the lot after you get it tweaked in. If rd580 wassnt come'n out i'd jump on the sapphire board but why 15 days and counting till rd580?

[Snot aap]

Is that all? You're looking past the big picture. Unless you have a massive external HD and such you won't notice hte USB performance. In addition, what drive can really saturate the SATA bus? SATAII is really trivial and only for marketing purposes. What really matters is how stable the chipset is and how it overclocks and performs. Peripheral performance is secondary.
That aint mine problem, I will be buying a sapphire "grouper" within 2 weeks from now.
But I can understand that it could be a reason to buy nvidia instead of ati. ;)

[Neuromancer]

I thought I saw that the At8 was being delayed due to problems wit hthe ULI chip?

As for SATA2, you can make use of it, but you need to raid 4 harddrives ;)

[mascaras]

4 volts to memory? Doesnt really matter even with 3.55v on the an8 series the best they could do stable was 2-2-2-5 245fsb 2T with 2x 512mb gg abit.


thats not true ,only some mobos have that issue , in my old abit an8 ultra the venice 3200@2500mhz 1:1 with my 2x512Mb BH5 runs 250MHZ@cl2-2-2-5 1T @3.2v ;)


abit an8ultra//Bh5 (DDR500) Pi32M> http://img52.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pi32m8on.jpg



for what i saw till now , this new AT8 it seems to be nice and ULI southbridge rocks ;)

[situman]

I was a guinea pig with the AN8, left a very bitter taste in my mouth. I will let others be the guinea pig on this one.

[chew*]

thats not true ,only some mobos have that issue , in my old abit an8 ultra the venice 3200@2500mhz 1:1 with my 2x512Mb BH5 runs 250MHZ@cl2-2-2-5 1T @3.2v ;)


abit an8ultra//Bh5 (DDR500) Pi32M> http://img52.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pi32m8on.jpg



for what i saw till now , this new AT8 it seems to be nice and ULI southbridge rocks ;)


Show me prime stable screenies super pi is easy to pass. And i hold the OC record for the abit an8 board at 268fsb 1/1 with bh-5 but whatever bh-5 isn't and hasn't been available for a while. People with UTT had problems breaking 245fsb and thats a fact. Another fact is 250 fsb is childs play when 270 was reachable on other boards at 3.2 volts. O and don't forget you mean nvidia southbridge rocks........You think nvidia isn't going to try and hinder performance of ati's NB somehow?

[trans am]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16813130038

Has anyone tried this board yet?

[computergeek22]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813127230

Hopefully, Abit did a better job than Asus with their Xfire board.

[situman]

SOMEONE try it out. I'm very afraid.

[chew*]

Hmmm well if thats actual pics they sure arent boasting quality caps this time around.............I will definitely pass......I'm a fan of ABIT but even I'm not that stupid.......

[Chr0n1c]

Abit hasn't been up to snuff lately, certainly depressing. :( The MSI CF has been getting good PR

[situman]

The MSI from the only review I've read could not go beyond 300htt, not even 301. All these cheaply made xfire boards are really depressing. 3phase power for a board that's suppose to support a high clocked cpu and TWO vidcards. I seriously don't get it.

[Chr0n1c]

lol yea but then again I don't understand the use 3 phase power no matter what. ;)

[althes]

The MSI board is actually a very good board it just lacks good vdimm options only 2.85 which is good for tccd.
I will test the abit board next week. SHould get it by thursday.