I've been in touch with Abit.

The official BIOS Abit AX78 ships with is BIOS11 and they tested and were able to replicate my issues.

BIOS11 does not support 9850, neither me or Abit were able to boot it.
BIOS11 does support and boot Phenom X4 9750 and X3 8400 though.

The advice was to contact the retailer or the local distributor so they can help update to the latest BIOS as it supports 9850/9650.

I have a non-booting Phenom again anyway.