im thinking of picking this up for my first build. would this be a good board to pickup? how easy is it to overclock for someone new to overclocking?
It is a great board, I am very happy with it and I have had way too many motherboards. I would say it would be a great board for a new overclocker simply because the uGuru software will let you overclock from within windows and it actually works, unlike most programs I have used, that way you can get some experience in that way before you mess around with your bios too much. The one thing I will caution you about is that it does allow you to set the voltages extremely high, so please read a lot and get some experience with everything so you don't fry anything.
Also remember every single component in your system needs to be very high quality to really acheive high clocks, and the reality is your not going to see some gigantic performance boost from overclocking, because your going to have decent stuff in your board anyway. I overclock all the time, but honestly it is more for the sake of doing it than anything else, when I am actually playing a game or something there is no discernible difference between my system overclocked or at the default settings, and there is always the chance of messing something up and ruining an expensive part.
That being said, I would be more than satisfied with this board whether I oc'ed it or not. I also would like to see Abit come back in the market so I am happy to support them when they put out a good product.
Your cpu is going to be your main determining factor in how high of an overclock you get, but this board certainly will take any cpu and let it reach it's limits.
Hope that helps
Also remember every single component in your system needs to be very high quality to really acheive high clocks, and the reality is your not going to see some gigantic performance boost from overclocking, because your going to have decent stuff in your board anyway. I overclock all the time, but honestly it is more for the sake of doing it than anything else, when I am actually playing a game or something there is no discernible difference between my system overclocked or at the default settings, and there is always the chance of messing something up and ruining an expensive part.
That being said, I would be more than satisfied with this board whether I oc'ed it or not. I also would like to see Abit come back in the market so I am happy to support them when they put out a good product.
Your cpu is going to be your main determining factor in how high of an overclock you get, but this board certainly will take any cpu and let it reach it's limits.
Hope that helps
Hey GhostInTheShell, I have another thread where I'm looking for someone with this board to measure the heatsink with the Silent OTES label plate on it. I have to replace it with an active solution because the board will be mounted upside down. Could you hook me up?
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...atid=29&threadid=1821785&enterthread=y
Link to the thread.
Shawn
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...atid=29&threadid=1821785&enterthread=y
Link to the thread.
Shawn
WorldTraveller
Senior member
- Apr 3, 2003
- 576
- 1
- 81
I will be a first time owner of an Abit board always have trusted Asus in the past.
Are than any specifics that I should know about this board.
How good is the onboard sound and lan features?
Case: Cooler Master RC-810-SSN1 Stacker
Power Supply: PS 520W - OCZ PowerStream ATX 2.01/EPS SL
Motherboard: Abit AN8 32x w/ Zalman Heatsink
Processor: AMD Opteron 170 w/Thermal Grease
Memory: DDR (400) 3200 - 2 GB (2 pcs 1GB) OCZ Dual Channel Platinum
Video Card: eVGA GeForce 7900 GT CO
Hard Drive: SATA - Western Digital Caviar SE16 400 GB
CD-RW/DVD-RW: Plextor PX-740A/SW-BL Dual Layer
Floppy: 170108 - Mitsumi Floppy 7-in-1
Can't wait to see how fast this thing will go.
Don't plan to OC at first but once I get second video card and the system get's a little long toothed I probably will push it harder than defaults.
Are than any specifics that I should know about this board.
How good is the onboard sound and lan features?
Case: Cooler Master RC-810-SSN1 Stacker
Power Supply: PS 520W - OCZ PowerStream ATX 2.01/EPS SL
Motherboard: Abit AN8 32x w/ Zalman Heatsink
Processor: AMD Opteron 170 w/Thermal Grease
Memory: DDR (400) 3200 - 2 GB (2 pcs 1GB) OCZ Dual Channel Platinum
Video Card: eVGA GeForce 7900 GT CO
Hard Drive: SATA - Western Digital Caviar SE16 400 GB
CD-RW/DVD-RW: Plextor PX-740A/SW-BL Dual Layer
Floppy: 170108 - Mitsumi Floppy 7-in-1
Can't wait to see how fast this thing will go.
Don't plan to OC at first but once I get second video card and the system get's a little long toothed I probably will push it harder than defaults.
Best place to go is the Abit-USA forum
That board has certainly been getting rave reviews from users - if I thought that I would ever run SLI I would probably pick 1 up but my AN8 Ultra does just fine.
That board has certainly been getting rave reviews from users - if I thought that I would ever run SLI I would probably pick 1 up but my AN8 Ultra does just fine.
thanks for all your input. i ended up picking up this board from newegg along with g.skill hz memory.
I have to say, I really love this motherboard! I have my 3000+ winchester running at 2.5GHz, 279 HTT. I am running into a weird problem, though - at 280 HTT and above, when I reset the computer, it does not reboot properly. Not sure if that's the limit on the board or not. I am currently running the LDT at 4x, does running it at 3x make any difference on this board?
Also, does anybody know how to raise chipset or hypertransport voltages? In both uGuru and BIOS, the only options are for the CPU and VDIMM, and some VDIMM Reference, which is currently at -20mv (????).
Also, does anybody know how to raise chipset or hypertransport voltages? In both uGuru and BIOS, the only options are for the CPU and VDIMM, and some VDIMM Reference, which is currently at -20mv (????).
Max HTT on my board is 275. I can run this even at 5x, but changing it to a lower ldt multiplier doesn't help. I have also played with raising and lowering the nb and southbridge multipliers, but i can run evewrything stable at 5x.
I have a new system being built based on this board and was hoping for a little better performance than the most recent review suggests.
http://www.tbreak.com/reviews/article.php?id=439
"Unfortunately, we weren?t able to go very high with the AN8 32X as far as the FSB is concerned. The max we could reach was 280MHz after which the board just didn?t wanna post. While this is higher than a standard motherboard, its way too low compared to 400MHz+ that we?ve reached on other boards."
Hopefully the review is just not accurate.
Any of you getting better results?
http://www.tbreak.com/reviews/article.php?id=439
"Unfortunately, we weren?t able to go very high with the AN8 32X as far as the FSB is concerned. The max we could reach was 280MHz after which the board just didn?t wanna post. While this is higher than a standard motherboard, its way too low compared to 400MHz+ that we?ve reached on other boards."
Hopefully the review is just not accurate.
Any of you getting better results?
abit was nice enough to send me one of these motherboards for testing. and i am happy to say that i am really pleased with it.
Good stuff
no trouble install.
overclocks like crazy. i am at 312HTT (1:1), will be doing higher once i get some more time to spend with it.
silent.
decent layout
overclocking software
Bad stuff
reboot issues (could be cause of trial and error with o'clocking)
Good stuff
no trouble install.
overclocks like crazy. i am at 312HTT (1:1), will be doing higher once i get some more time to spend with it.
silent.
decent layout
overclocking software
Bad stuff
reboot issues (could be cause of trial and error with o'clocking)
jpetermann
Diamond Member
- Feb 27, 2001
- 6,751
- 0
- 76
Guys, I have this mboard and we will be posting my review at LegitReviews within the next several days. There are two issues that I have run into:
1. Some have already mentioned this, but mem slots 1 and 2 are not stable. I had to use 3 and 4 for stability, as I was getting random reboots as well. 2. There will be a bios released shortly that fixes the 279-280 bug with at least Opterons (and possible other CPU's). I found this bug last week, and ABIT sent me another bios Thursday that fixed that problem. I am running my Opty at 325+ now on this board with zero issues.
I honestly think this board would go higher with the proper voltage options for the chipset, but they have not included that option in the new bios. Hopefully in a later release they will. If you have this board, keep posting your experiences. There are not as many tweaks as the DFI expert, but this board is a great option for those not wanting/needing all the tweaks.
1. Some have already mentioned this, but mem slots 1 and 2 are not stable. I had to use 3 and 4 for stability, as I was getting random reboots as well. 2. There will be a bios released shortly that fixes the 279-280 bug with at least Opterons (and possible other CPU's). I found this bug last week, and ABIT sent me another bios Thursday that fixed that problem. I am running my Opty at 325+ now on this board with zero issues.
I honestly think this board would go higher with the proper voltage options for the chipset, but they have not included that option in the new bios. Hopefully in a later release they will. If you have this board, keep posting your experiences. There are not as many tweaks as the DFI expert, but this board is a great option for those not wanting/needing all the tweaks.
presumably the same 1 as Tony at OCZ has?
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showpost.php?p=1364402&postcount=8
I got cold feet because of the FSB issue and switched my order to the Asus before it was too late. Sounds like they found a fix good for you all.
Does the new bios fix the problems with memory instability as well or does it just allow for a higher overclock? Also will this new bios be posted on abits website shortly?
jpetermann
Diamond Member
- Feb 27, 2001
- 6,751
- 0
- 76
I am confident that ABIT will post this bios shortly. As far as memory instability. I found slots 1 and 2 unstable, but 3 and 4 fixed the problems I was having. You might try that. I have yet to go back and test slots 1 and 2 again with this bios, but I intend to.
booyah!!!! new bios is out, and its awesome! FSB is now stable way past 280MHz. look in abit-usa's forums under nvidia socket 939 motherboards, i believe the topic is stickied.
Does anyone know if when using 2 7900 gtx's if a xfi sound card will fit on this MB? I posted this same message on Abit's Forum but no replys :-( I also want to use my zalman 7000B cpu cooler as well and I'm not sure if it will hit any of those silent heatsinks on the north or south bridges...That's what I'm worried about anyway before buying it
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