ABIT AN8-ULTRA: Yay or Nay?

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
GTaudiophile

GTaudiophile

Lifer
Oct 24, 2000
29,767
33
81
I've been looking at passively-cooled motherboards and this Abit board seems to fit the bill nicely. But it seems to nowhere near as popular as the Epox 9NPA+ULTRA. Would I be better off going with the Epox and replacing the NB HSF with a passive system, or should I just go with the Abit?

I am going with the following hardware:
AMD X2 4400+
Likely OCZ CL2 DDR400 2GB
XFX 7800GT
SB X-Fi XtremeMusic
 
W

Wentelteefje

Golden Member
Dec 6, 2005
1,380
0
0
The EPoX is a better choice overall... BTW it's not a given fact that it will make a hell of a noise... There are people out there who never heard their chipset fans (including me)... But if you do have one, then replacing it with a Zalman NB47J would make for a better choice than the AN8... This one isn't bad, but the EPoX is better IMHO...

EDIT: Nice system, but think of taking an Opteron 165 instead, and overclock it... With the money you save, you can buy a X1800XT or 7800GTX..
 
n7

n7

Elite Member
Jan 4, 2004
21,281
4
81
I'd take the Abit if i had to choose between those two.

The 24-pin power molex is in a retarded location on the Epox.
The FDD connector is in retarded location on teh Abit.

OCing ability is actually better on the Abit though...
 
GTaudiophile

GTaudiophile

Lifer
Oct 24, 2000
29,767
33
81
Originally posted by: harobikes333
i've too been looking at this mobo and it seems like a nice board. Though abit seems to be in financial trouble
Click to expand...

Their financial troubles worry me too.
 
W

Wentelteefje

Golden Member
Dec 6, 2005
1,380
0
0
Abit lost a bit of its popularity since the "bankrupt" news... Their latest products didn't quite live up to Abit's name of high quality brand too, but nonetheless they're not bad at all... I recall the AN8 initially having a "bad" overclocking BIOS, but I don't know what happened with it afterwards... Prolly Abit solved the issues...
 
L

laksamana

Junior Member
Jan 25, 2006
2
0
0
Well, the A8N SLI-P is also an excellent choice. Would have gone for it if it were 1) easily available where I'm at and 2) cheaper at the time I decided to go S939. At least you have the SLI upgrade path ...
 
B

Budarow

Golden Member
Dec 16, 2001
1,917
0
0
J

jiffylube1024

Diamond Member
Feb 17, 2002
7,430
0
71
Originally posted by: Wentelteefje
Abit lost a bit of its popularity since the "bankrupt" news... Their latest products didn't quite live up to Abit's name of high quality brand too, but nonetheless they're not bad at all... I recall the AN8 initially having a "bad" overclocking BIOS, but I don't know what happened with it afterwards... Prolly Abit solved the issues...
Click to expand...

They did. I had an AN8 Ultra and the shipping BIOS was crap - it wouldn't even recognize one of my LCD's on DVI! I figured the board was a piece of crap but finally got the latest BIOS. Not only did it fix the DVI issue, but it actually overclocked about as well as my DFI Lanparty did!

In my opinion, the AN8 Ultra was/is an underrated board. In terms of overclocking: it's excellent. The passive cooling is very nice (zero noise). It does run quite warm, so have good cooling.

In typical recent Abit fashion, however, they are cheaping out on the features and frankly, I found this part disappointing.

The DFI Lanparty UT Ultra D has 2X 10/100/1000 ethernet, 6X USB, firewire, 7.1 audio connectors on the back (audio by a riser card you plug in). It also has 2 more USB headers and 2 more firewire headers. The DFI overclocking BIOS is second to none.

The AN8 Ultra has only 4 USB, 1 firewire and 1 10/100/1000 ethernet on the back, and 7.1 audio using an exclusive interface in the 1st 'PCI' slot position. You do get 3X USB headers on the board but only one more firewire header. Also, the floppy connector is in the STUPIDEST PLACE EVER: the very bottom of the board, below the last PCI slot!
The 4-pin 12V plug is also up above the CPU, which is not the ideal location.


With that said, it's tough love for me on the AN8. I think it is a very solid board (absolute stability, reminded me of their glory days of the NF7-S and IS7/IC7 days in that respect). Just a bit lackluster compared to DFI, etc. If you don't need all of the connectors, the Abit board is a very solid board. Good overclocking ability, very solid components used, passive cooling, lots of fan headers, perfect location of IDE ports (but NOT the floppy connector).
 
O

OrangeKangaroo

Junior Member
Jan 31, 2006
16
0
0
I'd suggest avoiding this motherboard. I've had terrible issues with this thing and I've been wrestling with it since October. It's working mostly fine now, but I would have gone with ASUS on this one. I tried an ASRock 939DualSATA2 with worse results. My board seems to be fine now after disabling the USB pwr jumpers across the board.
---------------------------------------------
ABIT AN8-Ultra
AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ Manchester
Antec TruePower 2.0 TP2-550 EPS12V 550W Power Supply
OCZ Value Series 1GB (2 x 512MB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM
Rosewill 1GB (2 x 512MB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM
MSI RX800-TD256E Video Card
Creative Audigy 2 sound card
DVico Fusion 3 Gold HDTV tuner
TDK Indi DVD 4x
Foxconn CR-06 7-in-1 USB 2.0 removable Card Reader/Writer
2x Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 ST3250823AS 250GB 7200 RPM Serial ATA150 Hard Drive
Maxtor 6Y080P0 80GB PATA hard drive
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom