Abit seems to be the red-headed stepchild of the motherboard world around here. Aside from my VP6 with bad capacitors, I've had nothing but solid boards from them. When it came time to ditch the P4 for A64, I knew what board I wanted. They only make one with the nForce4 Ultra chip so that kind of limited my options.
I didn't need useless features like dual LAN, I've got another computer that does that for me already. Tons of SATA and IDE connectors? Nah, won't need them. I wanted a solid board and from the looks of the components used in this one, it was the board for me. It arrived today and all has been well.
I did hit one snag in the install. I'm using a Zalman 7000Cu cooler which means I couldn't use the stock Abit bracket. Zalman's supplied bracket won't fit. There's a resistor somewhere underneath the board that was interfering. So, I took the nuts from the Zalman bracket, put them in place of the ones in Abit's bracket, trimmed down the posts that go through the board and all was well after that.
I plugged everything in, all was normal and as of now, I have Gentoo 2005.0 installing, pure AMD64.
I know everyone was worried about those two 40mm fans on the IO panel. I've not even had them turn on yet since the system runs cool. You can control these in the BIOS.
Stuff I like:
The board looks good. All of the pictures I've seen on the Internet don't do it justice.
Quality Aluminum electrolytic capacitors
Ram isn't too cramped. This is why I didn't like the Gigabyte boards.
The onboard audio ports have been moved off of the IO panel. It always bugged me that I'd never use that expansion port on my case.
ALC658 CODEC. I don't care about eight channel audio. How many of you actually use all those channels? This is a better quality CODEC than the ALC650.
I like that this board is not a train wreck of features. It seems like some manufacturers throw a bunch of stuff on there that will never be used.
Stuff I don't like:
It includes a bracket for 2 extra rear IEEE1394 ports but there's only one header on the board. I guess they assume you will daisy chain devices together and given there's already one port on the IO panel, that should be all you need.
The bottom right standoff hole is partially obstructed by the IDE connectors. There's no metal around this hole so it probably wasn't designed to be a ground, but I'd like to secure this corner.
I'd like more fan connectors, but that's just me. I guess if I really wanted to, I could disconnect one of the OTES fans.
The box it comes in is kind of over the top. It looks like a box of Legos. I wonder if that's why this thing is twice the price.
Yes I know this board costs twice as much as what other bords give you, however, I feel this board is quality and should last for quite a few years. Yes I will use it that long. I don't care about the clown's name that's on it or the LEDs on the board. People buy DFI boards too and those look just as silly to me if not moreso. If you guys want pictures, let me know.
I didn't need useless features like dual LAN, I've got another computer that does that for me already. Tons of SATA and IDE connectors? Nah, won't need them. I wanted a solid board and from the looks of the components used in this one, it was the board for me. It arrived today and all has been well.
I did hit one snag in the install. I'm using a Zalman 7000Cu cooler which means I couldn't use the stock Abit bracket. Zalman's supplied bracket won't fit. There's a resistor somewhere underneath the board that was interfering. So, I took the nuts from the Zalman bracket, put them in place of the ones in Abit's bracket, trimmed down the posts that go through the board and all was well after that.
I plugged everything in, all was normal and as of now, I have Gentoo 2005.0 installing, pure AMD64.
I know everyone was worried about those two 40mm fans on the IO panel. I've not even had them turn on yet since the system runs cool. You can control these in the BIOS.
Stuff I like:
The board looks good. All of the pictures I've seen on the Internet don't do it justice.
Quality Aluminum electrolytic capacitors
Ram isn't too cramped. This is why I didn't like the Gigabyte boards.
The onboard audio ports have been moved off of the IO panel. It always bugged me that I'd never use that expansion port on my case.
ALC658 CODEC. I don't care about eight channel audio. How many of you actually use all those channels? This is a better quality CODEC than the ALC650.
I like that this board is not a train wreck of features. It seems like some manufacturers throw a bunch of stuff on there that will never be used.
Stuff I don't like:
It includes a bracket for 2 extra rear IEEE1394 ports but there's only one header on the board. I guess they assume you will daisy chain devices together and given there's already one port on the IO panel, that should be all you need.
The bottom right standoff hole is partially obstructed by the IDE connectors. There's no metal around this hole so it probably wasn't designed to be a ground, but I'd like to secure this corner.
I'd like more fan connectors, but that's just me. I guess if I really wanted to, I could disconnect one of the OTES fans.
The box it comes in is kind of over the top. It looks like a box of Legos. I wonder if that's why this thing is twice the price.
Yes I know this board costs twice as much as what other bords give you, however, I feel this board is quality and should last for quite a few years. Yes I will use it that long. I don't care about the clown's name that's on it or the LEDs on the board. People buy DFI boards too and those look just as silly to me if not moreso. If you guys want pictures, let me know.
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