Intel 925X Roundup: Creative Engineering 101
by Wesley Fink on August 12, 2004 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Abit AA8: Features and Layout
| Abit AA8 Motherboard Specifications | |
| CPU Interface | Socket 775 Pentium 4 (Prescott) |
| Chipset | Intel 925X/ICH6R |
| Bus Speeds | 200MHz to 336MHz (in 1MHz increments) |
| DDR2 Speeds | Auto, 400, 533 |
| PCI Speeds | 33.33, 36.36, 40.00 |
| Core Voltage | 1.4375V to 1.7875V in 0.0125V increments |
| DRAM Voltage | 1.80V to 2.25V in 0.05V increments |
| NB (Northbridge) Voltage | 1.50V-2.05V in 0.05V increments |
| Memory Slots | Four 240-pin DDR2 533 Slots Dual-Channel Unbuffered Memory to 4GB |
| Expansion Slots | 1 PCIe x16 Slot 3 PCIe x1 slot 2 PCI Slots |
| Onboard SATA/IDE RAID | 4 SATA 150 drives by ICH6R Can be combined in RAID 0, 1, Intel Matrix |
| Onboard IDE | One Standard ATA100/66 (2 drives) |
| Onboard USB 2.0/IEEE-1394 | 8 USB 2.0 ports 3 IEEE 1394 FireWire Ports by TI 4200R7T |
| Onboard LAN | Gigabit Ethernet by Realtek 8110S-32 |
| Onboard Audio | Realtek ALC880 (HD Audio) 8-Channel with SPDIF in/out |
| Tested BIOS | 1.3 |
The AA8 DuraMAX is Abit's flagship board for the Pentium 4 LGA 775. This is reflected in the feature set, but the AA8 was also designed to sell at a rational price point compared to other 925X boards. Abit does include 3 Firewire ports for those who need firewire connections, but the feature set is otherwise straight Intel 925X. There is nothing wrong with this approach as the 925X/ICH6R includes 8 USB 2.0 ports, PCI Express, 4-port SATA RAID with Intel Matrix options, and support for Intel High Definition (Azalia) audio.
Abit has included their typical wide selection of voltages and frequencies to get the most from the AA8 and the Pentium 4 Prescott. Abit was also one of the first motherboard makers to significantly break through the overclocking limitations of the 925X chipset. So, there are some additional automatic manipulations being made by µGuru at boot, where the PCIe frequency is adjusted dynamically in relation to the CPU frequency prior to boot. The overclocking controls are typically Abit, but perhaps the range is a little more limited than we see on other Abit boards. Abit decided not to include PCI Express speed adjustments in the BIOS - they are being manipulated in µGuru instead.
The voltage adjustments that are included in the BIOS have a wider range than you will see on most 925X boards, which will please overclockers who intend to use water or phase-change cooling on the AA8. The important Northbridge adjustments extend from the default 1.5V all the way to 2.05V, which is a wider range than you find on any other board. Abit has added a pretty hefty heatsink with a side-blowing fan to the northbridge to handle the voltage range that they have built into the AA8.
Abit uses a flat edge connector for the single IDE connection provided by the 925X chipset. In most mid-tower cases, we suggest that you connect the IDE cable before you mount the board, since the connector falls under the hard drives in many case designs and is difficult to reach after the board is screwed down. We like the idea of edge connectors, but some case designs make it very difficult to connect the edge-connectors. The floppy connector will not matter to some, but if you use a floppy, you will find the location a real problem, at the very bottom center of the motherboard. When you try to route the floppy cable to clear the 4 SATA connectors, it tends to hide the diagnostic LEDs and interfere with the front-panel connectors. The bulky 24-pin power connector is on the right board edge and 4-pin 12V connector are on the top board edge. Both these locations are excellent in that they will not force you to fish cables over or around the CPU. The Abit trademark 2-digit diagnostic LEDs are also found on the AA8, and we have found that they can be very useful for troubleshooting.
Abit uses the Realtek ALC880 codec with the Intel HD audio on the AA8. This is the same High-Definition audio codec that we see used in most motherboards in the roundup. Realtek says that their 7.1 Channel High Definition Audio features four 24-bit two-channel DACs and three stereo 20-bit ADCs. "The ALC880(D) also achieves 100dB sound quality; easily meeting PC2001 requirements and also bringing PC sound quality closer to consumer electronic devices." You can find more information on the features and specifications of the Realtek 880 at the Realtek website.
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JustAnAverageGuy - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
On the Gigabyte 8ANXP-D:Page 10
Memory Slots Four 240-pin DDR2 Slots
Gigabyte provides 6 DIMM slots, but the total memory and number of sides that can be used is the same as the other boards in the roundup.
JustAnAverageGuy - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
Typo page 5:"The memory stress test measures the ability of the Abit AA8 to"
should read Asus P5AD2. :)
only on page 5, may be more.
l3ored - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
allright, point taken. howabout testing lower lga775 cpus and combining the results with 939 scores?Wesley Fink - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
#5 - You're welcome.We also ran and reported the rest of our standard motherboard tests, which included Business and Multimedia Content Creation Winstones and Media encoding (which Intel won by a small margin).
As we stated in the review the only reason we did not include our standard SPECviewperf 7.1.1 benchmarks is because we have seen variations of up to 100% in SPECviewperf results with certain 925X boards. We don't believe these results are real, and we are trying to find answers for these variations in benchmark results. Until we find some answers, publishing the workstation benchmark results would not really reveal anything about the performance of the 925X boards we are testing.
The FX53, Intel 925X, and Intel 915 results are included for reference and completeness. We are comparing five 925X motherboards in performance, and we do not mean to detract from that comparison with AMD Socket 939 benchmarks. Please consider the 939 results to be a frame of reference.
AnnoyedGrunt - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
From what I can see, the P4 560 is about $750, so that puts it right between the 3800+ (about $650) and the FX-53 (about $850) in price. It would be nice to add the 3800+ scores (if you have any) to that review just so we could see how the price/performance of the 560, 3800+, and FX-53 compare.-D'oh!
Shimmishim - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
#2 - Achieving a 4 ghz overclock on a pentium is nothing to sneeze at... i think 3.8 may be possible on air but 4.2 is really pushing.As much as a lot of us would love to see overclocked processor results, i think it's best that they only show stock clock results as they are easier to compare...
#3 - Its hard to say how fair it is to use a FX-53 against the 3.6 ghz 775 chip... but if you think about it, they are comparing the top end pentium 775 skt (new pin count) vs. the top of the line A64 939 skt (new pin count)..
Both are also 1 megs of L2 even though the extra cache doesn't help the A64 greatly.
Maybe a 3800+ would have been better comparison but i think he was trying to make things as easy to compare as possible...
Even if he had used a 3800+ or even a 3700+ i don't think the gaming results would have been that much different... we all know that the A64's dominate in gaming.
maybe some more tests besides gaming would have been better...
but all in all...
thank you Wes for a good article!
Wesley Fink - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
#3 - The 3.6 is the fastest Intel processor. If you will check our launch reviews you will see the 3.6 outperformed the 3.4EE. We are indeed comparing the best performing Intel - the 3.6 - to the best performing AMD - FX53.Prior to the 3.6, the 3.4EE was the fastest Intel CPU.
l3ored - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
lately i've been noticing unfair comparisons between intel and amd, in this article, high end processors are being compared with the top of the line from amd. this isnt really helpful to anyone, so please go back to the old anandtech way.Anemone - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
Nice article !If I could have had one extra wish it would have been to show a set of test charts with a moderate oc on them, think that would put the FX @ 2.6-2.7 and the P4 560's @ 4.2-4.3.
If the boards can overclock, and the 939's can too, where does it all land for those using just normal or at most water oc'ing.
No worry, these wishes do not detract from a very nice article.
Thank you
stickybytes - Thursday, August 12, 2004 - link
Nice to see asus get a award but unfourtanetly the word "prescott" mentioned in any sentence will probably scare away 80% of AT'ers.