FIRST LOOK: Abit Fatal1ty AA8XE

Test Setup

We compared the performance of the Abit Fatal1ty AA8XE with the 1066 FSB 3.46EE to performance results with the Intel 925X motherboard. We tested the 925X with the fastest 800FSB processor available, which is the 560 at 3.6GHz. Since the fastest gaming performance we have tested is with the Athlon 64 processor, results were included for the fastest current A64 processors - the FX55 and the 4000+ on the nForce 4 PCI Express Reference board. To remove the video card as a performance factor, all benchmarks were run with the PCI Express nVidia 6800 Ultra.

The configuration was kept as close as possible between the 3 motherboards, but we are forced to compare apples to oranges in some cases. This means using DDR400 memory at 2-2-2-10 on the AMD systems and DDR2-533 at 3-3-3-10 on the Intel systems, but as we saw in the DDR vs. DDR2 review, the performance of fast DDR400 and DDR533 is very close.

Performance Test Configuration
Processor(s):	Intel 3.46EE (1066FSB) Socket 775 Intel 560 (3.6GHz) Socket 775 AMD FX55 (2.6Ghz) Socket 939 AMD 4000+ (2.4GHz) Socket 939
RAM:	2 x 512MB Crucial DDR2-533 2 x 512MB OCZ 3200 Platinum Rev. 2 DDR
Hard Drive(s):	Maxtor 250GB MaXLine III (16MB buffer)
Video Card(s):	nVidia GeForce 6800 Ultra PCIe
Video Drivers:	nVidia 61.77 Graphics Drivers
Operating System(s):	Windows XP Professional SP1
Power Supply:	OCZ Power Stream 520 (520W)
Motherboards:	Abit Fatal1ty AA8XE (Intel 925XE) Intel 925XCV (Intel 925X) Socket 775 Intel 915GUX (Intel 915G) Socket 775

At stock settings, Fatal1ty is overclocked to 271 FSB. For a fairer comparison, the FSB was set to 267. Since most will want to see gaming benchmarks with this gaming board, the Game Accelerator was left to the default "Enabled" mode. Unfortunately, the only 1066 processor currently available is the $1000 3.46EE that we used for benchmarking.