µATX Part 1: ATI Radeon Xpress 1250 Performance Review

abit Fatality F-I90HD: Feature Set

abit Fatality F-I90HD Specifications
Market Segment	Entry Level HTPC - $114.99
CPU Interface	Socket T (Socket 775)
CPU Support	LGA775-based Pentium 4, Pentium D, Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Extreme, Core 2 Quad, Support for 1333 CPUs limited to 266FSB
Chipset	ATI Radeon Express 1250 (RS600) Northbridge and SB600 Southbridge
Bus Speeds	Auto, 133 ~ 500 in 1MHz increments
Memory SpeedDDR2	SPD, 533/667/800 async operation
PCIe Speeds	Not adjustable, locked
Core Voltage	Auto, 1.3250V (or base CPU) to 1.7000V in 0.0025V increments
CPU Clock Multiplier	Auto, 6x-12x in 1X increments if CPU is unlocked, downwards unlocked, Core 2 Duo
DRAM VoltageDDR2	Auto, 1.75V ~ 2.50V in .05V or .10V increments
DRAM Timing Control	SPD, Manual - 5 DRAM Timing Options (tCL, tRCD, tRP, tRAS, tRFC)
NB Voltage	1.80V, 1.836V, 1.872V, 1.944V, 2.016V, 2.088V
On-board Video	1080p support with 7.8+ drivers (recommend E6420 or above), 480i, 480p, 576i, 576p, 720p, and 1080i support, HDCP 1.1 support on data stream with on-chip key storage, integrated DVI or HDMI 1.2 interface single-link support only for HDMI, 30-bit dual-link support for DVI, 1650 Mbps/channel with 165 MHz pixel clock rate per link, DX9.0 VS/PS 2.0, max 2048x1536 resolution, MPEG-2 hardware decode, MPEG-4 simple profile support, WMV9 Hardware Acceleration, MPEG-2 hardware decode acceleration.
GFX Memory Buffer	32MB, 64MB, 128MB, 256MB
GFX link Width	1x, 2x, 4x, 8x, 16x
Memory Slots	Four 240-pin DDR2 DIMM Slots Dual-Channel Configuration Regular Unbuffered Memory to 16GB Total
Expansion Slots	1 - PCIe X16 2 - PCIe x1 1 - PCI Slot 2.2
Onboard SATA/RAID	4 SATA 3Gbps Ports - SB600 (RAID 0, 1, 0+1)
Onboard IDE	1 ATA133/100/66 Port (2 drives) - SB600
Onboard USB 2.0/IEEE-1394	10 USB 2.0 Ports - 4 I/O Panel - 6 via Headers Firewire 400 not supported
Onboard LAN	Realtek RTL8111B - PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller
Onboard Audio	Realtek ALC888 - 8-channel HD audio codec, X1250 embedded HDMI
Power Connectors	ATX 24-pin, 4-pin ATX 12V
I/O Panel	1 x PS/2 Keyboard 1 x PS/2 Mouse 1 x HDMI, 1 x D-Sub (HDMI to DVI connector included) 1 x S/PDIF Optical - Out 1 x Audio Panel 1 x RJ45 4 x USB 2.0/1.1
Fan Headers	4 - CPU/SYS/AUX1/AUX2
Fan Control	CPU/SYS Fan Control via BIOS or Software CPU - Target Temp 40C~70C, Temp Tolerance 3C~15C, Fan Start - 60%~100%, Stop - 30%~60% SYS - Target Temp 30C~50C, Temp Tolerance 3C~15C, Fan Start - 70%~100%, Stop - 50%~70%
BIOS Revision	v1.4
Board Revision	v1.00F

The abit Fatal1ty F-I90HD motherboard has been a well received board in the labs as we think it has a very good blend of performance, options, and price for a micro-ATX board designed for HTPC usage. However, abit had some initial quality issues with the board that marred the launch and they have not kept up with BIOS updates. Unfortunately, this is not a good pattern and we have to wonder how committed abit is to this board. ASRock has already updated their BIOS to provide full compatibility with the newer Blu-ray drives as the SB600 firmware needed an update along with the ability to set PCI and PCI Express bus speeds.

The BIOS offers a fair amount of options for overclocking and tuning the board. The notable items that are missing include the inability to set PCI and PCI Express bus speeds along with the inability to overclock the memory. These are not major items of concern for us considering the audience the board is targeted at, but additional memory sub-timing options would have been appreciated as the performance of the board is below that of the ASRock due to memory performance. The only other item we feel is missing from this board is a Firewire 400 port, considering this board was designed with the media centric user in mind.


abit includes their EQ program for hardware monitoring and smart control over the CPU and System fan headers. This program proved to be very useful when setting our system to operate in near silent mode during video and audio playback sessions.