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ABIT AN8 Fatal1ty SLI

PCI Express x16 socket 939 motherboard
Chipset NForce 4 SLI
PCI Express / PCI

If you're a serious or a hardcore gamer, no doubt you have heard of Jonathan 'Fatal1ty' Wendell. ABIT's Fatal1ty series of motherboards is just one example of how gamers and hardware complement each other. Even big names like Creative are joining the fray - their latest X-Fi sound cards also carries the 'Fatal1ty' moniker. The end results of this cooperation: no bar gaming hardware. Today, we're going to put the ABIT AN8 Fatal1ty SLI to the test.

Overview

ABIT AN8 Fatal1ty SLI

AMD Athlon 64 socket 939
NForce 4 SLI
PCI Express, PCI

Overall Score: 96 points



The full specification (taken from ABIT's website)

CPU
Supports AMD Socket 939 Athlon 64/64FX & Athlon 64 X2 dual-core Processors
With 2GHz system bus using Hyper Transport™ technology
Supports AMD CPU Cool 'n' Quiet Technology

Chipset
NVIDIA NF4 SLI single chip
NVIDIA Gigabit Ethernet with NVIDIA Firewall
Supports NV SATA 3G RAID

NVIDIA SLI Technology
Two PCI-Express X16 slots support NVIDIA Scalable Link Interface
Increase bandwidth of the PCI Express™ bus providing 60x the bandwidth of PCI

Memory
Four 184-pin DIMM sockets
Supports dual channel DDR400 non-ECC un-buffered memory
Supports maximum memory capacity up to 4GB

ABIT Engineered
ABIT µGuru™ 2003 Technology
ABIT OTES™ Technology
ABIT AudioMAX™ Technology
ABIT CPU ThermalGuard™ Technology

NV SATA RAID
Serial ATA 3Gbps data transfer rate
Supports SATA RAID 0/1/0+1

NV GbE LAN
NVIDIA Gigabit Ethernet
NVIDIA Secure Networking Engine

NV Firewall
Native NVIDIA Firewall

IEEE1394
Support IEEE 1394 at 400 Mb/s transfer rate

ABIT AudioMAX
High quality 7.1-channel Audio Card
Optical S/P DIF Input/Output
Supports auto jack sensing

Internal I/O Connectors
2 x PCI Express X16, 2 x PCI Express X1, 2 x PCI slots, 1 x AudioMAX
Floppy Port supports up to 2.88 MB
2 x Ultra DMA 133/100/66/33 IDE Connectors
4 x SATA 3G Connectors
3 x USB headers, 1 x IEEE 1394 header

Back Panel I/O
ABIT Dual OTES
1 x PS/2 Keyboard, 1 x PS/2 mouse
1 x IEEE 1394
4 x USB, 1 x RJ-45 LAN Connector

Form Factor
ATX form factor 305 x 245mm

Accessories
OTES SLIpstream
Guru Panel
ABIT AudioMAX Card
SLI Connector Bridge
SLI Switch
SATA cable x 4, ATA 100 IDE Cable x 1, FDD cable x 1
I/O shield x 1
CD Title x 1, SATA Utility Disk x 1
A5 standard User's Manual x 1, B5 multilingual Quick Installation Guide x 1
Jumper Setting Label x 1

There are several interesting and not-so-interesting about this board. First things first, the good news

µGURU Front Panel

Finally, one manufacturer has the sense to remove clutter and add something functional in the process. The µGURU Panel is equipped with an LCD panel to display important information regarding your PC's temperature, fan speeds and rail voltages. It's basically the same thing as ABIT's own µGURU clock, but now it comes as a 5,25 drive so you could put it in one of your 5.25 drive bays. The panel also boast a microphone and headphone jack, two USB ports and one Firewire ports. So, no more dodging to the back of the casing just to plugin your speakers and USB / Firewire peripherals. The CMOS clear button is interesting - now you can clear your CMOS with just a touch of a button. without opening the case! This pretty much complements the Instant Overclocking (which you can also call from the Panel). Kudos to ABIT for making this accessories a standard (at least on their Fatal1ty series boards).

OTES

As you can see, the A8N Fatal1ty SLI comes with ABIT's OTES, which provides active cooling for capacitors and helps air circulation by blowing out the air around the processor outside the case. This should keep heat from building up, since the area around the processor produces the most heat. Unlike the AN8 Ultra, A8N Fatal1ty SLI NForce 4 chipset is actively cooled and not connected to the OTES. So, this board comes with lots of fans. But even with these additional three fans (two OTES and one chipset fan), the sound level is still fairly low. The fans are audible, but you probably won't notice it, especially if the motherboard is inside a case. Of course, you can still adjust the fan speeds through the BIOS or ABIT's own utility..

If you're going for an SLI setup with the AN8 Fatal1ty SLI, you'll appreciate the OTES Slipstream bundled by ABIT. Placed on top and between the two SLI graphics cards, the OTES Slipstream fan does a good job of supplying cool air from outside the case to cool down both graphic cards. Even if you're not using SLI, it will still allow cool air to flow into the case. Of course, you have to get a case with a blow hole instead (or make one yourself) for the OTES Slipstream to do its work effectively.

Diagnostic Tools

ABIT have also equipped the AN8 Fatal1ty SLI with a Diagnostic LED and (lots) of power LED (for the 'Wow' factor, no doubt). The diagnostic LED will help in case you need to troubleshoot problems. The error codes displayed will let you know which part of your system is causing all the problems. If you didn't installed the µGURU Panel, you can still clear the CMOS using the old fashioned way - the Clear CMOS jumper. which is very visible with its yellow color coding and easy to reach.

S-ATA and IDE RAID

If you read our Socket 939 PCI Express motherboards comparison, you know that this feature is standard to all NVIDIA NForce 4 boards, regardless whether or not its using the NForce4 Ultra, NForce4 SLI or the 'vanilla' NForce4 . The AN8 Fatal1ty uses the NForce4 SLI so all the bells and whistles are here: S-ATA and IDE RAID, NVIDIA Firewall and Gigabit Ethernet (and of course, SLI). There are a total of 4 S-ATA connectors, so you can connect up to 4 S-ATA drives and of course 4 IDE drives, all can be configured as RAID arrays (RAID 0,1, 0+1). For example, you can built a S-ATA array for performance and mirror it with a IDE hard drive for security and safety.

Expansions and Add-Ons

The AN8 Fatal1ty SLI comes with the standard equipment and then some. There are 6 USB ports (4 on the back and 2 on the µGURU Panel). You'll also find two Firewire ports arranged in the same way (1 on the back and 1 on the panel). PS/2 connectors are present, but no COM / serial ports and LPT / printer port. You can find the standard audio jacks and connectors on the AudioMax 7.1, including an optical SPDIF output and a coaxial SPDIF input. Of course, you can also plug your microphone and headphone on the µGURU Panel. For expansion needs, the AN8 Fatal1ty comes with two physical x16 PCI Express slot, two x1 slots PCI-E and two PCI slots which should be enough for most people.

Tweaking and Overclocking Friendly

The AN8 Fatal1ty comes with all the tweaking and overclocking options ABIT is most famous for. Options for processor, PCI Express, chipset, memory voltage settings are available. In the µGURU section of the BIOS, you can set the multiplier for your processor, adjust the FSB or set the PCI Express clock. Of course, you can also set the voltage you want for each. Memory timing adjustments are located in the 'Advanced Chipset Features'. So, its essentially the same with the AN8 Ultra.



The AN8 Fatal1ty is a great board, literally the AN8 Ultra with some modifications and extra add-ons. The µGURU Panel is greatly appreciated (and long overdue). Even so, since it shares much of the layout with AN8 Ultra, we have several notes you might be interested to know. Here they are:

• The floppy connector is located on the bottom part of the board. This may lead to some cable clutter. We prefer placing it near the DIMM slots, where clutter can be avoided and installation / removal is easier. This also applies to Firewire / USB headers and S-ATA connectors, but the clutter shouldn't affect airflow since the cables are small. Another concern is the auxiliary 12 volt power connector, which is placed below the second PCI slot. ABIT should've placed it somewhere else, possibly near the PCI Express slots since it is only useful for PCI Express cards and not to mention less cable clutter.
  
• The same gripes with Q-OTES on the AN8 Ultra is present on AN8 Fatal1ty's OTES - OTES placement would've been more optimal if the fans, the duct and the heatsink on the capacitors are parallel
• The slot's arrangement is a little bit awkward. Essentially, if you're using two graphics cards, there are only two slots free - the second PCI slot and the first x1 PCI Express slot. You probably don't want to put a card on the second x1 PCI Express and first PCI Express slot since they will be too close to the graphics cards.
• ABIT placed one of the USB voltage jumpers too close to the headers. You really have to 'pinch' it, either with your hand or a tool to remove or install it. This could've been avoided by placing the jumpers slightly further.
  

Performance

The AN8 Fatal1ty SLI ran without any problems during testing and installation. ABIT have the right mind to bundle a S-ATA driver disk with all their boards, and the AN8 Fatal1ty SLI is no exception. Unlike the other two ABIT boards we tested (the AN8 and AX8 3rd Eye), the AN8 Fatal1ty is only using Command Rate 2T so ABIT is more conservative with this board. The default FSB is also 'normal' - 200,9 MHz. We're using the new Catalyst 5.8, so keep that in mind while viewing the results. We've included the scores from our socket 939 PCI Express motherboards round up for comparison.



Before looking at the test results, we encourage you to read our 'How We Evaluate' article so you understand how we conduct our test and benchmarks. More importantly, you will also see how each benchmarks react with our test setup. We only put the average, minimum and maximum fps in this evaluation to keep it brief.

Our test setup
AMD Athlon 64 3000+ socket 939
2 x 256 MB Kingston KVR 3-3-3 PC3200 DDR-SDRAM
ASUS EAX700 Pro 256 MB
Maxtor DiamondMaxPlus9 80 GBs Serial ATA 8 MB buffer
ASUS E-616 DVD-ROM
450 watts ATX power supply

Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2 installed
ATI Catalyst 5.8 reference driver
NVIDIA NForce system driver version 6.66
DirectX 9.0c
all respected games used for benchmarks have been updated to their latest, final builds.

The results:

Quite surprisingly, even with Command Rate 2T, the AN8 Fatal1ty SLI is faster than AN8 Ultra and very close to AX8. The other boards with Command Rate 2T are Gigabyte's K8NF-9 and MSI K8N SLI Platinum and the AN8 Fatal1ty SLI is noticeably faster than the K8N SLI Platinum (around 16 fps). But let's hold passing judgment for now and see how does the AN8 Fatal1ty fares in other tests.


Here we could see that AN8 Fatal1ty falls in line with the other boards. It's only slightly faster than the K8N SLI Platinum, most probably due to its lower minimum frame rates. But you won't notice that difference in gameplay. All the boards here offer the same level of performance, except for the ASUS A8N SLI which 'overclocks' our memory.


While this test is somewhat similar to Dungeon Siege (from its range of fps), the AN8 Fatal1ty is slower than the two ABIT boards, offering pretty much the same performance with K8N SLI Platinum, but again with lower minimum and maximum fps. Once again, that difference is not noticeable in gameplay so again, all boards essentially offer the same level of performance.


The AN8 Fatality SLI is only faster than the AX8 3rd Eye and Gigabyte's K8NF-9 in this game. The difference is not much, around 1 to 2 fps. The K8N SLI Platinum have a slight performance difference most probably due to its Creative Live! onboard sound. While there's still two test left, it's safe to say that the AN8 Fatality SLI offers the same level of performance, but remember we're still using Command Rate 2T - performance will go up slightly if we're using Command Rate 1T..


No surprises here. the AN8 Fatal1ty SLI is not the slowest but it's also not the fastest board.


In this game, the AN8 Fatal1ty is the second fastest board, but of course the difference with the other boards is really not noticeable. Since this game doesn't give 100 % repeatable results, so the AN8 Fatal1ty practically offers the same level of performance.

Conclusion:

When we concluded our round up last month, we noted that the ABIT could've put more features on the AN8 Ultra. Well, the AN8 Fatal1ty is the answer - the AN8 Ultra with µGURU Panel and more. This bundled accessory is long overdue and other manufacturers could learn a thing or two from ABIT. Not only is it functional, it's also convenient. Performance wise, the AN8 Fatal1ty has the potential to be faster (with tighter timings) if you have the memory, but it's nice that ABIT is still allowing users to make the decision rather than doing it for them. No wonder this board is one of the most favored choice for overclocking.

It's a shame that the AN8 Fatal1ty was not present in our round up last month. With the features and the bundle it has, the AN8 Fatal1ty SLI would've taken the second spot away from MSI K8N SLI Platinum. We recommend the AN8 Fatal1ty SLI to users who want total control over their PC - gamers who occasionally need that extra 'omph' in performance. ABIT' have made overclocking easy, but most importantly, they've succeeded in making troubleshooting easy. The features on AN8 Fatal1ty are greatly appreciated, particularly by ordinary users without the technical know how. The OTES system (including Slipstream) is quite effective for most (unless you're into real extreme overclocking) so users only need to make sure they have properly cooled the processor and graphics card - they can monitor the temperature, fan speeds and voltage just by looking at the µGURU Panel. Should their overclocking attempt fail, just reset the BIOS - which now can be done without opening the case. It's that easy and right now it's only available on the AN8 Fatal1ty SLI.

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