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.
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