ABIT AV8 Motherboard Review

Post by **Apoptosis** » Tue Nov 09, 2004 8:53 am

Many of you just skipped over the first several pages and came right to this point: HOW DID IT OVERCLOCK? Well, I encourage you to read the rest of the review, but this board did not disappoint in the overclocking area. Let me stress something one more time before I show you the results though. The setting of 1T on the DRAM command rate showed to be of great importance. Sure, you can run things with a higher fsb, but the 1T command rate is going to get you your ultimate performance. Now, even though I just said that, we did set the command rate at 2T for our ultimate overclock so we could see how high we could go.

Bio-Hazard · Post by **Bio-Hazard** » Tue Nov 09, 2004 10:01 am

Well looky there you all, it looks like the Abit board did very well again...........

I knew it would. Mine should be here in a day or so, now I just need some killer ram to go with it.

Post by **Apoptosis** » Tue Nov 09, 2004 10:41 am

PQI Turbo 3200 -- Samsung TCCD IC's w/ BrainPower 815 PCB's
or
OCZ 3200 Platinum Rev 2 -- Samsung TCCD IC's w/ BrainPower 808 PCB's
or
Corsair 4400C2.5 -- Samsung TCCD IC's w/ BrainPower 815 PCB's

I'd stick with one of those 3 if you are looking for the best overclocking memory module combinations available on the market right now

Bio-Hazard · Post by **Bio-Hazard** » Tue Nov 09, 2004 10:46 am

I'm going for the PQI when I get the extra cash................

I need to build a few more decks to get the Ram.................

infinitevalence · Post by **infinitevalence** » Tue Nov 09, 2004 1:30 pm

Wow, nate if you did that review it was one of the best mobo reviews i have seen here. Nice job, though some more gamming beanches would have been nice.

Post by **Apoptosis** » Tue Nov 09, 2004 4:32 pm

Jason Petermann gets the credit for that review

infinitevalence · Post by **infinitevalence** » Tue Nov 09, 2004 5:22 pm

Let him know he did a good job.

LVCapo · Post by **LVCapo** » Tue Nov 09, 2004 5:51 pm

hey man....what about my input??!!!

LoKaDah · Post by **LoKaDah** » Tue Nov 09, 2004 6:19 pm

Just thought I'd point out that this board has an issue with not reading the temperature properly or consistently from the CPU, which can be an issue if you try to use the Abit EQ settings to run fans and whatnot. As of BIOS rev. 1.5 there has not been a BIOS revision posted that has successfully taken care of the problem. Caveat Emptor.

Consult the Abit forums for further information.

http://forum.abit-usa.com/forumdisplay. ... forumid=49

LVCapo · Post by **LVCapo** » Tue Nov 09, 2004 6:27 pm

what else is new.....ABIT boards have always been horrible when it comes to its temp sensor, like Bio pointed out though, most people are very happy with the boards and how they O/C though

infinitevalence · Post by **infinitevalence** » Tue Nov 09, 2004 7:18 pm

There is no motherboard that correctly interperets tempereture. Its just a formula.

LVCapo · Post by **LVCapo** » Tue Nov 09, 2004 7:26 pm

but there are other board makers, such as ASUS, whose sensors are actually much more accurate. ABIT's sensor is notoriously bad

Post by **Apoptosis** » Tue Nov 09, 2004 7:45 pm

LoKaDah - Let me be the first to welcome you to the forums!

ABIT does indeed have a unique way with their temperature settings. I also heard that the pre-15 BIOS boards wont post with a 90nm AMD Athlon 64 processor installed. Meaning the board has to have the BIOS updated with a 130nm CPU before a 90nm can be installed.

Monarch Computer has been holding shipments of the ABIT AV8 till they update all the BIOS's so no customers have issues down the road! Just some more FYI!

LVCapo · Post by **LVCapo** » Tue Nov 09, 2004 8:24 pm

Abit wasn't the only board manufacturer with the 90nm issue, MSI and ASUS both had to release new BIOS' to recognize the new processor.....There were some less than thrilled people out there over that one

infinitevalence · Post by **infinitevalence** » Tue Nov 09, 2004 9:09 pm

wow, i must have missed that one, yeah i would be pissed if i bought a new mobo and it did not recognize my cpu with out a bios update.

Bio-Hazard · Post by **Bio-Hazard** » Wed Nov 10, 2004 7:47 am

Over on Abits forums there are tons of people really pissed about it. But like Cap said, most every board maker had the same problem. My board just shipped last night.....................

And I ordered it last week, I ended up sending them a email to try and get something in writting about the bios problem, but haven't gotten a offical answer yet.

LoKaDah · Post by **LoKaDah** » Wed Nov 10, 2004 8:44 am

I suppose I should have been more specific with my post, although you can gather some of this from the Abit forum anyway, but here is the specific issue:

The temperature readings end up being in two specific ranges of temperatures. On my machine they run from 50C - 75C in the incorrect range, and about 35C-52C in the proper range. On a cold boot, the board always shows the bad range, so the only fix at this point is to pop in the BIOS on the cold boot then leave the BIOS having the system reboot. That so far has always given me the proper range.

I believe this issue has changed somewhat with some of the latter BIOS revs. (like 1.4 and 1.5) but it still hasn't been solved. Apparently rev 1.6 is out now , but I'm waiting for word whether it addresses the issue. It's annoying, but liveable. Some people have experienced other problems with power supplies and RAM not liking this board, but other than this temp. issue, my board is perfectly stable (even with a very mild overclock which the board seemed to do on its own).

Good catch on the 90mm issue. I suppose that's more significant than this temp issue.

Bio-Hazard · Post by **Bio-Hazard** » Wed Nov 10, 2004 9:00 am

My NF7-S even reports temps worse on cold boots (by a few degrees) but as soon as I reboot (warm) it goes back to it's normal high reading........

Abit has always had high temp readings, I don't know if they will ever fix the problem. But I would rather have it read high so I'll be on the safe side when OC'ing. Just think of what would happen if it reported it to low when you were going for a max OC with high volts, you might toast your CPU instead of it shutting down.................

Bio-Hazard · Post by **Bio-Hazard** » Wed Nov 10, 2004 9:13 am

Here's the new bios for the AV8:

http://www.abit-usa.com/downloads/bios/ ... &model=175

Version: 16 Released Date: 2004-11-09
Enhanced compatibility with D0 stepping FX-55 and 3200+ CPUs.
BIOS compile date: 10/12/2004

Version: 15 Released Date: 2004-09-24
Updated ÂµGuru Utility to uAV8_017.BIN.
Updated CPU micro code.
Calibrated CPU temperature.
Calibrated "Delay IDE Initial" function timing.
Default ACPI Suspend Type changed to S3.
Fixed abnormal warning beep.
BIOS compile date: 09/17/2004

These should take care of a few of the problems..........

Or so they say..................

infinitevalence · Post by **infinitevalence** » Wed Nov 10, 2004 11:09 am

Im with bio i would rather have a system that reports high than one that reports low. Also the problem with your system is that you turn it off, START FOLDING FOR TEAM 38296 24/7!

btw welcome to the forum i think you will like it here.

Legit Reviews

ABIT AV8 Motherboard Review

ABIT AV8 Motherboard Review

Temperature reading problem