Abit AA8 (Intel 925X Alderwood)
Performance
On the initial detection of the the starting FSB speed, the AA8 board brought a surprise: instead of the 200MHz as it should be, the board was running at FSB=204MHz, which increased the operating clock speed of the processor from 3.2GHz to 3.26GHz.
Having regarded that as a flaw of the preliminary BIOS version, we tried flashing the first official version (number 11), however, that didn't change the startup speed. Therefore, to test the performance we forcedly set the FSB to 200 MHz.
 As contenders to our board being tested, we used the Asus P5AD2 Premium (i925X) motherboard. After the first tests, there came up an ambiguous situation with measuring the performance. Abit AA8 lagged well behind the competitor (normally, motherboards on one and the same chipset rarely differ at performance). It turned out that with the memory frequency set to "Auto" the board runs in the DDR2-400 mode. But with the forcedly set DDR2-533 mode, the system was running unstably (which was fixed through raising the Vmem and Vdd). Therefore, we can make a conclusion that Abit AA8 DuraMAX either has issues of compatibility to Kingmax DDR2-533 modules (can be fixed through selection of memory) or the problem is much deeper - in the board's design (which is worse, because you have to wait for a new revision), or problems are in the current BIOS version (that is the best - just wait for a new BIOS reflash file).
In our test configuration, we used the following hardware:
| Test configuration |
| Processor |
Intel Pentium4 LGA775 540 (3.2GHz) |
| Cooler |
Gigabyte 3D Cooler GP Edition
|
| Video card |
nVidia GeForce FX 5750 (PCI Express x16) |
| Sound card |
- |
| HDD |
IBM DTLA 307030 30Gb |
| Memory |
2x256 MB DDR2-533 SDRAM made by Kingmax (latency timings set to SPD) |
| Housing |
Inwin506 with PowerMan 300W power supply unit |
| OS |
Windows XP SP1 |
Let's first take a look at the results of synthetic benchmarks.
Now on to the gaming benchmarks.
Conclusion: Abit AA8 slightly lagged behind Asus P5AD2 at handling memory in the DDR2-400 mode and performed better at memory operation in the DDR2-533 mode. However, reminding it again: stable operation with Kingmax DDR2-533 memory was attained only after raising the Vmem and Vdd voltages.
Of course, the readers would be curious to compare the LGA775 platform with the previous generation of motherboard on the i875P/865PE chipset. We have already done the test, and will publish it in the nearest time.
Final Words
On testing the Abit AA8 board, I didn't get the impression of a high-end product. Yes, the board is built on the i925X chipset and offers a high price (this is a criterion for high-end boards, albeit strange :), but its package bundle is scarce, and the expansion options are middling. What is also surprising is the lack of the useful Abit OTES feature. With all my respect to Abit engineers, I can's say the vertical positioning of a fan on the chipset and the Overclockers Strips can't be a good substitute for an exhaust pipe on the power supply module (although they would look like a nice add-on to the OTES).
Now a few words about the price which on the date of tests was 190$, according to Pricewatch. Compared to motherboards based on i865PE\i875P, this is too much (compare - the price for Abit IC7-MAX3 is ~200$). However, compared to other boards on the i925X chipset, this price is quite reasonable. For instance, the price for Asus P5AD2 is over 250$ (the same price level is for high-end boards of other companies).
Therefore, the scarce package bundle and middling expansion options can be explained by Abit's urge to make the product as cheap as possible. The same can be said about the lack of Abit OTES.
As regards the overclocking, the board offers a powerful set of overclocking tools and demonstrates quite decent practical results.
Of special mention is the feature-set of the mGuru chip. During the first introduction to the chip (in Abit AI7) we noted the generally "raw" status and heterogeneity of utilities that are part of the group. But today we see a serious progress in this direction: the utilities have proved a more stable operation, and the number of features has increased significantly. Besides, most utilities have got their interface revamped (it is now made in the unified style!), which offers more convenience of use (albeit not polished to perfection).
Finally, note that at system monitoring features, Abit AA8 is second to none. The same is true regarding the BIOS profile saving feature.
Conclusion
Pros:
- Good stability;
- Support for SerialATA/RAID (4 channels; ICH6R);
- Integrated 8-channel audio and LAN (Gigabit Ethernet);
- Support for USB2.0 (8 ports) and IEEE-1394 (Firewire, 3 ports);
- Abit Engineered (POST controller);
- A wide selection of Abit's own technologies (SoftMenu, FlashMenu, BlackBox etc.);
- Additional mGuru chip (FanEQ, BIOS profiles, OC Guru, etc.).
Cons:
- High price;
- Scarce package bundle.
The board's specific features:
- Very powerful overclocking tools;
- Partial incompatibility with Kingmax DDR2-533 memory modules.
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