Abit AT8: µGuru comes to the RD480

Abit AT8: Features

Abit designed a well laid out board with all major connections easily reached except for the floppy drive connector. The Abit layout provides excellent clearance for cards and components and it was simple to install in a mid-size ATX case. Although the board features a 3-phase voltage regulator power design, it provided excellent stability and allowed for an impressive level of overclocking at the stock multiplier setting.

The DIMM module slots' are not color coordinated for dual channel setup. The memory modules are easy to install with a full size video card placed in the first PCI Express x16 slot. The 24-pin ATX power connector is conveniently placed along the edge of the board with two fan headers.

The ULi IDE port connectors are located along the edge of the board beneath the BIOS chip and ULi SATA ports. The IDE port connectors did not present any connection issues when utilizing the board in CrossFire operation. The ULi M1575 chipset is located above the BIOS chip and below the first PCI Express x16 slot. The ULi M1575 chipset is passively cooled with a low rise heat sink that did not interfere with cards installed in the PCI Express slots. The ULi USB connectors are color-coded blue and are located to the upper right of the M1575 chipset. This is an unusual location for the USB connectors as it almost ensures that the case slot above the first PCI Express x16 slot is required for the USB cable header panel.

The ULi SATA ports are conveniently located above the number two IDE port connector and to the right of the CP80P post port debug LED. The SATA ports feature the new clamp and latch design, but are not color-coded. The chassis panel is located on the bottom left edge of the board below the CP80P LED. We do miss the power on and reset buttons from previous Abit boards.

The µGuru chipset is located above the ULi SATA ports and independently controls the µGuru functions . The TI TSB43AB22 IEEE 1394 chipset is located above the µGuru chipset. The IEEE 1394 connector is color-coded red and is located directly to the left of the TI IEEE 1394 chipset. The yellow clear CMOS jumper block is a traditional jumper design located to the left of the IEEE 1394 connector and along the edge of the motherboard. The red GURU connector is located below the CMOS jumper and also along the edge of the motherboard.

The board comes with (2) physical PCI Express x16 connectors, (2) PCI Express x1 connectors, and (2) 32-bit PCI 2.3 connectors. The layout of this design offers a very good balance of expansion slots for a mainstream board.

The first PCI Express x1 connector is located below the 4-pin power connector that must be used if two video cards are installed. The first physical PCI Express x16 connector is located next, followed by the second PCI Express x1 connector, second PCI Express x16 connector, and the two PCI 2.3 slots. The floppy drive connector is located below the second PCI slot and is inconveniently located for most case designs. The third of six fan headers located on the board is located to the right of the floppy drive connector.

We did not have any issues installing our ATI X1900XT video cards in the first and second x16 PCI Express slots. These dual slot configuration cards will physically render the second PCI Express x1 and first 32-bit PCI slot useless. We did not have any issues utilizing these slots with video cards containing single slot cooling systems.

The first PCI Express x16 connector is considered to be the secondary slot and the second PCI Express x16 connector is considered to be the primary slot. If you utilize one video card, it must be installed in the primary slot. Abit ships a shadow card to use in the secondary slot in single video card configurations, but we found that it was not necessary to use the card. When we installed our EVGA 7800GTX 512MB card in the primary slot, it blocked the first three SATA ports.

The Winbond W83627 Super I/O chipset is located in front of the second PCI connector. The Realtek ALC-882D audio codec is located to the left of the Winbond chipset. The internal CD audio and front audio panel header is located in front of the second PCI Express x1 connector. The Realtek RTL8110SB PCI 10/100/1000Mb/s LAN controller chipset is located in front of the first PCI Express x1 connector.

Returning to the CPU socket area, we find ample room for alternative cooling solutions. We utilized the stock AMD heat sink, but also verified that several aftermarket cooling systems such as the Thermaltake Big Typhoon would fit in this area during our tests. Due to the low rise heat sink covering the ATI Crossfire Xpress 200 chipset, the installation of larger air or water-cooling solutions should not be an issue.

The ATI Crossfire Xpress 200 chipset is passively cooled with a small heat sink unit that did not interfere with any installed peripherals. This unit along with the heatpipe running to the large PVM heat sink kept the chipsets cooled well during overclock testing.

Abit places the ATX12V auxiliary power connector at the top of the CPU socket area. This connector is located in an unusual position and could hamper airflow with cabling that crosses directly over the CPU heat sink/fan; although, we did not have any issues in our case.

The rear panel contains the standard PS/2 mouse and keyboard ports, LAN port, and 4 USB ports. Located to the right of the keyboard and mouse ports are the two optical S/PDIF ports. Next to the optical ports is the audio panel with 6 ports that can be configured for 2, 4, 5.1, and 7.1 channel audio connections. To the right of the audio panel are two USB 2.0 ports with the IEEE 1394 connector on top. Located next to this series of ports are two USB 2.0 ports with the RJ-45 LAN port on top. The LAN (RJ-45) port has two LED indicators representing Activity and Speed of the connection.