I bought the ABIT AN* motherboard by accident around 1 month ago for another computer project. I intended to buy an AMD processor and motherboard but discovered the board had the wrong socket thus ending up with the AN8.
I ended up paying around £90 for the board.
So getting it by accident ... Read review
Advantages: Good Design, well cooled Disadvantages: None
I bought the ABIT AN* motherboard by accident around 1 month ago for another computer project. I intended to buy an AMD processor and motherboard but discovered the board had the wrong socket thus ending up with the AN8.
I ended up paying around £90 for the board.
So getting it by accident was not such a bad thing. My primary reason for a new motherboard was previous overheating problems. No matter how many case fans it would ... ...board you get some cool ABIT GURU software which combined with the AMD processor gives you control of the motherboard via the OS rather than BIOS. This is great for gaming or CAD as you can adjust clock speed etc to suit rather than risking clocking etc. If you don't need it then you don't use it but its useful all the same. It also features a useful system monitor that tells you temperatures, fan speeds and voltages, which avoids the costly add ... more
I bought the ABIT AN* motherboard by accident around 1 month ago for another computer project. I intended to buy an AMD processor and motherboard but discovered the board had the wrong socket thus ending up with the AN8. I ended up paying around £90 for the board.
So getting it by accident was not such a bad thing. My primary reason for a new motherboard was previous overheating problems. No matter how many case fans it would always overheat. The AN8 however comes with multiple board mounted fans. At the rear there are two temperature controlled OTES fans (with pink diodes…) pointing straight out of the back of the case.
Having never really built a PC 'properly' from scratch I found the installation of this board was not to difficult. Fitting it in to a new case can be a little fiddly but with some trial and error it is straight forward enough. Mount points are clearly marked and accessible when it comes to the all essential screw fitting. Dropping the screws in this case is not so bad as you have room to pick them out again.
Connecting up the system cables to the board is also very easy. Jumpers are clearly marked. You will have more difficulty in identifying the cables on the case than you will the motherboard. Installing the processor is also very easy, partly due to AMD but all the same easy to fit without having to resort to outside tools, always a risky business.
There are 4 available DDR RAM slots for plenty of fast memory. USB ports are a plenty along with additional points on the board for spares to the case. You also get the all important 1394 / firewire connections thus removing the need for an additional card. Network ports are also standard.
Also present on the board are the all important floppy, IDE and SATA connectors. These are easy to connect, board comes included with SATA but unfortunately not IDE.
Rather than having board mounted sound the AN8 features an additional slot on to which you mount the external sound. This has its own unique slot type but fortunately comes with the motherboard. So again you are not using up valuable slots for a sound card. This is a Dolby 5.1 card so sound is nothing short of excellent.
Another mistake I made when I purchased this was not to check the Graphics adaptor. I assumed my original card would work but alas the AN8 uses PCI express so you will need one of those.
When you first come to boot the system up you notice 2 things. 1: BIOS is clear and understandable (all most). 2: There is a handy digital number LED mounted on the motherboard that will tell you the system sate from 1-99 as the PC boots. Even better than this is the manual actually tells you in plain terms what the numbers mean. Far better than a set of beep codes.
Along with the board you get some cool ABIT GURU software which combined with the AMD processor gives you control of the motherboard via the OS rather than BIOS. This is great for gaming or CAD as you can adjust clock speed etc to suit rather than risking clocking etc. If you don't need it then you don't use it but its useful all the same. It also features a useful system monitor that tells you temperatures, fan speeds and voltages, which avoids the costly add on software to do the same job. You can also do some useful monitoring from here should you have any problems.
All in all it's a cracking bit of kit, fast, modern, if you have a clear Case it looks fantastic to boot.
ABIT support is 2nd to none. I called for advice and got a 24 hour response.
Advantages: Many over normal boards Disadvantages: price above average
(blinks icons for email etc) and displays frequency and voltage.
So what you think !! - Well the difference with this is that you can overclock your pc while in game by using preset overclock features and monitor system performance while doing so, if it's struggling you can then switch back.
~ The motherboard ~
As stated in the specification it's a socket 939 with 1 PCI Express x16, 2 PCI Express x1, 3 32-bit/33MHz, 4 184pin DIMMs or PC3200 memory, 4 USB 2.0 ports, gigabit Lan port, 1 firewire port and a separate sound card.
Don't be fooled by some reviews stating this has ATA - 150 support only, it actually supports Sata II on 4 channels which is ATA-150 compatible, the other 2 ports are ATA-133.
The motherboard uses Nforce Ultra chipset with a 6-channel audio via nForce4 integrated audio and ALC658 codec PCIE sound card ...
Advantages: ease of use , reliable and soo quiet Disadvantages: needs better mobo spacers underneath to space from case
I Purchased the motherboard and an xp 3500 processor, setup was easy on this motherboard. The first thing i noticed is the OTIS cooling, no fan's on the motherboard just a heat pipe that goes from the central core of the motherboard to a bay that keeps the system cool by extracting the heat through the pipe.
Very silent compared to fan systems ie northbridge fans too noisy. The audio system is realtek ac 97 chipset supporting 7.1 channel sound,
I havent tested the 7.1 but the 5.1 senses the speakers automatically through the software and configures them easily. The abit software updates the bios automatically as the board now supports the FX series chip's. On board sata and raid with a socket 939 I have 2 1gb corsair 400 1gb sticks on dual channel and this thing speeds along.
Software includes nvidia's firewall and active ...
Advantages: Looks great, simple layout, digital readout. Disadvantages: None found so far.
Upgrading to this was something totally necessary, going from a northbridge fan to a convection cooler there is not much difference in performance and there is very little difference in noise. I found that it was quick and simple to change, nothing abnormal about this one. A great feature on this board is the numeric display instead of a 'beep' tones letting you know just what is wrong and ware, helped me out several times, however it is upside down if the computer is conventional and upright so make sure you have the right code. One other small little feature that works a treat is the red LED's mounted on the back of the board, it makes it look great in any case. All in all performance wise, there was nothing special that got at me, it works. But the good thing is when you go SLI, they both run at full speed. A great motherboard, no ...
Product Information for "ABIT AN8 - motherboard - ATX - nForce4" »
Audio
Audio Output
Sound card
Sound Output Mode
5.1 channel surround
Telecom / networking
Networking
Network adapter - Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet
Features
Hardware Features
µGuru, NVIDIA Firewall
Manufacturer's product description
Through diligence, hard work, and by encouraging an environment of cooperation and constant innovation, ABIT has become a global motherboard provider. However, ABIT isn't just a motherboard company. It also brings you the best in multimedia, peripheral cards, server technology, and barebones systems solutions. ABIT strives to develop products to meet your computing demands. PRODUCT FEATURES: AMD Athlon 64/64FX 939-pin K8 CPU; 2GHz system bus using Hyper Transport Technology; AMD CPU Cool 'n' Quiet Technology; Support 4 DIMM Dual DDR 400/333/266 non-ECC memory; NVIDIA NF4 single chip; Integrated NV Gigabit Ethernet and NV Firewall; Supports SATA150 RAID 0/1/0+1 JBOD; NVIDIA Gigabit Ethernet via NF4; Native NVIDIA Firewall via NF4; Support IEEE 1394 at 400/200/100 Mb/s transfer rate; 5.1-channel Audio Card; Optical S/P DIF In/Out.
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