Abit AG8 Motherboard Review :: The Board

Abit AG8 Spec Sheet
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Part Number	AG8
Manufacturer	Abit
Price Check	Find Best Price
Downloads	BIOS Drivers Manuals
Chipset	Intel 915P Express ICH6R
North Bridge	Intel 82915P MCH
Socket	LGA775 Socket
Processor Types	Pentium 4
Number of CPUs	1
Hyper-Threading Support	Yes
Front Side Bus	800/533MHz
Memory Type	DDR
Memory Channels	Dual, Single
Maximum Memory	4GB
External Graphics	PCI Express x16
IGP	None
South Bridge	Intel 82801FR ICH6R
Audio	8-channel
IDE	100/66/33
SCSI	None
SATA	1.5 GB/s
RAID	0, 1, 0+1
LAN	10/100
Firewire	None
USB	USB 2.0
Expansion Slots	2 x PCI 3 x PCI Express x1 1 x PCI Express x16
BIOS
Form Factor	ATX

The AG8 is based upon Intel's new LGA Socket 775 platform chipset, the 915P. This chipset supports all of the new Socket 775 CPUs including the 3.4 GHz P4 Extreme Edition CPUs and the 3.6 GHz P4E that were announced recently. The new platform moves the pins from the CPU to the motherboard making it less likely that the CPU would be broken on installation. Moving forward, all Intel CPUs will be released on Socket 775, making the previous Socket 478 CPUs near EOL (End of Life).

Memory

PCI 16X

Memory support on the AG8 is the standard DDR memory in 4 DIMM slots giving a capacity of 4 GB. Intel's new chipset supports both DDR and DDR2 memory with the choice left to the motherboard manufacturers. ABIT wisely chose the DDR standard for the AG8 as the target market for this motherboard is not the high-end. DDR2 memory is still expensive as heck and not widely available. Performance differences between DDR and DDR2 are negligible at this time, and DDR is inexpensive.

PCI 1X

SB Cooler

SATA 1-4

PATA

The expandability options on the AG8 UGURU are varied and reflect the changing face of computing. ABIT included 2 legacy PCI slots, 3 PCI Express 1x slots for the new standard which each give 256 MB/second of bandwidth per channel and 1 PCI Express 16X graphics slot for the expansion PEG cards that are about to hit the market place. We use a 6800 PEG in our test station, which is fast enough for most every user and plays games well.

ABIT included one IDE connector for DVD-ROMs or if you want to install an older PATA HDD. This is in a sideways position to the board, which makes pulling the ATA cable in and out very easy. There are a total of 4 SATA connectors for SATA drives included on the board as well, giving the maximum that the 915P chipset supports natively. Another legacy offering is the on-board floppy disk controller that is situated on the board.

USB Header

FireWire

POST Alert

NB Cooler

One thing missing is inclusion of a second PATA connector. Normally this isn't a issue with a board that has 4 SATA connectors. I would feel better if a 2nd connector was included for those that don't want to upgrade to SATA as of yet.

Input/output options on the AG8 are the following: PS/2 Mouse and Keyboard connectors, 4 USB 2.0 ports onboard, 1 IEEE-1394 Firewire port onboard, COM1 Port, OPT-in1, OPT-In2 ports, Parallel port, RJ45 LAN port, Mic In, Line In, Front Left/Front Right, Rear Left/Rear Right, Center/Subwoofer jacks for audio. There are 2 additional headers on the motherboard for additional 4 USB ports via cable. The board comes with the additional cables, which is a definite plus.

Rear Input/Output

Bundle

Bundles are important in many ways especially for a motherboard. The average user, when purchasing a motherboard, doesn't have extra IDE cables or USB ports that they can plug into a motherboard like a reviewer would have. Further, often a motherboard manufacturer includes useful software like antivirus or disk copying software. From my perspective a good hardware bundle can make the difference between my recommendation and second thoughts.

Manual/Driver CD

In the case of the Abit AG8 uGURU, the included hardware is more than adequate and worthy of praise. Abit included 1 floppy cable, 1 IDE cable (there's only one IDE connector on the board, therefore more than one would be unnecessary), a SATA driver floppy (useful for XP installations), 4 SATA cables (the max that the board supports natively), a Quick Installation Guide, a User's Manual, a cable with 2 USB 2.0 ports a Firewire A port, a Firewire B port, a sticker with jumper settings and the back plate for the input/output block.

Cables/I/O Shield

Software-wise, the AG8 uGURU is rather bare. Included with the driver CD is the chipset driver, the drivers for the LAN, DirectX 9.0b, Adobe Acrobat 5.0 and the uGURU software utility. It's interesting that Abit concentrated on the hardware side of this board. I wish Abit included antivirus software but that's not the case.

USB/FireWire Cable