SUMMARY: It is ABIT’s turn in the spotlight today as we provide a look into two of their newest motherboards, the AA8 and AG8. Each are designed specifically to work with Intel's new Socket 775 processors along with DDR (on the AG8) and DDR-2 memory (on the AA8). After taking a look at both motherboards we compare the performance of each to determine which the best choice is. Intel 915 or 925X? Let’s find out now!
As usual we have a great looking box from ABIT which clearly shows us the model of the motherboard. We have a giant sticker on the box which lets you know that it’s a working ICH6R as some people may remember the recall Intel had on the ICH6R chip which was causing the motherboard not to work at launch. Also on the box you may notice the UGURU sticker on the left; this is an excellent packaged designed by ABIT to give you lots of features within Windows from temperature monitoring to overclocking features.
The Package
With the outside of the box looked at its time to have a look at the more important parts of the package. When opening the box up you are greeted with a very familiar looking set of white boxes. Within these boxes are everything that we have grown accustom to in ABIT’s package. With this said the AA8 we are looking at today is known as the 3rd Eye which brings with it something a little bit different which we will talk about in just a moment.
In both our boxes we receive black IDE cables, Serial ATA cables, I/O plate, manuals, drivers CD, RAID drive floppy disk and a sticker for the inside of the case so you can locate the jumpers easily for when you have to reset the BIOS because you overclocked more then you thought you could.
As we mentioned one of the motherboards we are looking at is utilizing the new UGURU clock which helps bring all the important information to you on the fly - for example temperature, clock speed, voltage levels and more. The clock is an excellent tool but it is disappointing to find that ABIT did not choose to include a back light on the unit. This would make it more useful at night so you could see what is happening. A few blue or green LEDs within the clock would make a world of difference and really take it to the next level. We will go into more detail on the 3rd Eye in just a moment.
It is hard to find something wrong with an ABIT package as they are usually always spot on with what the end user wants.
Features
Now that the package is out the way lets take a closer look at the most important part, the motherboards and what they have on offer. Both boards features are extremely similar with each utilizing the new Matrix RAID system from Intel offering four Serial ATA ports as standard, PCI Express 16X for graphics cards offering over three times the bandwidth of AGP, PCI Express 1X which is going to be the next evolution of sounds cards, network cards and more considering the 500MB/s of dedicated bandwidth per device we have to play with when compared to the original 133MB/s of shared bandwidth.
As you may have figured both motherboards utilize the latest LGA775 processor from Intel, also included is 7.1 channels Intel High Definition Audio on the AA8 and 5.1 channel Intel High Definition Audio on the AG8 along with gigabit LAN.
Let’s have a closer look at the motherboards and where these features are found.
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