Abit AT8 Crossfire Motherboard

Omega65Omega65 Philadelphia, Pa
edited November 2005 in Hardware
Abit AT8 Crossfire Motherboard

ATI RD480 Based AMD K8 Dual Core ATX Main board, 2000MT/s HT, Dual DDR400, ATI CrossFire™ Technology., SATAII 3Gb/s, GbE, IEEE1394, ABIT Silent OTES

Comments

  • mmonninmmonnin Centreville, VA
    edited October 2005
    Hmm its using a ULI southbridge chip. Again with the silent cooling. Gotta be better than thier POS northbridge fans.
  • kanezfankanezfan sunny south florida Icrontian
    edited October 2005
    stupid question, but can you use nvidia's sli cards in this board and ati's crossfire cards in an nvidia sli board or are they both proprietary formats that wont play together?
  • Omega65Omega65 Philadelphia, Pa
    edited October 2005
    Nvidia SLI ONLY on Nvidia chipset boards
    ATI Crossfire ONLY on ATI Chipset mobos

    It's in the driver not to allow dual vidcards on different chipset motherboards Dual 16x slots. This way you sell a chipset and dual video cards.

    Both Nvidia and ATI will allow Dual video cards (SLI/Crossfire) on Intel chipset motherboards. And ATI will probaly grant VIA a Crossfire license, whereas Nvidia so far hasn't.
  • kanezfankanezfan sunny south florida Icrontian
    edited October 2005
    So out of curiosity, if you plug in two sli cards in a crossfire mobo, will you have use of one card only, or will you get no video at all? I mean that would suck if we're heading towards having to make sure our vid card works with our mobo's chipset.

    If you plug in two cards the competitor's mobo, will at least one work? I don't like this proprietary crap.
  • Omega65Omega65 Philadelphia, Pa
    edited October 2005
    One card will work in anyones motherboard. nad it's not a proprietary thing, it's a driver reastriction put in place so ATI/Nvidia can also sell you one of their chipset based motherboards.

    As I sell they dont restrict Intel chipset motherboards from running their dual video cards setup - just each other.
  • edcentricedcentric near Milwaukee, Wisconsin Icrontian
    edited October 2005
    Can you put two cards in and run them as two single cards, not crossfire.
    I know that you can if they are ATI cards, but will it also work with NV cards?

    I saw a picture of a system with ATI chipset and on board video running six monitors, two each from the three video sources.
  • Omega65Omega65 Philadelphia, Pa
    edited October 2005
    edcentric wrote:
    Can you put two cards in and run them as two single cards, not crossfire.
    I know that you can if they are ATI cards, but will it also work with NV cards?

    I saw a picture of a system with ATI chipset and on board video running six monitors, two each from the three video sources.
    I know someone wrote that they did that with two ATI cards on a Nvidia SLI system - so I'm going to say Yes
  • lemonlimelemonlime Canada Member
    edited October 2005
    Interesting looking board, although I'm never one to jump on 'silent' cooling.. knowing me, I'll throw a 100cfm delta on that mosfet area :buck:
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited October 2005
    although I'm never one to jump on 'silent' cooling..
    I am. You remove the silly little, buzzy fan jobbers, throw them in your parts bin, and install a larger, passive heatsink. Doesn't work? Look at my overclocks. I have no fans on chipsets or GPUs.

    But GPUs - I admit, I haven't used the newer higher powered ones. But the present 9500-9700Pros I've got overclocked quite nicely with the passive sinks.
  • KVolorusKVolorus
    edited November 2005
    I am a little concerned about the fanless cooling solution for the chipset. Or at least, when you flip it upside down. There are problems with Asus's A8N-SLI Premium motherboards that use a heatpipe that goes from the northbridge all the way to the left of the CPU. It has a liquid in it, which, when heated, boils, and when its cooled at the top of the heatpipe, falls back down to the chipset. Rinse, wash, and repeat.

    This process depends on gravity, and so doesn't work when the motherboard is upside down in one of the latest Lian Li cases. The Asus motherboards are known to fry when left upside down like that for extended periods of time. Do you think this beauty of a motherboard will have the same problem? If no, I'll be purchasing one at the soonest opportunity.
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited November 2005
    If it's not upside down it should not experience any problems. Asus designed that board for ordinary installation, which is heatsink towards the top and expansion cards towards the bottom.
  • KVolorusKVolorus
    edited November 2005
    I understand it won't experience any problems if its not upside down. I am curious as to whether it will experience problems if it is upside down, though. And if it will, are there any solutions to it, other than flipping it right side up.

    I use a Lian Li case that flips an ATX motherboard upside down.
  • Omega65Omega65 Philadelphia, Pa
    edited November 2005
    Probably it will. As you described without gravity to bring the liquid back to the chipset block the cooling system wont work properly. You'll have to buy a chipset fan
  • TheLostSwedeTheLostSwede Trondheim, Norway Icrontian
    edited November 2005
    I agree omega,

    This board in the newer Lian's will put too much heat towards the videocards since the heat rises. The chipsets are MUCH hotter on the newer boards than they where 2 years ago. A8N-Sli Premium has a passive chipset..it gets well above 75c after a while.
    The PLL heatsinks on the DFI NF4..they get up to around 106c after a couple of hours of load.
  • GobblesGobbles Ventura California
    edited November 2005
    I read somewhere where that xpress 200 chipset sucks. That its performance is subpar and that its flakey and not a great choice for a enthusiast. I also read where cross fire sucks compared to sli and with the new 6800gs cards ati may be in for a classic ass whooping by nvidia.

    Anyone care to comment?
  • KVolorusKVolorus
    edited November 2005
    I would have to disagree, Gobbles. Everywhere I've seen, the Radeon Xpress 200 chipset offers strong competition to the NForce4. There's a review of one of the reference boards on anandtech, and they gave it a thumbs up. Of course, it depends on who actually manufactures the motherboard, and what mix of north/southbridges they use, but overall, I think the chipset is very ambitious, and will offer ATI enthusiasts a very viable option for motherboards.

    In reply to Omega:
    Ah, interesting. I don't know very much about adding chipset fans to my motherboard. Do you have any suggestions for exactly which to use and how to do it? Do you think I'll have to remove the heatsink to install the chipset fan, or can I just stick it right on top of the turquoise thing that says ABIT in white letters? I'll be using one of the Lian Li PLUS cases that include a special fan that goes beside the GPU to cool it further, so I'm not worried about my GPU burning up, but I am very open to anyone with suggestions for how to keep the chipset cool.
  • GobblesGobbles Ventura California
    edited November 2005
    KVolorus wrote:
    I would have to disagree, Gobbles. Everywhere I've seen, the Radeon Xpress 200 chipset offers strong competition to the NForce4. There's a review of one of the reference boards on anandtech, and they gave it a thumbs up. Of course, it depends on who actually manufactures the motherboard, and what mix of north/southbridges they use, but overall, I think the chipset is very ambitious, and will offer ATI enthusiasts a very viable option for motherboards.

    In reply to Omega:
    Ah, interesting. I don't know very much about adding chipset fans to my motherboard. Do you have any suggestions for exactly which to use and how to do it? Do you think I'll have to remove the heatsink to install the chipset fan, or can I just stick it right on top of the turquoise thing that says ABIT in white letters? I'll be using one of the Lian Li PLUS cases that include a special fan that goes beside the GPU to cool it further, so I'm not worried about my GPU burning up, but I am very open to anyone with suggestions for how to keep the chipset cool.

    From what I read the xpress200 has issues with memory timings that can cause serious stability issues. It may have been fixed, but since I dont have this board or know many people with it, I have to draw my conclusions from what I read. nuttin more nuttin less.
    :thumbsup:
  • Omega65Omega65 Philadelphia, Pa
    edited November 2005
    KVolorus: You'll be entering virgin territory there.....

    My advice - let others be the beta testers, get a Nvidia SLI mobo instead and wait for the second version of the ATI chipsets
  • KVolorusKVolorus
    edited November 2005
    Heh, alright. Problem is, my choice of NForce SLI motherboard has the same problem. The Asus A8N-SLI Premium and A8N32-SLI Deluxe both have heatpipes that, when flipped upside down, don't work as intended. Most people's solution is to stick a small chipset heatsink and fan on the northbridge, which is easy, since on the A8N-SLI Premium, the northbridge is flat. As for the Abit AT8 and the A8n32-SLI Deluxe, there looks to be a small heatsink already on there.

    My first intuition would be to just take that silly heatpipe off altogether, and stick my own heatsink/fan on there, but since it cools the MOSFETs also, one would need to find an alternate method to cool those. (most people just use ram heatsinks, but i've seen pictures of people actually having a fan directly over them, hoisted up by those little motherboard spacers.)

    But, I think I may heed your suggestion and wait til the second version of the ATI chipsets. Do you have any suggestions for a mobo that won't have inverse gravity cooling problems?

    I appreciate all of your feedback!! :thumbsup:
  • Omega65Omega65 Philadelphia, Pa
    edited November 2005
    Get a DFI SLI Motherboard. It's the best choice anyway
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