Even with
their triumphs, the hardships came, although Abit’s
sales had been up, financial woes fell upon Abit
which made people within the company and those in
the community, uneasy, then the news came that USI
had fully acquired the name, and most of the staff
of Abit Computer, which is now known as Universal
Abit. So now that the dust has settled, the stress
of Cebit is over, we felt that we needed to learn
a little more about how things are going at Abit.
To
help us answer that, and many other questions, Peter
du Preez the Content Editor and Marketing Manager
of Abit, graciously invited Driver Heaven to their
headquarters in Taipei Taiwan. Along with the questions,
we were able to see and show their upcoming motherboard
lines for the new Conroe, M2, and Viiv platforms.
With the new branding, the new logo, what’s
in store for Abit?
Our
members voiced some concerns and questions about
Abit’s current boards and on behalf of our
members we passed on these questions to get them
some answers. Please note that while all of the
posted member questions were asked, some answers
cannot be published or released for privacy and
disclosure reasons.
Peter du Preez, Content Editor
and Marketing Manager
Driver
Heaven: When will you be addressing the
problematic chipset fans for both the AMD and Intel
platforms?
Peter:
We use the same onboard fans as the rest of our
competitors and everybody has these issues. I don’t
think they are more than normal but it shouldn’t
be an issue with us moving to our patented silent
heat pipe technology. And our competitors will no
longer be using our patented technology as we are
starting some civil lawsuits to make sure they comply
with the rules.
Driver
Heaven: Is Abit going to be more involved
in the graphic-card market?
Peter: Abit will no longer be making
video card products.
Driver
Heaven: With the still living AN8 issues
ranging from leaking caps to USB issues, what is
being done about it? And will problems like this
occur in the future?
Peter: The AN8 was released during
the transitional phase when Abit was going through
the financial struggles. From that time we have
switched to 100% Japanese caps, have much more resources
to pull for our R&D department, both of these
things will increase the quality and compatibility
of our boards exponentially. But even if a manufacturing
defect were to occur, we now have an extra 22 RMA
centers around the world to help our customers with
convenience and ease.
Driver
Heaven: What new aspects is R&D working
on?
Peter: Something new and cool that
you wouldn’t know about is our Live on USB.
So when the computer is off, if you have something
like an IPOD connected to your USB ports it will
be able to charge without turning on the computer.
This setting will be available via a jumper, just
remember to disable wake on USB.
Fatal1ty
AN9-32X
Fatal1ty.
The community knows this name, but to Abit, it’s
not just a name. Abit is in communications with
the Fatal1ty team in the United States on a weekly
basis. Even during the craze of E3 they managed
to find time to meet with the Fatal1ty team. Abit
gives them specifications and ideas and Fatal1ty
gives them the same back. If for some reason the
project cannot meet the standards, it won’t
come to fruition and they move onto the next project.
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The Fatal1ty AN9-32X will support AMD’s AM2
processor (which also means DDR2 support). It will
have the nVidia C51XE Northbridge and MCP 55PXE
Southbridge chipsets with Abit’s AudioMAX
7.1HD sound card (not pictured). Since Fatal1ty
is the gaming line, expect two PCI-Express 16x slots
with an extra power conduit in between the slots
for added stability. And since Abit is always in
the habit of making things better, please notice
the new locking mechanism for the video cards which
promises to make installing and removing leagues
easier. Some added bonuses are dual Gigabit LAN,
Abit’s Silent OTES GT, easy pull tabs (for
quick changing of jumper settings), Abit’s
new UGURU chip which offers better communication
and stability, and one of the new technologies we
mentioned earlier, Live on USB.
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Some
of our members were concerned with the number of
SATA ports on motherboards. We are happy to report
this board has six SATA ports along with four USB
ports on the I/O panel and 3 USB headers for a total
of seven connections. The board although containing
headers for 1394 (Firewire), does not have a dedicated
1394 port on the I/O. Driver Heaven was lucky enough
to take these pictures after the havoc of E3 and
are the most current revisions of the board. The
most significant difference between these photos
compared to other editorials is the removal of the
clear acrylic fans for some safer led free fans
that better fit the theme of the board.
IL-80MV
Intel’s
Viiv platform is the media center of the household.
And it seems like every company and their mother
has a Viiv product available which brings us to
the question. How will Abit stand out from the crowd?
Nora Lee, Abit’s product marketing specialist,
shared information about this board and how they
plan to carve their way into the market.
Nora
pointed out that while you can purchase an entire
Viiv system with HDMI, it was very hard to find
HDMI implemented on a barebone Viiv motherboard.
Well it won’t be very hard to find anymore
if Abit has their way, and they aren’t stopping
there. They also noticed that the competition wasn’t
using the better ICH7m-DH southbridge that implements
the quick resume technology for faster powerups
and poweroffs, which is something Abit believes
is essential for a media center.
The
board is a socket 479 (Yonah for those who don’t
like numbers) with;
1x PCI Express, 2 PCI slots, 2 IDE Connections,
2 SATA Ports, 4 USB ports, 1 1394 Firewire port,
1 VGA Port, all the audio ports you can shake a
stick at, 1 Gigabit LAN, and of course HDMI. Since
the Yonah core takes very little wattage they don’t
have anything as extravagant as the Silent OTES
GT for cooling, but heat shouldn’t be an issue.
Looking
Ahead
Abit
is a company than can be viewed as a diamond in
the rough. Even when they weren’t doing financially
well, their board sales went up which speaks to
the quality of their products. Now add in their
new resources, ambition, and shiny new logo, and
we’ve got a new beast in our hands.
Boards
are boards, and at a consumer level that is all
that matters. But having dealt with the people at
Abit, seeing their HQ, and witnessing the new ideas
and vigor they have. I can faithfully say they are
not simply back in business, they are reborn with
a vengeance. The Abit of yesterday is not the Abit
of today, and it will not be the Abit of tomorrow,
but for the consumers, I can say this, you will
like their new boards in the future, and DH will
be there every step of the way.
Aaron
(left) with Peter
We would like to thank Peter, Nora, David, Thore,
and everyone else from Abit HQ for their time and
hospitality.
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