[Nightowl225]

I'm thinking of getting the ABIT AT8 Motherboard. I'm having issues now with my A8R-MVP motherboard, which include random reboots, and weird video issues that I can't blame on my powersupply, memory, cpu, videocards or not having enough airflow in my case.

I'm curious if the ABIT AT8 is a decent motherboard or not. I'm also considering the ABIT AT8 32X Motherboard, I don't exactly trust ASUS anymore.

[The_Neon_Cowboy]

ASUS A8R32-MVP IS FINE, actully I might be selling mine in the next couple months...
Abit is a lesser maker, used to be awsome, but "burnt out", now looking at makeig
a come back...

A8R-MVP can be ok I got one that seems to work as it should, but the Radeon 3200
version rocks....

so get someing 3200 based, and why not wait for the AM2 boards? and do a full upgrade

[Bar81]

Originally Posted by The_Neon_Cowboy

ASUS A8R32-MVP IS FINE

Gee, I guess you can speak for everyone Denial isn't a pretty thing...

The AT8 32X looks to be the cream of the crop currently with regard to AMD ATI Chipset mobos as the latest BIOS appears to have fixed the major issues. Avoid the AT8 non-32X as it's a disaster from what I can gather.

Oh, and the reason you don't upgrade to AM2 is because it's a downgrade. It costs a ridiculous amount of money to buy decent DDRII and the performance "improvement" is pathetic. If he really wanted to upgrade he'd be going C2D.

[Nightowl225]

I'm gonna get me a price on the AT8 32X, and will most likely order it today.

[Nightowl225]

I ordered me an AT8 32X today. I'm done with ASUS. This A8R-MVP worked fine for over 6 months, and then it went to heck when it comes to Crossfire. It's stable and runs the way it should if one runs a single videocard, but when it comes to Crossfire that's another animal all together.

Until I get my AT8 32X in place, I'm going to have to limit my gaming to 2 to 3 hour sessions, and then give it a break.

The store I'm getting the my AT8 32X is allowing me to trade in my A8R-MVP, and they will give me $40.00 store credit for it.

[aiya]

did they fix the issues with the 270FSB wall and the problem with overclocking cpus with odd multiplers?

[hilfiger]

Abit is a hell of mobo.. i have the an9 and it rocks.. good choice

[Nightowl225]

I'm not worried about overclocking on it, as I don't overclock and know enough about the bios where I can do tweaks to increase performance and stability without overclocking. I just got my AT8 32X today, and will be putting it in. A plus is that I won't have to even reinstall WindowsXP, as it uses the ULI 1575 chip for USB2 and SATA2 as the A8R-MVP.

All I will need to do yet, if doesn't have BIOS 12 on it, is flash the bios.

[Bar81]

Originally Posted by aiya

did they fix the issues with the 270FSB wall and the problem with overclocking cpus with odd multiplers?

You're probably thinking of the 280 BIOS wall which could be overcome in Windows using uGuru. Anyway, it's long since been solved to my knowledge and I've never heard of anyone complaining about an odd multiplier issue.

[Bar81]

Originally Posted by Nightowl225

I'm not worried about overclocking on it, as I don't overclock and know enough about the bios where I can do tweaks to increase performance and stability without overclocking. I just got my AT8 32X today, and will be putting it in. A plus is that I won't have to even reinstall WindowsXP, as it uses the ULI 1575 chip for USB2 and SATA2 as the A8R-MVP.

All I will need to do yet, if doesn't have BIOS 12 on it, is flash the bios.

Waiting impatiently for impressions

[Judas]

Originally Posted by Bar81

Gee, I guess you can speak for everyone Denial isn't a pretty thing...

?

I've both the Asus A8R32-MVP and the Abit AT8 32x

frankly i like the asus on a hell of alot better.

the Asus A8R-MVP was crap mind you.

But the Newer board with the latest bios revisoin 502 absalutely is amazing.

I'm waiting for the new bios though that resolves the ULi Raid configurations from being lost or not detecting some hardrives from a cold boot with 3gb of ram (4 sticks) installed at the same time.

[Bar81]

Originally Posted by Judas

?

I've both the Asus A8R32-MVP and the Abit AT8 32x

frankly i like the asus on a hell of alot better.

the Asus A8R-MVP was crap mind you.

But the Newer board with the latest bios revisoin 502 absalutely is amazing.

I'm waiting for the new bios though that resolves the ULi Raid configurations from being lost or not detecting some hardrives from a cold boot with 3gb of ram (4 sticks) installed at the same time.

Well, a couple of things:

(1) It would be useful if you could list in your view the pros and cons of the two boards and why you think the Asus is superior.

and

(2) as to waiting for a new BIOS from Asus, good luck. From what I've seen Asus is sticking to their claim that the board works perfectly despite substantial evidence to the contrary. The reason I dumped the board was because I got sick of waiting for updates that never came to fix its significant issues.

[Judas]

Significant issues have been fixed... i've 2 asus A8R32-MVP boards that works wonderfully with the 502 bios.


Heres the pros/cons:

Cons: Running with more then 2gb of ram (3x or more 1gb sticks or 4x of mixed sizes) generally can cause some performance tuning problems usually result of the memory. I've ran into a problem with more then 2 sticks of memory causing similare symptons.. but they aren't to much of a concern reguardless.

RAID Arrays using the ULi onboard with the above mentioned con appears to happen on cold boots. Resolved the moment you do a 4 second forced shutdown and automatic repowerup.

Bios Settings are a we bit difficult to navigate due to the sheer number of them and some duplicate entries.

IRQ Sharing is horrid (But is privailent in ALL xpress 3200 chipset motherboards right from asus to dfi to abit, all are effected).

Pros:

Excellent performer, Very fast and stable beyond reason.

Excellent overclocker, allows extensive settings on voltages and frequencies not to mention to the detail specific settings on ram and cpu settings.

Excellent automatic overvolting, does an excellent job of figureing out the best voltages if you adjust one thing and allow the motherboard to figure out if the northbridge/southbridge needs more juice.

Excellent in failure to post and incorrect settings. Never have i once had to go into the case and reset the cmos manually. If you set a setting in the bios, or whatever you can think of even to insane settings (mind you being aware that you could blow up your machine at to insane of a settings), letting the system run with no post for 20 seconds roughly then doing a forced 4 second shutdown with an automatic reboot, has ALWAYS reset to defaults with the choice to keep the older settings but modify them by hitting F1 or reverting to defaults full out by hitting F2. Excellent design, works every time.

Crossfire works great on this board with no hassles, even if you have the mastercard in the bottom slot, a simple change to the PCI-EX Boot priority will resolve it. Default is PCI-EX1~>PCI-EX2 (top slot ~> bottom slot).

Full Featured, couldn't have more options on this board within reason.

Probably the best next to the Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe 939 board you could buy and use.

Best Onboard Audio, Realtek's ALC882 HD Audio. Nothing beats this atm.

[Nightowl225]

I'm lovin the ABIT AT8 32X, been gaming for over 7 and a half hours, not one hiccup or reboot with the board. It has Realtek ALC882D for sound. I updated to bios 1.2 for the AT8 32X, and all for of my 1GB PC3200 DIMMS were detected as DDR400. Piece of junk A8R-MVP due to design and bios detected them as DDR333.

My Creative X-Fi Xtreme Music card, got put on IRQ22 which is not being shared with anything, yes it is not sharing an IRQ. With the A8R-MVP it was constantly sharing and IRQ with something.

I'm not overclocking as I don't want to royally screw something up, and then once I'm sure that everything is hunky dory, within the next week or so, I'm going to see about messing with memory timings to increase performance.

Another bonus, is that game performance in Crossfire on my AT8 32X is a heck of a lot smoother than on the A8R-MVP.

The A8R-MVP is quite frankly as Judas said, a piece of crap, and no end of trouble with the A8R-MVP. The ABIT AT8 32X is one heck of a board as long as it has the 1.2 bios and so far is really stable.

One last thing about the A8R-MVP contrary to what ASUS and ATI claimed about the board, it in reality was not a truly stable board when it comes to Crossfire. It does however work darn good if all one does is use one videocard.

[Judas]

Don't mix up the Asus A8R-MVP with the Asus A8R32-MVP. They are completely different boards, COMPLETELY.

I can stick 4gb of ram in this Asus A8R32-MVP with absalutely no issues if it's configured properly... i just using mixed sets.

always detects 400mhz though.. actually i'm running faster then that.

[Nightowl225]

At least the A8R32-MVP is pretty decent. I learned my lesson and that is not to buy a low end motherboard, which the A8R-MVP.

[Bar81]

Originally Posted by Judas

Significant issues have been fixed... i've 2 asus A8R32-MVP boards that works wonderfully with the 502 bios.


Heres the pros/cons:

Cons: Running with more then 2gb of ram (3x or more 1gb sticks or 4x of mixed sizes) generally can cause some performance tuning problems usually result of the memory. I've ran into a problem with more then 2 sticks of memory causing similare symptons.. but they aren't to much of a concern reguardless.

RAID Arrays using the ULi onboard with the above mentioned con appears to happen on cold boots. Resolved the moment you do a 4 second forced shutdown and automatic repowerup.

Bios Settings are a we bit difficult to navigate due to the sheer number of them and some duplicate entries.

IRQ Sharing is horrid (But is privailent in ALL xpress 3200 chipset motherboards right from asus to dfi to abit, all are effected).

Pros:

Excellent performer, Very fast and stable beyond reason.

Excellent overclocker, allows extensive settings on voltages and frequencies not to mention to the detail specific settings on ram and cpu settings.

Excellent automatic overvolting, does an excellent job of figureing out the best voltages if you adjust one thing and allow the motherboard to figure out if the northbridge/southbridge needs more juice.

Excellent in failure to post and incorrect settings. Never have i once had to go into the case and reset the cmos manually. If you set a setting in the bios, or whatever you can think of even to insane settings (mind you being aware that you could blow up your machine at to insane of a settings), letting the system run with no post for 20 seconds roughly then doing a forced 4 second shutdown with an automatic reboot, has ALWAYS reset to defaults with the choice to keep the older settings but modify them by hitting F1 or reverting to defaults full out by hitting F2. Excellent design, works every time.

Crossfire works great on this board with no hassles, even if you have the mastercard in the bottom slot, a simple change to the PCI-EX Boot priority will resolve it. Default is PCI-EX1~>PCI-EX2 (top slot ~> bottom slot).

Full Featured, couldn't have more options on this board within reason.

Probably the best next to the Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe 939 board you could buy and use.

Best Onboard Audio, Realtek's ALC882 HD Audio. Nothing beats this atm.

My findings on the A8R32-MVP:

(1) Problem with using a WD Raptor 74GB HD on the Sil controller (speed 9-10MB/s confirmed by others) Asus ignores problem as usual.

(2) Ridiculous vdroop when overclocking. Setting it to 1.45v + 200 leads to a vcore of just over 1.5v

(3) Overclocking and performance not any better than the ASRock 939Dual-SATA2

(4) Q-fan not working

For a motherboard that costs almost 3x the price of the ASRock that's inexcusable. Even factoring in the price of an eSATA PCI-E x1 card and a PCI RAID controller, I get the feature set and performance/overclocking ability of the A8R32-MVP for under $100.

ALSO, what about your thoughts on the AT8 32X?

edit: Almost forgot: (5) ~300-310 HTT wall

[Judas]

AT8 32x has similare issues, frankly i don't use the Silcone image chip, i use the ULi. However i've hooked up a 150gb WD raptor to the silcone chip to do a quick transfer from my ULi raid 4x 0 array, took rather zero time to do it, But i was using x64 and the latest Silicon Image Driver available at the time.

Silicon image could potentially have a hardware fault if the WD Raptor 74gb hd ends up using a form of PIO Mode 4 to transfer (9-10mb/s would be about right in that mode).

I've set on both Asus Boards the VCore to maximum and sustain a fairly solid vcore, 1.4+200 with a 1.59 average vcore. Sure it's not spot on, but it's damn close. Frankly at this voltage though, thing are extremely hot, even with water cooling it's a bit toasty warm. I only ran this for about 1-2 hours before reverting back to a more minimal voltage.

Q-Fan i hate, i never touch it, leave to defaults.

Can you throw up the ASRock results so i can see and compare perhaps?

BTW the Abit board i've found to have issues in other departments, while i may be able to get a higher HTT, my stability is crap. Plus i couldn't overclock the cpu itself any higher at all, actually slower to maintain stability.

Frankly Abit did a fairly decent job, but in my eyes, they still have a bit of work to do before i'll be buying thier products again regularly.

[Bar81]

Originally Posted by Judas

AT8 32x has similare issues, frankly i don't use the Silcone image chip, i use the ULi. However i've hooked up a 150gb WD raptor to the silcone chip to do a quick transfer from my ULi raid 4x 0 array, took rather zero time to do it, But i was using x64 and the latest Silicon Image Driver available at the time.

Silicon image could potentially have a hardware fault if the WD Raptor 74gb hd ends up using a form of PIO Mode 4 to transfer (9-10mb/s would be about right in that mode).

I've set on both Asus Boards the VCore to maximum and sustain a fairly solid vcore, 1.4+200 with a 1.59 average vcore. Sure it's not spot on, but it's damn close. Frankly at this voltage though, thing are extremely hot, even with water cooling it's a bit toasty warm. I only ran this for about 1-2 hours before reverting back to a more minimal voltage.

Q-Fan i hate, i never touch it, leave to defaults.

Can you throw up the ASRock results so i can see and compare perhaps?

BTW the Abit board i've found to have issues in other departments, while i may be able to get a higher HTT, my stability is crap. Plus i couldn't overclock the cpu itself any higher at all, actually slower to maintain stability.

Frankly Abit did a fairly decent job, but in my eyes, they still have a bit of work to do before i'll be buying thier products again regularly.

No hardware fault, showed up on all boards my dealer had and confirmed by another user here on DH. It's a problem with Asus's BIOS and they just blatently ignored me as soon as I showed them the evidence and they couldn't weasel out of it and blame another party. The drive works fine on all other Sil3132 controllers including those integrated on mobos.

The reason I got the A8R32-MVP was to use all five internal controllers (and the eSATA) so having the Sil be a no go is a major issue for me and others like me. Either way, not being able to use it if you have a 74GB Raptor is a MAJOR defect - if it's on the board it should work properly. I have 2x RAID 1 arrays on the ULi controller. Besides, the Sil controller is slightly superior in performance to the ULi controller. There's just NO excuse.

Being close in unacceptable. There should not be vdroop of that magnitude on a board in the price range of A8R32-MVP. Even if it was "only" .06 as in your case (I hope that's under load) that's pretty significant. I experienced more severe vdroop. My ASRock doesn't have near the vdroop of the Asus - around .04 max under load.

Qfan is a major feature they advertise, again NO excuse for it to not be working. Granted I have Zalman controllers for all my fans but still, I'm sure most users don't. Besides, the point of using Qfan was to remove the clutter in my case from the Zalman controllers.

With the ASRock 939Dual-SATA2 I can get 300x9 (2.7Ghz) with a 166 mem divider (2x 1GB Mushkin PC4000 Redline just below DDR500 speed at 2.7v - Can do well over 260mhz on the memory if I so choose (260x10) but obviously prefer the higher CPU speed).

Just got the ASRock voltmodded to give up to 1.55v so we'll see if we can squeeze 2.8Ghz out of it. I know I can get 2.75 (306x9) on my Opty 170 on default volts but I like to work in whole 100mhz amounts so I took it down to 2.7Ghz.

Was the Abit using the latest 1.2 BIOS? How much lower was your total overclock compared to the Asus?

[Judas]

although i'm aware of the issue and i don't have the problem atm, i agree that asus has a bios to complete and work on, however for most peoples general use, or even for more of the higherend users or overclockers, this board is quite steller with the 502.

Plus, the pricetag on it wasn't exactly that steep in comparison to other boards i've purchased.

Namely the still excessively expensive and old Socket A Abit AT7-MAX2 which sported features that most of all highend boards never had.

And at a retail initial value of 309 later to spike to nearly 400 bucks, damn well better work. But alas, it had Chipset fans issues, boot issues, overclocking issues, and being unable to boot from a SATA HD royally blew however it was sporting SATA ports before SATA drives were even available so i don't hold a grudge against the board. It was a mighty excellent board in terms of the 4x IDE Channels allowing up to 8x Hardrives to be setup in a raid 0/1/0+1/5 and even other raid configurations that no one at all COULD GET at all on another board. Thanks to HighpointTechs 374 chipset, the ultimate board for IDE speeds.

No board is perfect, you found great results with the ABIT, in your department of using that board, i found myself sitting with better results with my Asus board.


Both companies need alot of work. But overall, each board are excellent boards reguardless.

The Asus Board i was able to sustain a 310mhz FSB (HTT) x 10 multiplier for a grand total of 3.1 ghz on this 4400+ for roughly 2 hours before my confidence and stability got a little out of hand, let alone the temperature reading was way to high for my likeing, but alas, the asus board booted and actually made it into windows.

Abit however didn't fair that well.

Right now with the asus board, i can sustain a 2.8ghz overclock Stable full out without a hitch, 9.5x293fsb (for some reason i've found that this asus board likes the final FSB value to be 3. why i haven't a clue, but stability and performance seems best @ 253/263/273/283/293/303/313, go figure, but maybe it has to do with my memory timings ratio being the way they are, not sure)

using a 1.350v + 0.200v boost

The abit board however would only allow a 2.73ghz (10x273fsb) overclock using same voltages, increaseing the voltages only increased the temperature with no stability gain at higher overclocks. Reguardless, pretty damn good, but i still found even @ 2.73, it was a little unstable. completely solid @ 2.6ghz mind you)

[Nightowl225]

I'm not having any stability problems, as I don't overclock and don't intend to. You must remember that the AT8 32X is only a moderate overclocker, so if one gets crazy with the overclocking on the AT8 32X one can expect problems. A review of the board point that out.

The AT8 32X works fine if one has the 1.2 bios on it.

[Bar81]

Originally Posted by Judas

Plus, the pricetag on it wasn't exactly that steep in comparison to other boards i've purchased.

Well, it's all relative. If one can get a $65 board that can do the same job in overclocking and provide all the features a user needs as a $160+ board then it's not a good value. If you can get a board under $100 that has the exact same feature set and overclocking ability as a $160+ board then it's not a good value. If you can get a board for $65 that actually gets supported by the manufacturer versus a $160+ board that doesn't then that's not a good choice. You get the picture.

Originally Posted by Judas

No board is perfect,

Nobody was asking the Asus board to be perfect, just to have the advertised features work properly.

Originally Posted by Judas

The abit board however would only allow a 2.73ghz (10x273fsb) overclock using same voltages, increaseing the voltages only increased the temperature with no stability gain at higher overclocks. Reguardless, pretty damn good, but i still found even @ 2.73, it was a little unstable. completely solid @ 2.6ghz mind you)

Were you using BIOS 1.2 with the Abit?

[Bar81]

Originally Posted by Nightowl225

I'm not having any stability problems, as I don't overclock and don't intend to. You must remember that the AT8 32X is only a moderate overclocker, so if one gets crazy with the overclocking on the AT8 32X one can expect problems. A review of the board point that out.

The AT8 32X works fine if one has the 1.2 bios on it.

Actually, quite the opposite is true if you go by reviews, the Abit with the latest BIOS appears to be more stable and a better overclocker than the Asus. Head over to the XS forums and see all the bitching about the Asus.

[Judas]

bar i agree with you, but i've encounter so many boards that the features mentioned do not work to there full extent let alone out of the box, this applies to intels own boards to as well. Quality Control labs are lacking because they don't actually test everything to the fullest, and i'm aware of where you are coming from because quite often, i can find something wrong with everything fairly quickly, and actually need to use the damn sucker but can't do to the problems.

I've since learned to accept it, either return the board and try another or live with it while pushing the technical support emails like mad.


Yes i'm using the 1.2 bios.

[aiya]

to be fair, over the XS forums there is also a AT8 32X thread where users are not so thrilled with their boards.

it seems these boards are a hit or miss with users.

[Judas]

so far i've seen no issues with the pure refference designed Saphire board... but i've only one and i've got a x2 3800+ in the sucker.

[Nightowl225]

Originally Posted by aiya

to be fair, over the XS forums there is also a AT8 32X thread where users are not so thrilled with their boards.

it seems these boards are a hit or miss with users.

Go to the ABIT Forums on the ABIT website, the mods have reported that they've seen a lot of the troubles with the AT8 32X come from Antec Powersupplies. This is why people are having trouble with the board, most of them are running Antec Powersupplies. There is something wrong with Antec Powersupplies, which is why people are having a lot of trouble. I had troubles before I got my AT8 32X with an Antec TrueControl 2, and that trouble didn't quit until I got a Thermaltake Toughpower 700.

[Nightowl225]

Originally Posted by Bar81

Actually, quite the opposite is true if you go by reviews, the Abit with the latest BIOS appears to be more stable and a better overclocker than the Asus. Head over to the XS forums and see all the bitching about the Asus.

You should see the complaints on Xtremesystems.org, about the A8R32-MVP. I had an Intel 865PERL Board, and let me tell you that thing was a freakin piece of junk. Soon as I dropped a 3.0E in to that board, all hell broke loose, and then on top of it I couldn't flash to the latest bios on that board. I got rid of it, and went back to the P4P800SE.

According to what I've seen on the ABIT Forums, the AT8 32 is a decent board, once it's up and running, and they reported that the one of the main troubles with ABIT boards is people who are running Antec Powersupplies.

[Bar81]

Originally Posted by Judas

bar i agree with you, but i've encounter so many boards that the features mentioned do not work to there full extent let alone out of the box, this applies to intels own boards to as well. Quality Control labs are lacking because they don't actually test everything to the fullest, and i'm aware of where you are coming from because quite often, i can find something wrong with everything fairly quickly, and actually need to use the damn sucker but can't do to the problems.

I've since learned to accept it, either return the board and try another or live with it while pushing the technical support emails like mad.


Yes i'm using the 1.2 bios.

Fair enough. To be perfectly honest, even with all the problems I was willing to deal as none were dealbreakers for me except for the Sil problem with the Raptor - that was inexcusable.

I don't know how but I think I killed my ASRock board. At this point I've really lost faith with the AMD chipset camp. I think I'm gonna go with the Sapphire Manta board (given that it's an ATI reference board and is supposed to be a dream with the 4mB AMI Bios). I'll have to dump my A2ZS given that I'll only have one PCI slot and that goes to my Terrated DMX 6fire. I'm not running Xfire and never intend to so I should be able to put the vid card in the top slot, eSATA card in the single PCI-E x1 slot and use the onboard HD Audio for gaming. I'm pretty sure the Realteck AC880 will be good given the scores I've seen on the web on DC. If for some reason I really need an Audigy I'll just get one in PCI-E whenever the hell creative gets off its ass and slot it in the second PCI-E x16.

edit: Now I'm really gripping. Took the Opty and the ASRock to the dealer today and they're working. Unfortunately, what that means is that either the PSU, X1800XL or the Mushkin Redline is dead I'm guessing PSU based upon no fan spinning, etc. Took a PSU from my dealer to try but not happy obviously.

edit2: pulled everything out of the case and gave it a shot and it booted right up No idea why for two days it wouldn't boot up and then everything's fine. Oh well, either way, I'm relieved and I'll have a chance to rebuild and play tomorrow during some sort of national holiday. Crossing my fingers.

[Judas]

keep those crossed fingers crossed.

i would be on your look out for that machine dieing (or some part) soon or who knows how long, just don't be serprised if something goes pop.

Intermitent problems i hate. one day it'll boot the next nothing... yeah i hate when things do that.