Abit KV8 Pro v1.1
Abit is a company that enthusiasts should definitely recognize. Abit has been known for their excellent overclocking motherboards since the ancient days of Pentium IIs and Celerons. Their Socket A KT7 motherboard, based on VIA's KT133 chipset, was considered the motherboard closest to perfection. They continued the trend with the KT7A, KR7A, KX7, and so forth. Boy, those were the days. Many argue about the quality of their NF7 series of motherboards. It went through a total of 4 revisions to fix major bugs and problems. Some argue that Abit lacked ability in fine tuning a motherboard, while others argue that Abit listens to what the overclockers demand. Nonetheless, the NF7 v2.0 is a great board, perhaps the best Socket A motherboard, if you know what you're doing. As AMD introduced the Athlon64, Abit introduced their first Socket 754 motherboard. The first one, version 1.0, came with one huge bug--no AGP/PCI locks. Everyone looked down on Abit for not providing working AGP/PCI locks and turned away for quite some time. Fortunately, Abit was quick with their revisions and came up with the current version--v1.1. It provides working AGP/PCI locks to allow for potentially great overclocking results. While many consider Socket 754 an aging socket, it should still stick around for a while. Heck, Socket A is still around, so why not Socket 754?
Abit KV8 Pro v1.1 Package
The KV8 Pro
comes in Abit's signature orange/red PCB. This color usage started
with the NF7 series and continues on for both AMD and
Intel systems. The bundle in the KV8 Pro is rather light.
Although rounded cables are way better than flat cables, there is only
one included for IDE. There's the usual floppy cable (also
rounded), a user's manual, quick installation guide, drivers CD, floppy
of RAID drivers, I/O plate, and two SATA cables. There's nothing
fancy about the bundle; It's meant to be a budget
board for the budget enthusiast.
Motherboard Layout
The KV8 Pro
utilizes VIA's K8T800 Pro chipset. Unlike Nvidia's nForce3
offerings, the K8T800 Pro continues the use of both the Northbridge and
the Southbridge. Although AMD's Athlon64 CPUs have on-die memory
controllers, the use of two separate bridges is still ideal, at
least it is to me. One reason is that it reduces the amount of
stress on the bridges. The Northbridge still handles the usual
interaction of graphic card to CPU, but just no longer handles the
memory interface. This can really help with cooling. The
less load on a chipset, the less heat it produces. The VT8237
Southbridge still acts the same and is the controller of your normal
drives, audio, USB connections, PCI buses, and other extra goodies.
The placement of these two separate bridges also allows for better
cooling alternatives. Like I mentioned in the
DFI
LANParty UT nF3 250Gb review, Nvidia's placement of their nForce3
chipset just plain sucks. It doesn't mean that I don't like
Nvidia's chipset, I just don't like the placement. With VIA's
solution, you can find better cooling for the Northbridge; but that's
not really needed, as the passive heatsink is already sufficient.
Both the Northbridge and Southbridge ran perfectly fine during load
tests and didn't cause any heat issues whatsoever. The passive
heatsink was barely warm to the touch.
The location
of the IDE ports are located at the bottom right corner, where most hard
drives reside at. One IDE port should sit at the upper half of the
motherboard, though, because that's where the usual optical drives are
located. If you happen to install this board in a larger full
tower, you might run into troubles if your cables aren't long enough.
What I like about the IDE ports is that it faces a 0° angle, instead of
the usual 90° angle. This allows the cables to be folded and
tucked away more easily. The SATA ports are located right next to
the IDE ports, and are controlled by VIA's VT8237 Southbridge.
Abit provides 2 IDE ports and 2 SATA ports for a total of 6 possible
drives. The SATA ports allow RAID 0, RAID 1, or JBOD. The floppy port is located right above the ATX
connector. These two should be switched around; but their
positions are still tolerable. Notice in the picture that there
are only two DIMM slots. When I first saw it, I was very
disappointed. Although most users will only use 2 DIMMs for a
total of 1GB system memory, Abit shouldn't stray away from the norm of 3
slots. The extra slot might come in handy when using the OCZ
Booster or just adding another stick of RAM.
The KV8 Pro
comes with 5 PCI slots and 1 AGP slot. I always wonder why
companies supply so many PCI slots when onboard features are becoming so
plentiful. But still, there are plenty of PCI slots for your extra
peripherals. The AGP slot comes with the usual locking device that
we all come to favor. Unlike the hideous lock on the DFI, the KV8
Pro's AGP lock allows easy installation and removal of graphic cards.
To the right of the PCI slots are the usual two USB headers for more USB
ports. The position of these headers is not very ideal, but only
applies to those who actually makes use of these PCI slots. The
cables to the USB headers can get in the way of add-on cards. One
extremely annoying placement was the CMOS jumper. It's located
directly next to the AGP slot. Ideally you would want the CMOS
jumper to be at the bottom of the motherboard, far away from components
that might get in your way of access. Enthusiasts will definitely
get annoyed when playing with overclocks on this motherboard, especially
if you're working inside a case. It was no problem for me only
because my test bench was in an open environment and I was able to
access the jumper from various angles. The space between the DIMM
slots and the AGP slot is ample and doesn't require removal of graphic
cards to install or remove RAM.
Motherboard Layout Continued
At the back
I/O, the KV8 Pro provides the usual PS2 keyboard and mouse ports, 1
serial, 1 parallel, 4 USB, 1 Ethernet, audio in and out jacks, and 1
optical in with 1 optical out. The onboard sound solution is
controlled by Realtek's ALC658. Since this is considered to be a
budget motherboard, the 6-channel sound solution is good enough for the
mass majority. Audiophiles will probably look for something
better, but I found that the onboard sound was good enough for my
typical music listening and games. The broadband connection is
controlled by VIA's own VT6122.
The front
I/O connectors are at the bottom right corner of the motherboard.
If you look closely enough, there are markings for proper connections.
You won't really need to refer to the user's manual. Next to the
front I/O connections are the diagnostic LED's. While some find
them
rather useless, I tend to like diagnostic LED's for the sake of
simplicity. It does help to figure out what went wrong when there
is a no POST. It also helps with the overclocking process.
If the codes don't change, you know that the system failed to boot.
Be sure to keep in mind that your power supply needs to have a -5v rail
in order for the diagnostic LEDs to work. Above the front I/O is
Abit's signature uGuru chip. uGuru is Abit's in-Windows software
overclocking utility that provides enthusiasts the ease of tweaking the
system without having to go through BIOS and restarts all the time.
I'll cover more of this later on.
The CPU
socket area around the KV8 Pro is rather cluttered, but using aftermarket
cooling solutions should have no problems. One thing is that
because the motherboard is smaller than the standard full ATX size, the
DIMM slots are closer to the CPU socket area. This means that if
you plan on using large heatsinks, like the Zalman CNPS7700 series or
even Thermalright XP series, you'll probably want to install the memory
before installing the heatsink. Removing the memory will probably
require removal of the heatsink first. The CPU fan header is
located right above the DIMM slots and is well within range of the CPU
socket. Although the board is meant as a budget motherboard and
comes in a smaller size, the KV8 Pro provides enthusiasts a whopping
total of 5 fan headers.
BIOS
One of the
main reasons why Abit became so successful was signature SoftMenu
overclocking section of the BIOS. All the adjustments you need for
overclocking are located under one area so you won't have to go through
different sections just to find voltage options. In the case of
motherboards that feature Abit's uGuru, that section is called the uGuru
Utility. Inside, you have the options of HTT frequency, CPU
multiplier, AGP bus, and all the typical voltage settings.
The KV8 Pro BIOS comes
with some great voltage options and memory adjustments. Although
not as rich as the DFI LANParty UT nF3 250Gb, the KV8 Pro also provides
extra memory settings than the typical CAS, TRCD, TRP, TRAS. While
the VDIMM may seem a little lacking to some, it is actually enough for
the popular TCCD based memory. If you own a pair of BH5 or UTT,
you'll be happy to know that uGuru supplies up to 3.2v. More will
be explained on uGuru later.
Notice in the image below
that the default clock on the KV8 Pro comes at 204HTT. This is
commonly found in current Abit motherboards. Companies often do
these little things to show that they have higher performance.
It's a bit of "cheating". I manually
adjusted the clock to run at 200HTT just like all other boards tested
for comparison.
Software
The software
bundle of the KV8 Pro is relatively light, because there are
no extra programs included. All the necessary drivers are included
on one drivers disc. However, it does come with the great program: uGuru. As mentioned before, Abit's uGuru program is a
Windows based utility that allows enthusiasts to overclock on the fly.
This means that you can overclock while you work in Windows and don't
have to bother with multiple system restarts. If the system
crashed because you overclocked too high, the system will restart and
restore to your last BIOS settings.
uGuru
doesn't come with just the overclocking feature, it also comes with
Abit's FlashMenu, BlackBox, and Abit EQ. The FlashMenu is a
Windows based utility to update your motherboard to the latest BIOS.
While I tend to stay away from Windows based programs for BIOS updates
and prefer the traditional DOS method, the FlashMenu can come in handy
at times when you want to "force/trick" the system into using a beta
BIOS. The BlackBox feature is used for technical support. If
you have problems with your system, simply run BlackBox to detect your
hardware information and then send it in to Abit. And within 24
hours, Abit will get back to you and try to figure out your problems.
The Abit EQ is Abit's hardware monitoring utility. It provides
users information on voltage lines, temperatures, and fan RPMs.
Now we get
to the fun utility--Abit's OC Guru. The OC Guru is the one most
enthusiasts will mess with. It allows users access to SoftMenu and
overclock from there. There is a slider for the HTT frequency and
a slider for the AGP bus. Unfortunately, I was unable to move the
AGP bus. Through the OC Guru, it seems that the AGP bus isn't
locked. It would change if I increased the HTT. The most
wonderful thing about the OC Guru is that it allowed higher VDIMM
options. Through the BIOS, users were given a maximum of 2.8v.
Through the OC Guru, users had access to a high of 3.2v. This is
certainly good news for enthusiasts who still own voltage hungry memory.
Test Setup and Overclocking
Test
Setup:
Overclocking: Overclocking the KV8 Pro was a dream. Like the DFI LANParty UT nF3 250Gb, the KV8 Pro provided some impressive results. I proceeded to find the highest HTT allowed with both single and dual sticks of memory installed. The first test will be conducted with the memory divider at 1:1. The second test will be with a divider, so that the RAM wouldn't pose as a bottleneck. All memory timings were left at 3-4-4-8 2T and the LDT multiplier at 1x. I made sure that nothing would bottleneck the chipset potential. The reason why I tested with two sticks of memory is that most systems today makes good use of 1GB or more. Running 512MB can get a little slow at times, especially during game loads.
The results are definitely impressive to say the least. Although the results weren't as high as the DFI, it's still very close. Socket 754 is known not to be very overclocking friendly when two sticks of memory are installed. You do get some great results when running a divider though. Since this is considered to be a budget board, you'll probably end up using one stick of RAM. If so, you'll definitely be able to go somewhere if you spend some time familiarizing with the board.
Results
During testing, all HTT
are manually set to 200MHZ. Command rate was set at 1T and only
the normal CAS, TRCD, TRP, TRAS were adjusted to 2-2-2-5.
Sysmark 2004
Sysmark2004
is a very common benchmark used to measure a system's potential in
performance. It goes through long, grueling tests that include
compression, decompression, and office intensive programs.
3DMark2001SE
3DMark is
probably the overclocker's favorite benchmark. Unlike 3DMark2003, which
stresses mainly the video card, 3DMark2001SE tests all of the system's
main components. Increasing the CPU speed, memory speed, and video card
speeds will result in higher results in the final score. Although
not quite as fast as the K8N-E, the KV8 Pro still scores higher than the
DFI. This is due to the fact that the DFI needs much more
memory tweaking in order to keep up.
PCMark2004
The
PCMark2004 system benchmark puts the entire system to work. The
KV8 Pro only scored just a little higher than the DFI.
PCMark2002
PCMark2002
is older than PCMark2004 but still very similar. Once again, the DFI
scores are lower, especially the memory bandwidth. The KV8 Pro
scored higher but is still behind the K8N-E.
Results Continued
Everest Home Edition
Everest Home
Edition is a good benchmark for testing memory performance. Since the
motherboard's overclocking potential and memory bandwidth is closely
related, I find this benchmark to be trustable.
SiSoft
Sandra
Like Everest
Home Edition, SiSoft Sandra memory bandwidth tests the motherboard's
memory bandwidth performance.
Super
PI
Since the
value of PI is an infinite value, Super PI is a speed test to find the
digit you're looking for. In this case, we chose the millionth digit.
Super PI benefits greatly from higher FSB as well as low latencies.
PiFast
PiFast is
similar to Super PI and the results can be greatly affected by a slight
adjustment to the memory megahertz and latency.
Unreal
Tournament 2004
Unreal
Tournament 2004 is a very popular game that is highly effected by the
system's performance. Testing was done under the resolution of 640x480
to minimize the dependency of GPU and CPU power.
Conclusion and Thoughts Abit's budget solution for the Socket 754 is indeed a decent success. Although the performance is not outstanding, it's still somewhat better than the acclaimed DFI. The use of VIA's chipset may or may not be ideal, due to VIA's bad history of chipset drivers, but Abit's implementation is well done. The KV8 Pro overclocked great and comes with abundant features to suit your needs. The onboard audio isn't top of the line, but gets the job done. The inclusion of many fan headers is admirable, considering the board is smaller than the full-sized ATX motherboard. The most impressive part of this motherboard is the price tag. Coming in at well below $100, the KV8 Pro provides some tough competition. Because it's so cheap and packs quite some power, the board is a good recommendation. Pros:
Cons:
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