• Welcome to Overclockers Forums! Join us to reply in threads, receive reduced ads, and to customize your site experience!

ABIT Fatal1ty AA8XE...any problems at all??

Overclockers is supported by our readers. When you click a link to make a purchase, we may earn a commission. Learn More.

MSGT_RAVEN

Registered
Joined
May 17, 2005
Im thinking of gettin a fatal1ty mobo for my new rig. it will have a intel 3.4GHz and a BFG Nvidia 6600GT OC 128MB with it. i was wonderin if anyone has problems with it.
 
I see you have picked out a PCI-E vid card, but you do know that you should get a 24-pin PSU and DDR2 RAM, right?
 
no, don't get the Fatal1ty board (or any abit board for the matter)


check out Epox's new EP-5LWA+ LGA775 board w/ the 925XE chipset - epox has been making some of the top AMD overclocking boards in the past, and how they finally made a high-end intel board

check out the review here: http://www.viperlair.com/reviews/cpu_mobo/epox/intel/lga775/ep5lwa/

and newegg has it here: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813123245


i personally can't wait til i get enough cash to upgrade my whole rig, cause this mobo is what i've been waiting for to make the move to LGA775


ps: i saw in your soon-to-be rig specs, you said 1gb of DDR400 - all intel 925 chipsets use DDR2 memory only, which comes in performance flavors of ddr2-533 & ddr2-667 (OEM flavors also inclue DDR2-400)
 
i like my fatal1ty it looks great with my x850xt and the ramflow is great if you have another system your running bh-5 or utt in.

ive had 2 of these boards the first one i botched as i dropped a cpu on the pins in a drunken stupor :rolleyes: i thought the 2nd board i got was a dud but it turned out it can scale up to 320mhz with slightly over stock voltage to the nb and if you reverse the dual otes so they draw air in you can actually get some pretty good over volted prescott temps on the mosfets without having to ghetto rig a fan over them.

my only complaint is with ddr2 it seems like it holds you back in 3d applications maybe its just me but running my rig @ 5.3ghz for benchmarks tends to render the same results as i was getting on a s478 @ 4.8 ish with tigher timings memory wise and right around the same fsb on the memory.

if your on a budget the vanilla aa8xe will probably reap you the same results in all honesty with the fatal1ty you are mostly paying extra for the sexy pcb and leds that it comes with.
 
Sneaky said:
ps: i saw in your soon-to-be rig specs, you said 1gb of DDR400 - all intel 925 chipsets use DDR2 memory only, which comes in performance flavors of ddr2-533 & ddr2-667 (OEM flavors also inclue DDR2-400)

id recommend the pc2 4200 3-2-2-8 sticks that ocz has atm. theres a couple other vendors who have some of the good micron stuff as well. to me ddr2 was a great way to get people to upgrade without needing it. whats sad is that imho theres never been a better time to oc with ddr memory with the recent onslaught of tccd and utt.
 
I have an AA8XE and can't say enough good about it. Very solid board that overclocks well. Like Hawtrawkr says, the Fatal1ty cost more for all the extra gimmicks, but it does look cool.
 
I looked at the specs of the Fatal1ty and it says that DDR400 RAM can be used. Though I am thinking about gettin DDR2 RAM instead though it costs more.
 
MSGT_RAVEN said:
I looked at the specs of the Fatal1ty and it says that DDR400 RAM can be used. Though I am thinking about gettin DDR2 RAM instead though it costs more.

you undoubtedly looked at the a8n fatal1ty its for amd socket 939 cpus and supports pcie video and is based on the nforce4 chipset. the intel version of this board is ddr2 only with the 925xe chipset.
 
There is DDR2-400 RAM, in fact I have some (PM me if you are interested). But, this ain't the same as regular DDR400. Rest assured, the AA8XE will only use DDR2 RAM. I'm 100% positive. I also have 2X512 of Kingston HyperX PC2-5400 that overclocks very well (got a screenie at DDR2-800). But, if you want tight timings, the OCZ EB rev 2 PC2-4200 that I'm currently running is very impressive (3-2-2-8).
 
batboy said:
There is DDR2-400 RAM, in fact I have some (PM me if you are interested). But, this ain't the same as regular DDR400. Rest assured, the AA8XE will only use DDR2 RAM. I'm 100% positive. I also have 2X512 of Kingston HyperX PC2-5400 that overclocks very well (got a screenie at DDR2-800). But, if you want tight timings, the OCZ EB rev 2 PC2-4200 that I'm currently running is very impressive (3-2-2-8).

ive got some of the ocz pc2 4200 as well and have been very impressed with it. i can run it up to 315mhz with 2.2v (which its rated for) @ 3-2-2-6 ive made 29 passes on memtest with these settings and could probably do even more if i had more time or a real reason to run it so fast other than bench runs (normaly run it @ 285 3-2-2-6 with 2.0v). with the micron chips used in the ocz (other memory is using these same ic's now so you can get them from companies besides ocz) ive seen people go as low as 3-2-2-4 @ around 300mhz range :clap:
 
I never even tried using 3-2-2-6, just always used 3-2-2-8. Hmmm, maybe I need to play around a little more.

Here is my OCZ EB rev 2 PC2-4200 screenshot at DDR2-700 using 3-2-2-8. Remember, PC2-5400 is rated DDR2-667.

OCZ-EB-cpuz-max.JPG


A word of warning for those with Abit AA8XE mobos, you probably need the latest BIOS for this RAM to work.
 
batboy said:
I never even tried using 3-2-2-6, just always used 3-2-2-8. Hmmm, maybe I need to play around a little more.


A word of warning for those with Abit AA8XE mobos, you probably need the latest BIOS for this RAM to work.

yeah try 3-2-2-6 or even 5 youll probably find they run just great that way. ive only tested mine up to 1:1 speeds since ive never noticed a gain at running the memory faster than the cpu/chipset. ill have to play around with my kits to see what i can milk out of them and how high theyll go with what timings. just a shame we cant drop that dreaded 3 down any lower though.

and yes you do need a newer bios for this el memory to work right with abits aa8xe flavors. you can send your memory to ocz and theyll change the default timings if you really need to or get someones stick of 5400 with 4-4-4-12 (which i realize isnt always the easist thing to do)
 
Back