Lately it seems that the AMD camp has been getting all of the attention in our motherboard reviews. With the exception of Ace's nForce 4 SLI for Intel review, Neoseeker.com hasn't seen any Intel action in a good long while. All of that is about to change.
Tossed into our eager hands has been the Abit AA8XE, a member of Abit's current flagship LGA 775 motherboard series, of which the "Fatal1ty AA8XE" is a much-talked about participant. Based on Intel's revised 925 chipset, the 925XE, this motherboard has been aimed to impress and surpass an enthusiast's expectations. Sporting an LGA 775 socket, 1066 MHz FSB, four DDR2 slots, DDR2-667 support, Matrix RAID, four PCI-Express slots, and a heap of other features, this looks to be a great offering from a highly respected manufacturer.
ABIT Computer Corporation has been one of the top brands of choice, if not the top brand, for hardware enthusiasts the world over. The quality and reliability of their products has let Abit make a name for themselves in a variety of industries, ranging from the professional enterprise to the tweaking geek at home. I think may people find they products that are powerful, flexible, and stable.
Let's see what Abit's efforts have amounted to in our review of the AA8XE motherboard!
Specifications
The specifications, as ripped from Abit's web site, are as follows:
| CPU | Designed for Intel 90 nm Pentium 4 LGA775 processors with 1066/800 MHz FSB
Supports Intel Hyper-Threading technology |
|---|
| Chipset | Intel 925XE/Intel ICH6R Express Chipset |
|---|
| Memory | Four 240-pin DIMM sockets (unbuffered non-ECC DIMMs)
Supports Dual-Channel DDR2-533/400 (Maximum 4 GB) |
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| Expansion Slots | 1x PCIe x16
3x PCIe x1
2x PCI |
|---|
| SATA Matrix RAID | Intel Matrix Storage Technology on 4 Serial ATA ports, RAID 0/1 delivers higher performance and data protection
Supports SATA AHCI, providing native command queuing and native hot plug |
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| High Definition Audio | On board Theater-class 7.1 Channels Intel® High Definition Audio
Professional digital audio interface supports auto jack sensing and optical S/PDIF In/Out |
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| IEEE 1394 | Supports 3 Ports IEEE 1394 at 100/200/400 Mb/s transfer rate |
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| Gigabit LAN | On board Gigabit LAN controller supports 10/100/1000M Ethernet |
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| ABIT Engineered | ABIT uGuru Technology (ABIT OC Guru / ABIT EQ / ABIT Flash Menu / ABIT Black Box)
ABIT CPU ThermalGuard Technology |
|---|
| Internal I/O Connectors | 1x Floppy Port supports up to 2.88MB
4x SATA 150 Connectors
1x Ultra ATA 100/66/33 Connector
2x USB 2.0 headers
2x IEEE 1394 headers
1x FP-Audio header
1x CD-IN |
|---|
| Back Panel I/O | 1x PS/2 Keyboard
1x PS/2 Mouse
1x Serial Port
1x Parallel Port
1x S/PDIF IN/OUT
6x Audio connector (Center/Subwoofer, Side Surround, Rear Surround, Line Out, Line-in, MIC-in)
4x USB
1x IEEE1394 Connector
1x RJ-45 GbE LAN Connector |
|---|
| Form Factor | ATX form factor (305 x 245 mm) |
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What catches my eye is the High-Definition on-board audio. Could we finally have decent on-board audio on the Intel platform? We just might. All in all, these are impressive specifications. Let's go on to inspect the board and its layout now.
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