Abit KV8-MAX3 motherboard put through paces

AMD'S CLAWHAMMER CPU, of which the Athlon 64 3200+ is the sole standard-bearer, is an altogether impressive CPU. Running at a nominal 2GHz, you'd think it would have little or no chance against a Pentium 4 Northwood 800MHz FSB processor with a 60% faster clock speed. Clock speed, however, is only one of the factors required to determine overall performance.

We had an initial look at the Athlon 64 3200+ and two competing chipsets a couple of months ago. We found that both the nForce3 150 and VIA K8T800 were fast, stable and more than capable of extracting decent performance from the aforementioned CPU. Well, with an on-die memory controller present, AMD, with due respect to performance, had done most of the hard work. All the chipset manufacturer had to do was ensure an efficient AGP implementation. NVIDIA and VIA are old hands are chipset design, so it's not at all surprising that both got it right first time.

Our look gave the nod to VIA K8T800 on the grounds of a better native feature set. We've now seen Biostar motherboards afford DRAM latency adjustment. We've also witnessed superlative performance from the single-channel designs if low latencies are inputted. In terms of gaming, the 2GHz Athlon 64 3200+ is our preferred CPU of choice. That's quite a recommendation.

ABIT has seen the considerable promise inherent in AMD's hybrid CPU and decided to launch what it reckons is the ultimate S754 motherboard. It chooses the VIA K8T800 chipset as a base and puts forward the KV8-MAX3. Is it all things to all men ?. The Pentium 4 version, whilst expensive, is one of the best Canterwood boards available. The KV8-MAX3 has something to live up to.

Abit's presentation skills are impressive right now. It used to be known as a company that focused, almost solely on performance above all else. Other industry heavyweights then realised the importance of a slick package. Potential buyers don't want to spend the wrong side of £100 and only have a motherboard to show for it. Abit's concerted effort at presentation has paid off handsomely. Rounded cables, decent manuals, complete SATA setup and the SecureIDE function make it above average in our eyes.

We'd like to pour the same kind of praise on the board's layout. That, however, isn't the case. The OTES board-cooling system is a nice enough system and does appear to work. One of its drawbacks is in the use of PCB space. Abit has decided to adopt what can only be described as a poor layout. The power plugs aren't situated in the positions we usually see them in on ABIT boards. System RAM cannot really be removed with the AGP card in place, and a Zalman 7000Cu cooler blocks off the first DIMM slot - not ideal, is it?

DIMM arrangement and the blocking off of the first slot by oversized coolers can also cause problems, as we found out to our cost. The KV8-MAX3 cannot add a module at DDR400 speeds in slot #3. It's fortunate that the VIA K8T800 is a single-channel design, but this still prohibits two, say, 256MB DDR400 modules running to spec. in slots 2 & 3. Our testing revoloved around the use of a single 512MB module.

Storage connectivity, though, is pretty robust. The K8T800's partner is the VT8237 Southbridge with native SATA support. Abit introduces another 4 SATA ports via Silicon Image's new controller, giving 6 in total. All kinds of wonderful RAID arrangements are available. Our test with HDTach showed both sets of SATA to be competent performers with the undesirable side-effect of high CPU utilisation. Layout south of the AGP port is better. We appreciate the gap between the port and the first PCI slot. Modern fan-assisted cards usually obscure the first slot. Abit uses the gap to house the FireWire controller from T.I, and Gigabit LAN is a nice touch.

Both the overall performance and BIOS are excellent, especially with respect to voltages. Manual latencies and Abit's newer take on SoftMenu that's helped by the inclusion of the microprocessor-controlled µGuru hardware monitoring and manipulation. It's usefulness extends into an OS environment. Our only concern here is that Asus' S754 boards appear to offer a selection of CPU multipliers for true tweakability. There's no mention made of it in the latest Abit A16 BIOS. The dark spectre of unlocked buses causes overclocking to be a concern.

Abit's first stab at S754 glory is a decent enough attempt. We'd prefer a revised layout that makes installation easier and a newer BIOS that uses AMD's Cool'n'Quiet tech. to the fullest. Like Asus, we'd like some form of control over the CPU's multiplier. The KV8-MAX3 isn't the perfect S754 board, but we feel that it has enough going for it to convince performance seekers over to the AMD 3xxx+ camp. It's extremely fast, stable with the correct DIMM population and boasts a refined BIOS and bundle. Perhaps a rev.2 board will iron out some of our more pressing concerns. MAX3 magic has been sprinkled on to the VIA K8T800 with encouraging results.

Bottom line - priced at around £130 from most good e-tailers, it's available immediately. You could do a whole lot worse. Whether you can do better is something that will become clear in the next few weeks as we look at implementations from Asus and Albatron. µ

You can read more of this review here. µ