Abit's NF5 is a fluke...

WHEN I OPENED a forum page containing a picture of the supposed Abit nForce5 based motherboard, I was delighted by the fact that Abit engineers picked the rose colour of the PCB, which was expressing hope for a better future after being bought by USI Corporation.

However, several things bugged me, and the very first thing that came to my attention was the positioning of the S-ATA ports, which was very similar to the ones used by other motherboard manufacturer - Microstar International, known as just MSI.

The last part of the whole caboodling was the fact that a first appearance of the same board happened way back at the beginning of February, when sources from MSI leaked pictures of their K9N Diamond motherboard and posted them on some forums and to the inboxes of a selected few - including yours truly.

The original board... made by MSI

So, the picture of Abit motherboard is a fake, however - the specs were semi-right: "nForce5" chipset in question is known under a name "MCP55", and its more or less the same nForce4 SLI chipset we know today, only featuring new enhancements in various sectors: it supports 20 PCIe lanes (so the two x16 slots you're seeing on a picture are electrically x16. Data throughput wise - x8), six SATA-II devices and one PATA interface, a single Gigabit Ethernet (nV GbE) and most importantly - eight-channel RealTek ALC882D High-Definition Audio chip.

Sadly, the board also comes with a new CPU bracket thingie, which makes all current Socket 754/939/940 coolers obsolete and uncompatible with new, more heating processors. Although, that will just be AMD playing a role of Intel for the second time in 2006 - server-launch on CeBIT will be the first (pinless Opterons).

And in the end, just one tiny-winy little thing: if you're a motherboard manufacturer and you are offering your Socket AM2 motherboard to be reviewed, do not ask for a serial number of the corelating CPU. Just darn rude and you are going to get an answer when hell freezes over (or ATI/Nvidia ditch their predictable GeForce/Radeon brands) and not even then. µ

L'INQ
Flower-Power "Abit" mobo

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