Abit's Fatal1ty AM2 board goes even faster

ABIT is back in the game and we again had a chance to play one of its great marketing boards made for AM2 CPUs. It is one more in our series of upcoming socket AM2 reviews followed by a massive CPU test.

We have known Jonathan Wendel, also known as Fatal1ty, for some time and he sort of helped Abit to make the ultimate gaming motherboard. That's how Fatal1ty AN9 32X was born. We have to add that Jonathan has a really great appetite and can eat a lot of Chinese food, as paid by the Inquirer in London's Soho.

Abit made a board for a little Jonnie the Fatal1ty packed in one eye-catching box and the board itself is a nice piece of marchitecture. It is based on Nvidia re-marketed Nforce 590 SLI Northbridge and SPP 190 Northbridge chipset, the top of the hill packed with many feature. The key one is two times PCIe 16X graphic slots. Yes the board has two Northbridge but the one of them acts as a Southbridge.

The board supports all socket AM2 CPU's including Cool n Quiet marchitecture, supports four DDR 2 memory modules up to DDR 2 800 and even faster when overclock, has on board dual Nvidia Gigabit LAN card, 7.1 channel HD Audio Max Cad for audio. The board has two PCIe 16X slots, two PCIe 1X slot and a single PCI slot. You can choose between Physics card and Sound Blaster but as anyway the choice is yours. Both won't fit in the board. You can connect a floppy, one IDE cable, six USB ports with USB 2.0 headers, two firewire devices, sixt SATA II connectos and a single Audio Max slot for a audio raiser card. The back panel includes two PS2 ports, four USB 2.0 ports, two LAB ports. The board supports SATA RAID 0/1/0+1 and 5 or JBOD mode. The board is based on Abit Guru Marchitecture and is using Silent OTES chipset cooling that everyone wants to copy these days. Of course the board is using Japanese capacitors only.

We like the OTES cooling as its silent and at the same time Abit mounted two small fans to cool the capacitors and chipsets via heathpipe as many people will like to use the overclocked fatality board.

The package includes six SATA cables, four USB 2.0 raiser card, rounded IDE and Floppy cables, back panel, a raiser card to separate two PCIe cards, and an additional fan that can cool the board even better.

We always liked the fact that Abit boards always had loads of overclocking settings under the bios hood. You can change just about anything and you won't regret getting this board if you want to overclock your CPU. You can tweak the multiplier, FSB, Hyper transport, all kind of voltages including the Northbridge voltage and this will certainly help you overclock your CPU. The memory settings are unbelievable as you can tweak just about anything.

We decided to test this board versus Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe board that we already reviewed here. We used well known FX 62 CPU to compare the boards. This is what we found out.

Benchmarketing
We used :
Abit Fatal1ty AN9 32X motherboard
Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe Nforce 4 SLI X16 motherboard
Athlon FX 62 2800 MHz 90 nanometre Windsor core
2x1024 MB DDR2 Corsair CM2X1024-6400C3 memory
Leadtek PX7950GX2 TDH 500 Mhz /1200 MHz
Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 400GB SATA NCQ hard drive
Akasa AK913 EVO 33 Athlon 64 cooler
Silverstone Strider ST60F, 600W ATX 2.0 SATA
Driver 84_21_forceware_winxp2k_whq

Doom 3	1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200	2048x1536
Abit Fatal1ty AN9 32X - Leadtek PX7950GX2 TDH	127.3	126.4	126.1	116.0
Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe - Leadtek PX7950GX2 TDH	126.5	123.2	122.9	114.5
?	?	?	?	?
Doom 3 High Quality FSAA 4X + Aniso 8X	1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200	2048x1536
Abit Fatal1ty AN9 32X - Leadtek PX7950GX2 TDH	126.1	119.5	103.3	71.9
Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe - Leadtek PX7950GX2 TDH	125.2	117.1	102.2	71.4
?	?	?	?	?
Far Cry High Quality FSAA 4X + Aniso 8X	1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200	2048x1536
Abit Fatal1ty AN9 32X - Leadtek PX7950GX2 TDH	102.79	101.35	100.27	76.80
Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe - Leadtek PX7950GX2 TDH	97.28	96.51	96.36	76.82
?	?	?	?	?
Quake 4	1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200	2048x1536
Abit Fatal1ty AN9 32X - Leadtek PX7950GX2 TDH	174.9	167.9	166.2	153.2
Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe - Leadtek PX7950GX2 TDH	169.6	168.3	163.6	151.5
?	?	?	?	?
Quake 4 High Quality FSAA 4X + Aniso 8X	1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200	2048x1536
Abit Fatal1ty AN9 32X - Leadtek PX7950GX2 TDH	167.1	158.8	149.6	121.0
Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe - Leadtek PX7950GX2 TDH	165.0	156.6	146.5	119.4
?	?	?	?	?
FEAR	1024x768	1280x960	1600x1200	2048x1536
Abit Fatal1ty AN9 32X - Leadtek PX7950GX2 TDH	144	133	111	77
Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe - Leadtek PX7950GX2 TDH	141	130	108	77
?	?	?	?	?
FEAR High Quality FSAA 4X + Aniso 16X	1024x768	1280x960	1600x1200	2048x1536
Abit Fatal1ty AN9 32X - Leadtek PX7950GX2 TDH	125	97	70	45
Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe - Leadtek PX7950GX2 TDH	124	94	69	45
?	?	?	?	?
Serious Sam 2	1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200	2048x1536
Abit Fatal1ty AN9 32X - Leadtek PX7950GX2 TDH	153.4	151.2	149.9	127.5
Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe - Leadtek PX7950GX2 TDH	153.4	150.5	150.1	127.3
?	?	?	?	?
Serious Sam 2 High Quality FSAA 4X + Aniso 16X	1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200	2048x1536
Abit Fatal1ty AN9 32X - Leadtek PX7950GX2 TDH	152.4	141.4	122.8	91.5
Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe - Leadtek PX7950GX2 TDH	152.0	140.5	123.0	91.3
?	?	?	?	?
Half life 2 FSAA 4X + Aniso 16X	1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200	2048x1536
Abit Fatal1ty AN9 32X - Leadtek PX7950GX2 TDH	81.18	70.13	66.73	58.52
Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe - Leadtek PX7950GX2 TDH	81.39	69.85	66.48	58.32
?	?	?	?	?
Composite Figures 3Dmark 03	3DMark 03	Game2	Game3	Game3
Abit Fatal1ty AN9 32X - Leadtek PX7950GX2 TDH	30023	261.6	213.0	181.9
Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe - Leadtek PX7950GX2 TDH	30020	261.3	212.7	181.7
?	?	?	?	?
CPU Test	CPU Score ?	CPU Test 1 ?	CPU Test 2
Abit Fatal1ty AN9 32X - Leadtek PX7950GX2 TDH	1421	155.7	25.7	?
Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe - Leadtek PX7950GX2 TDH	1420	154.4	25.8	30.8
?	?	?	?	?
Composite Figures 3Dmark 03	Single Texturinng	Multi Textur.	Vertex Shader	Pixel Shader 2.0
Abit Fatal1ty AN9 32X - Leadtek PX7950GX2 TDH	8246.1	22445.7	88.7	411.1
Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe - Leadtek PX7950GX2 TDH	8241.0	22440.6	88.7	410.1
?	?	?	?	?
Composite Figures 3Dmark 05	3DMark 05	Game1	Game2	Game2
Abit Fatal1ty AN9 32X - Leadtek PX7950GX2 TDH	13664	52.3	42.1	73.9
Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe - Leadtek PX7950GX2 TDH	13585	52.2	41.7	73.7
?	?	?	?	?
CPU Test	CPU Score ?	CPU Test 1 ?	CPU Test 2
Abit Fatal1ty AN9 32X - Leadtek PX7950GX2 TDH	7477	3.2	7.8	64.8
Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe - Leadtek PX7950GX2 TDH	7350	3.3	7.2	30.8
?	?	?	?	?
Composite Figures 3Dmark 05	Single Texturinng	Multi Textur.	Pixel Shader	VS/VS complex
Abit Fatal1ty AN9 32X - Leadtek PX7950GX2 TDH	9468.9	22765.0	638.9	130.0/95.0
Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe - Leadtek PX7950GX2 TDH	9493.1	22760.0	637.5	129.9/95.2
?	?	?	?	?
Composite Figures 3Dmark 06	3DMark 06	?	?
Abit Fatal1ty AN9 32X - Leadtek PX7950GX2 TDH	8080	?	?	?
Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe - Leadtek PX7950GX2 TDH	8094	?	?	?
?	?	?	?	?
SM2.0 Test	Score	GT1	GT2
Abit Fatal1ty AN9 32X - Leadtek PX7950GX2 TDH	3628	28.971	31.503	?
Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe - Leadtek PX7950GX2 TDH	3646	29.095	31.672
?	?	?	?	?
HDR/SM3.0 Test	Score	HDR1	HDR2
Abit Fatal1ty AN9 32X - Leadtek PX7950GX2 TDH	3475	30.841	38.661	?
Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe - Leadtek PX7950GX2 TDH	3494	30.949	38.923
?	?	?	?	?
CPU Test	Score	CPU1	CPU2
Abit Fatal1ty AN9 32X - Leadtek PX7950GX2 TDH	2140	0.681	1.075	?
Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe - Leadtek PX7950GX2 TDH	2120	0.668	1.076
?	?	?	?	?
PC Mark 2005	CPU	Memory	HDD	Total
Abit Fatal1ty AN9 32X - Leadtek PX7950GX2 TDH	5737	5177	5307	6358
Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe - Leadtek PX7950GX2 TDH	5696	5161	5253	6302

We used our standard set of benchmarks and surprise, surprise Abit's Fatal1ty AN9 32Xwas able to get on top of Asus in most of the cases. In Doom 3 Fatal1ty AN9 board manages to get up to three frames faster that Asus board based on the same chipset. That is a lot for a motherboard. Doom 3 with 4X FSAA and 8X Aniso shows the same trend and the Fatal1ty is one to two frames faster than Asus. Sometimes it's half of a frame but it's faster. In Far Cry with 4X FSAA and 8X Aniso Fatal1ty AN9 32X manages to stay five frames faster in the first three resolutions. This is incredible a lot for a motherboard but the performances equals on the 20x15 resolution.

AT 10x7 Fatal1ty wins in Quake 4 by as much as five frames, it loses by 0.4 frames in 12x10, wins again by three frames at 16x12 and wins by two frames at 20x15 resolution. Fatal1ty AN9 is two to three frames faster in Quake 4 with FSAA 4X and 8X Aniso in every single case.

FEAR runs three frames faster on AN9 than on Asus with an exception of the top resolution where the scores are equal. In FEAR FSAA 4X and Aniso 16X at 10x7 AN9 runs one frame faster, on 12x10 its three frames faster, 16x12 again one frame faster and its tight at 20x15. serious Sam 2 scores are almost identical and in best case AN9 wins by 0.7 frames at 12x10 but Asus also wins by 0.2 at 16x12 while the other two resolutions are tight. Serious Sam High Quality FSAA 4X + Aniso 16X shows the same trend and its slighty faster at than Asus by 0.9 frames in best case scenario. It also loses at 16x12 by 0.2 to Asus.

Half Life 2 FSAA 4X and 8X aniso scores are tight with a slight advantage on Abit Fatal1ty AN9 32X SLI side.

On Abit's board 3DMark 03 runs insignificant three points faster. It is 89 points faster in 3Dmark05 again nothing to be excited too much about but it is interesting to see that the CPU runs a little bit faster on Abit's board. Asus wins the 3Dmark06 by insignificant fourteen points but jet again CPU is slightly faster on Abit's board.

PCmark05 including the CPU, memory and hard drive scores will run slightly faster on on Abit Fatal1ty AN9 32X SLI board.

In Short
Abit did a good job with its Fatal1ty AN9 32X SLI board. It has all you need, it runs faster than the competition and it can run up to five frames faster in games such as Far Cry. This is a lot for a motherboard as the scores are usually much tighter than we seen in this case. You can overclock the board and the most important it's a rock solid one. It doesn't have W lan support as Asus but its not missing much either. We would like to have more than a single PCI slot but Abit decided we don't need it, I for example do need two but apart of that we could not find any serious objection to this board. We can highly recommend it. It wont be cheap it will set around €199 price point but we think it's a worthy piece of hardware.

Its good to know that Abit is back in the high end motherboard league and that the company continues to make the good boards. ?

Reviewed and tested by Sanjin Rados and Fuad Abazovic