BIOS
ABIT's BIOSes are usually right up there with the best in the business.
A couple of things to note here. The AX8's BIOS allows you to save/restore 5 BIOS configurations into memory. The benefit of such a feature is in not having to manually input each setting if the board should not boot. You could, for example, have a couple of performance BIOSes alongside safe configs. It's the kind of feature which makes you think why it wasn't implemented years ago. The board's performance parameters are set from the µGuru menu.
Under user defined mode, the external clock can be set to any frequency between 200-400MHz. Multiplier factors, relevant if you're using an FX iteration of CPU, range from 5-25x, giving plenty of scope to overclockers. PCI-Express and regular PCI frequencies can be locked at their default levels of 100MHz and 33MHz, respectively, although you do have to option of raising both. It's a shame that the CPU's core voltage cannot be reduced below default. Running at <1.5v, at stock speeds, will allow for a quieter system. On the upside, it goes all the way to 1.85v, and our sample didn't undervolt greatly. The K8T890 chipset still uses DDR1 memory, so voltages range from 2.5-3.2v; just enough to get the best out of high-performance memory. There's also an DDR voltage offset by +/- 100mV, but, according to the voltage-monitoring section, it didn't actually do anything. Northbridge voltage range from 1.5-1.6v, southbridge from 2.5-2.8v, and HyperTransport voltage from 1.2-1.4v. Generous levels all around.
Reporting is as impressive as ever, with temperature, voltage, and fan speed all covered. There is, however, no on-the-fly overclocking with the shipping -10 BIOS.
You can tweak DDR to your heart's content. This is exactly why it's useful to be able to save a particular configuration. 2-2-2-5 1T is what we like. As usual, features can be enabled and disabled at a flick of a key. Given the generous voltages and excellent reporting, ABIT is clearly aiming the AX8 to enthusiasts.
