Specifications
| ABIT Fatal1ty AA8XE | |
| CPU Support | All LGA775 processors (except dual-core models) |
| Northbridge | Intel i925XE |
| Memory Support | 4 slots, DDR-II only. Supports DDR2-400MHz, 533MHz, and 600MHz at 200MHz FSB. 4GB max, dual-channel |
| AGP | None |
| PEG | x16 from i925XE |
| Southbridge | Intel ICH6/R |
| Audio | 8-channel high-definition feed from ICH6/R to Realtek ALC880 CODEC |
| Audio Connectivity | 6-port add-in audio card, optical S/PDIF input/output |
| PCI | 2x 32-bit 33MHz PCI 2.1 slots |
| PCI Express | 2 x1 slots |
| IDE | 1 ATA100 compliant port from ICH6/R |
| IDE RAID | None |
| SATA | 4 ports from ICH6/R |
| SATA RAID | RAID0, 1 and 0+1 from ICH6/R (Intel Matrix Storage Technology) |
| Additional SATA RAID | None |
| Networking | Dual LAN Ethernet Controllers. Intel Gigabit (82541) and 10/100 (82562) |
| USB | 8 USB 2.0 ports from ICH6/R. 4x I/O USB 2.0 and 4x onboard |
| FireWire | 3 ports from Texas Instruments TSB43AB23 3-port controller, 1 on I/O, two via supplied bracket |
| Other I/O | PS/2 (no legacy ports) |
| Onboard connectors and pin headers | Audio daughter card, floppy port, ATA100 port, 2x USB2.0 (4 ports), 2x FireWire400. 4x SATA1, 1 unused fan header |
| Form Factor | 305mm x 245mm, ATX |
| Expected price | £150 |
| Additional features | OTES cooling. RAMFlow cooling, debug LED, power on/off buttons |
The Fatal1ty name derives from one Johnathan 'Fatal1ty' Wendel, master gamer and endorser of the Fatal1ty range of boards from ABIT. The design brief is simple; engineer the fastest, highest-performing motherboard that will appeal to die-hard gamers looking for ultimate performance. That's why, even though this is a premium i925XE chipset-based motherboard, additional RAID and WiFi support have been omitted in favour of enhanced board cooling in the form of OTES. The premise, I suppose, it to allow enthusiasts to dial up the FSB and still experience rock-solid stability. This will be put to the test later.
Other than special board-specific cooling, ABIT incorporates Dolby Digital Live into the Fatal1ty AA8XE, which provides for real-time Dolby Digital encoding (5.1) from any audio signal, much in the vein of MVIDIA's SoundStorm technology integrated into select nForce2 chipsets.
