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Review: ABIT KV8 Pro K8T800 Pro Motherboard

by Tarinder Sandhu on 25 May 2004, 00:00

Tags: abit, AMD (NYSE:AMD), VIA Technologies (TPE:2388)

Quick Link: HEXUS.net/qayh

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System setup and notes

Here's a quick rundown of the test system should you wish to compare benchmark results with your own.
  • ABIT KV8 Pro VIA K8T800 (S754) Pro chipset-based motherboard (-11 BIOS)
  • EPoX 8KDA3+ NVIDIA nForce3 250Gb (S754) chipset-based motherboard (07/04/2004 BIOS)
  • ASUS SK8V VIA K8T800 (S940) chipset-based motherboard (24/03/2004 BIOS)

Other components

  • AMD Athlon 64 Model 3400+ CPU - S754 (2.2GHz)
  • AMD Athlon 64 FX-51 CPU - S940 (2.2GHz)
  • ASUS Radeon 9800 XT (412/730)
  • 512MB (2x256MB) Corsair XMS3500C2, run at 2-2-2-6 for both S754 boards
  • 1GB (2x512MB) Corsair XMS3500R registered, ECC memory, run at 2-3-2-6 timings for ASUS' S940 board
  • Pioneer 105 DVD-RW
  • Western Digital 160GB (WD1600) 8MB cache hard drive
  • Western Digital 36GB Raptor SATA hard drive
  • Dell P991 19" monitor

Software

  • Windows XP Professional SP1
  • DirectX 9.0b
  • NVIDIA nForce3 Platform Driver
  • VIA Hyperion 4.51 driver set
  • ATI CATALYST 4.4 drivers and control panel
  • Pifast v4.1 to 10m places
  • Lame v3.92 MP3 encoding with Razor-Lame 1.15 front-end using U2's Pop album (607MB)
  • HEXUS XviD encoding test
  • KribiBench 1.19
  • ScienceMark 2.0
  • Realstorm Raytracing benchmark 320x180x32
  • HD Tach 2.61
  • 3DMark 2001SE v330
  • UT2003 Retail (Build 2225)
  • X2: The Threat - Rolling Demo
  • Comanche 4 benchmark
  • Quake 3 v1.30 HQ
  • Call of Duty - HEXUS Custom Test
    •
Notes

No installation or stability problems to report at stock speeds. A clean layout and narrower-than-usual PCB space made installation a cinch.
Clock speeds were as follows. Please bear them in mind when comparing upcoming results.

2210.9MHz - AMD Athlon 64 Model 3400+ / EPoX 8KDA3+ (nForce3 250Gb - 2-2-2-6)

2205.0MHz - AMD Athlon 64 Model 3400+ / ABIT KV8 Pro (VIA K8T800 Pro - 2-2-2-6)

2202.8MHz - AMD Athlon 64 FX-51 / ASUS SK8V (VIA K8T800 - 2-2-2-6)

Overclocking

With a hugely conspicuous lack of bus-locking control, overclocking above stock speeds was fraught with danger. A driven clock of 220MHz was deemed the upper stable limit. This isn't, of course, the chipset's ceiling, rather it's how far we were prepared to take our test hard drives and PCI devices before probable failure. ABIT really does need to release an updated BIOS that takes of this issue. We can't stress that highly enough.


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