Overclocking and Thoughts

Like the AA8, the AG8 resolutely doggedly refused to run at any speed over 210MHz. While running the 3.4GHz at 210MHz was a piece of cake at completely stock voltages, not one thing could be done to get the board to run at 211MHz, or anything else above that. It was very frustrating, especially given the voltage ranges available. If whatever is locking the board to the 210MHz maximum can be removed, the board seems very well setup for the overclocker.

Thoughts

Given the AA8 as a base, the question to be asked of the AG8 is does its use of DDR memory make the platform any more attractive. Again, personally, I have to answer that with a resounding no. The only CPU you can get on LGA775, that you can't get on Socket 478, is the Pentium 4 560 at 3.6GHz. With that CPU costing as much as a very decent Socket 939 processor from AMD and the rest of the LGA775 CPU range available on Socket 478, the changes you'd need to make to move to the AG8, even taking your existing DDR memory with you, are too much of a sacrifice.

That the AG8 drops HD Audio from the board, in favour of an older ALC658 CODEC, is even more reason to stay away, with one of the better new platform features dead and buried for it. Again, the Matrix Storage waves its hands about with offers of flexible storage setups and good performance, but you can't seriously be tempted at this point in time.

Finally, the overclocking limits leave me with no real reason to recommend it at all.

A semi-decent board if the platform has managed to tempt you, for whatever reason, but there's no reason why it should right now.