Introduction

As the ever changing technological landscape for the PC prepares for another overhaul, we would like to take this opportunity to bring you a roundup of current solutions for the AMD Athlon 64. The first set will focus on VIA's K8T800 Pro, a chipset initially developed as an upgrade for the K8T800 with support for both Socket 754 and Socket 939 processors. The K8T800 Pro represents one of the last bastions for the aging PCI/AGP platform as VIA's next chipset, the K8T890, will move on towards PCI Express. Wether you are unwilling to wait for new chipsets and motherboards to roll in, waiting for them to mature or just do not wish to part with your AGP GeForce 6800 Ultra and the likes, the current Socket 939 K8T800 Pro motherboards are still perfectly viable solutions as far as core logic performance goes. Since we have quite extensively covered first generation Ahtlon 64 chipsets from the original K8T800 to the K8T800 Pro, the purpose of this roundup is to look at which of the main Socket 939 K8T800 Pro boards will give you the most bang for your buck today.

The first board in our roundup is ABIT's AV8. Currently, the AV8 is the only board in ABIT's Socket 939 line-up to use the VIA K8T800 Pro chipset as they have steadily updated their product line with VIA K8T890 and NVIDIA nForce4 series motherboards. Thus, the AV8 fills in the role of the entry level Socket 939 solution.

The ABIT AV8 mothebroard.

The following items are packaged with the ABIT AV8 motherboard:-

2 x SATA data cables

1 x 80-conductor Ultra ATA data cable

1 x Floppy drive data cable

USB 2.0 (2 ports) and IEEE 1394 (2 ports) bracket

I/O shield

Driver CD

SATA Driver diskette

Quick installation guide

µGuru user's manual

Motherboard user's manual

ABIT AV8 Technical Specifications

Cpu Support	Supports AMD socket 939 Athlon 64 CPU Supports AMD socket 939 Athlon 64 FX CPU Supports AMD Cool 'n' Quiet Technology
Chipset	Northbridge: VIA K8T800 Pro 1GHz HyperTransport interface 16-bit full duplex Asynchronous bus architechture Southbridge: VIA VT8237 16-bit "Ultra V-Link" host controller 1066MB/sec. Ultra V-Link interface
Memory	Dual channel memory architecture integrated into processor Four 184-pin DDR DIMM sockets Supports up to 4GB using PC1600 (DDR200), PC2100 (DDR266), PC2700 (DDR333) and PC3200 (DDR400) unbuffered DDR SDRAM DIMM
Storage	2 x Ultra ATA 33/66/100/133 (data transfer rate up to 133MB/sec.) 2 x SATA (Serial ATA 1.5Gbps interface) VIA V-RAID SATA controller, Supports RAID 0, RAID 1, JBOD
Audio	Realtek ALC658 6-channel audio CODEC Optical S/PDIF In/Out
LAN	VIA Velocity VT6122 PCI Gigabit Ethernet
IEEE 1394 (FireWire)	VIA Fire II VT6306 Host Controller 3 x IEEE 1394a ports @ 400 Mbps speed
I/O Interface	1 x Floppy connector 2 x Ultra ATA IDE connectors 2 x SATA connectors 8 x USB 2.0 ports (4 x rear, 2 x bracket, 2 x header) 3 x IEEE 1394a ports (1 x rear, 2 x bracket) 1 x RJ45 LAN port 1 x Optical S/PDIF Output 1 x Optical S/PDIF Input 6-Channel Audio I/O ports 1 x CD-IN 1 x 9-pin serial port 1 x parallel port (SPP/EPP/ECP) 1 x mini-DIN-6 PS/2 mouse port 1 x mini-DIN-6 PS/2 keyboard port
Expansion Slots	1 x AGP 8x slot 5 x PCI slots
Special Features	ABIT µGuru™ Technology ABIT EQ ABIT OC Guru ABIT Flash Menu ABIT Black box CPU ThermalGuard™ Technology
PCB	ATX form factor 305 x 245 mm