ABIT KV8 Review

BiGBrOwNPimpsta

"Since the release of AMD's Socket 939 processors, motherboard manufacturers have wasted little time transitioning to the newer design, but that doesn't mean previous AMD platforms are now completely obsolete. Like the older Athlon XP, the 754 pin Athlon 64 processors still have some life left as a relatively economical alternative. With the newer socket 939 processors selling in the $500+ price range, the socket 754 platform can be an attractive substitute for the higher priced newcomers, with prices hovering in the $200 range. Although they lack a dual channel (128-bit) memory controller, socket 754 Athlon 64s are still robust processors capable of running virtually any application currently available at very high performance levels..."

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Source: Hot Hardware

El Kapitano

I'm still unconvinced regarding VIA's implementation of the AGP/PCI lock on the K8T800 pro chipset. Too many conflicting reviews for my liking, also most forums I've scanned are divided with later revision boards working and earlier revisions not.

TBH I have come to the conclusion that jumping on the bleeding edge bandwagon at or early after release is a totally bad idea.

I' ll be waiting a while to see what happens, at the moment the Nforce3-250GB looks like the chipset to go for.

Roadee

I am just going to sit back and absorb everything that happens.......I am not planning on building a replacement computer until after the first of the year. To many things coming out right now and I want a mature product.....dont feel like a repeat of the NF2 boards......where I ended up switching boards 3 times

Judas

I'm very patiently waiting for Abit to release the KT880 based board..... as for this board... i really find nothing of interest.... 2 dimm slots.... and.... well.. not much else of value looking at today

Monkeyboy

I agree with El Kapitano and Roadie. When Abit bought out the NF7-S ver 1.1, they stated that it would support 400MHz bus procs with a simple bios flash. I upgraded to this board (I had an AthlonXP 1800+ chip) with a view to getting the 3200XP when I could afford a new processor. In fact, when I could finally afford the processor upgrade, I had to buy a NF7_S version 2 board as the V1.1 was NOT upgradeable!

I would love to build a new system based on socket 939, especially as this now allows you to use non-ECC memory. But the VIA implementation is qujestionable because of the AGP lock problem, so nVidia's nforce 3 chipset would be the one to use. However, I hear that mobos due in the 3rd/4th quarter will have all these features plus PCI-X and support for DDR500. Also, with the XP64 bit version of Windows not out until the end of the year either, I think it's very sensible to wait until early next year so things in the industry start calming down a bit and we can all see exactly what we're getting.

Also, the socket 939 A64 3800+ will be less than half it's £549 asking price by then!

El Kapitano

I hope so