Motherboard manufacturers traditionally try to create well built, cost-effective motherboards that have as many features as possible. That makes sense of course, since most of their revenue comes from selling products to Joe User, and not to the enthusiast community. Nevertheless, for several years now the top motherboard manufacturers spend a lot of time and money designing and producing enthusiast-oriented solutions that are usually more pricey, but at the same time offer that little bit of extra that the overclocking and enthusiast community has come to expect. Abit is one of the most respected companies in this field, designing high class motherboards, which overclockers tend to love. In this article we will have a look on what is touted by many as the best motherboard for the Socket 939 platform, the AN8-32X.

Features and specifications:

Packaging and bundle

The AN8-32X comes in a typical motherboard package, which provides enough protection and is well designed. It seems that Abit skipped the extra bells and whistles and opted for a simple, attractive and efficient package instead. The package of a motherboard is not of much interest usually, but the bundle and the motherboard itself are.

First of all, we would like to praise the company because it was about time we saw a company including the disk controller drivers into floppy disks for the MS Windows installation. Abit includes a total of three floppy disks in the package: one is for the Silicon Image 3132 controller, one for the nForce RAID controller and another one for the nForce RAID controller (for 64-bit Windows). There is also a typical CD with drivers and applications. Abit also includes a large user's manual, a quick installation guide and a separate manual for the µ Guru features. There is also a large sticker with a basic motherboard layout diagram, which acts as a reference in case you want to change some jumper settings. Finally, there is a typical backplate which you have to attach at the rear of your chassis in order for the motherboard to fit properly.

Abit provides all of the necessary standard internal cables inside the package. There are six typical red SATA cables, a black floppy ribbon cable and a black IDE ribbon cable. There is also a PCI bracket which provides extra USB and Firewire ports. Finally, there is an SLI bridge and a PCI support bracket for those that will run an nVIDIA SLI system with two graphics cards. Unfortunately the µ Guru clock is not included in the package and has to be purchased separately.

Overall the bundle of the AN8-32X can be considered average. Abit does include everything you may need and the manuals are well written, however for a motherboard around its price range some people would expect something more from the bundle, such as round/UV reactive cables or the the µ Guru clock, for instance.