|
Advice Beginners BIOS Guide CPUs Links Mainboards Memory Network Storage Video/Sound Cards Contact Forum SiteMap Sponsors WebNews Home |
. | . |
|
Prices: CPU Intel P4 2.4C-800 P4 2.6C-800 P4 2.8C-800 P4 3.0-800 P4 3.2-800 AMD AthlonXP XP 1700+ XP 2000+ XP 2400+ XP 2500+ XP 2700+ XP 3000+ XP 3200+ Athlon64 Athlon64 3200+ Athlon64 FX-51 Opteron Opteron 240 Opteron 242 Opteron 244 Opteron 246 Memory Corsair Crucial Kingston Mushkin OCZ |
LOSTCIRCUITS
|
|
| ABIT KV8 MAX3 Taking it to the streets | |
|
(Review by MS, November 24, 2003) |
| KV8 MAX3 At: |
Test Configuration
|
|
|
* Compatibility testing only.
Memory compatibility
With respect to memory and compared to the ASUS K8Vdeluxe, the KV8 MAX shows far fewer idiosyncrasies; in general, the board can be described as good-natured, as long as the correct sequence of population for the DIMM slots is followed. That is, in contrast to a number of older ABIT boards for which we maintain the, er, fondest memories, the KV8 MAX3 loves its DIMMs in slots 1 and 2, moreover, there appears no prevalence for Winbond BH-5 chips vs. CH-5 chips, actually, the opposite appears to be true. It seems, though, as if there was a preference for unbuffered as opposed to Registered DIMMs. That is, with 2 x Registered ECC modules, regardless of model and brand, we kept running into stability problems, especially under overclocked conditions. On the other hand, 2 x 512 MB Mushkin Level One DIMMs (Winbond CH-5) were running with better overall stability than 2 x 256 MB Level II (Winbond BH-5) with the CH-based DIMMs passing every test up to 215 MHz, whereas the BH-5-based DIMMs started getting a bit shaky above 213 MHz. The best results were obtained with 2 x 256 MB Winbond CH-5 based Mushkin Level One DIMMs that were running almost everything up to 220 MHz external CPU speed.
Overclocking
Many myths have entwined around the AGP / PCI divider as the limiting factor for overclocking of the VIA K8T800 chipset, however, as we showed in our article on overclocking the ASUS K8V, the main limitation appears to be the inability of the integrated memory controller on the CPU to cope with overclocking conditions when running in DDR400 mode. If, however, the DRAM ratio is limited to a 5:3 ratio or DDR333 operating mode, the overclocking potential unfolds, albeit at the expense of performance. The KV8 MAX3 is no exception here either, except for the limitation put in place by ABIT through the specification of an illegal / un-supported AGP/PCI divider, which essentially kills any attempt at overclocking at the 232 MHz external CPU-Clock mark.
next page: => Memory Performance =>
If you enjoyed reading this article and found it useful, please consider making a small donation to LostCircuits.