Abit AN8 32X Motherboard Review :: The Layout

Starting at the CPU Socket, there is enough clearance around the CPU Socket to put large after-market CPU coolers. ABIT included a LED to show system status at boot and other times. A FF indicator means the system has booted without problem. An 25 indicator is likely a memory problem. Next to the LED is the ABIT uGURU chip that controls overclocking.

CPU Socket area

LED

Under the CPU socket is the memory slots. ABIT positioned the memory slots out of the way of the video cards slots, allowing for easy removal and installation of memory modules into a system with this motherboard installed. The 24-pin ATX connector is located under the memory slots an excellent position. The 4-pin power connector is above the CPU Socket.

4-pin aux power

floppy drive position

24-pin power connector

The IDE ports are on the bottom part of the board, sideways, allowing for easy insertion/removal of the IDE cables from the board without having to mess with a bunch of wires. One pet peeve of mine, especially with a board that can handle two video cards is the placement of the floppy drive connector on the far side of the board meaning if you have two video cards installed, the cable will go over the two cards.

Silent OTES cooling

ABIT does not include a fan and heatsink for the North Bridge chipset, the nForce4 SLI x16. Instead, they decided to include their Silent OTES cooling system that uses heatpipe technology to cool the chipset. The South Bridge chip has a heatsink with a heatpipe that goes to the Northbridge heatsink that also is the warmest part of the motherboard in operation.

USB Headers

Front Panel I/O

Firewire

Jumper and Aux Fan header

ABIT includes pull out tabs on the jumpers on the board, making for easy shorting of jumpers. There are four fan headers on the board, CPUFAN, AUXFAN1, AUXFAN2, SYSFAN. There's a 4-pin Molex connector that is necessary for SLI usage. ABIT includes three USB 2.0 headers, bringing the total available on the board to 10 with brackets. There's a single Firewire header.

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