| Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C., November 12th, 2004 - When it comes to high-octane computing, it's tough to beat a system based on ABIT Engineered hardware. Recently, top Canadian website Viper Lair reviewed the ABIT KV8 Pro 3rd Eye motherboard based on the VIA K8T800 Pro chipset. Here are the highlights:
"ABIT has earned the reputation as makers of some of the most innovative motherboards on the market. Although they may not pack in as many extras like front panels, and wacky LEDs, their innovations such as Softmenu BIOS and OTES cooling technology serve to improve the enthusiast's experience in areas that do matter... performance, stability and overclocking.
 What is so special about the 3rd Eye? Viper Lair is going to tell us all about it! "Exclusive to ABIT's "3rd Eye" line of products (full list here) is the µGuru Clock. While the word "clock" is on the name, this LCD display does much more than that. The big selling point of this product is that it allows you to overclock your system without the need to exit any open applications. It also monitors room temperature, monitor your hardware, MSN and E-Mail notification, and allows you to power on and off your PC (useful if your PC is located in an inconvenient location)."
 Only ABIT offers diagnostic LCD on the motherboards to help users troubleshoot if they encounter any problems upon posting. "The diagnostic LED beneach the VT8237 is a nice bonus, as it'll help with some basic troubleshooting. During bootup, the LED will display a number of codes which will illustrate the current condition of the board."
Benchmark "In our first real-world script, we can see the KV8 Pro pulling out on top of the other two here. Will this trend continue with the rest of our benchmarks? Like the Winstone tests, the KV8 Pro finishes on top of the other two boards. It is close between the KV8 Pro and K8N, but not so with the KV8-MAX3. Except for the memory benchmarks, the KV8 Pro trails the nForce 3 powered K8N Neo by a slight margin in CPU and MMX. In all the cases, the KV8 Pro outpaces the KV8-MAX3."
Conclusion "The K8T800 Pro did itself well by allowing the AGP ratio to be locked down now, and coupled with the work of ABIT's engineers, the BIOS options leave little to be desired, providing almost every user adjustment we can think of. The KV8 Pro was trouble free. Overclocking went very well, and the board was very stable once we settled on our desired overclock. While it wasn't looking good for the KV8 Pro at first in our synthetic benchmarks, once the real world benchmarks started, the KV8 Pro pulled ahead. This was especially apparent in gaming, and given the price of the board, you should have a bit of money to put towards a decent video card."
Pros: Great performer, and good overclocker. Stable. Well designed BIOS.
Cons: No native SATA support. Poor CMOS jumper placement.
Bottom Line: The KV8 Pro-3rd Eye is a solid offering from ABIT, and it will serve you well if you're looking into building a fast and solid box without breaking the bank.
For the full review go here: http://www.viperlair.com/reviews/cpu_mobo/abit/amd/s754/kv8p/ | 
