|  March 28, 2005 Fremont CA ABIT's OTES Technology featured on the Ultimate Gaming motherboards Fatal1ty AA8XE and Fatal1ty AN8 has been finding its way into rigs of hardcore gamers the world over. When you combine the nVIDIA nForce 4 Utra with the sheer cooling power of OTES, it's difficult not to see why. The Tech Report had a chance to take the ABIT Fatal1ty AN8 for a test drive, and found that with a 939-pin socket, nForce4 Ultra chipset, temperature-controlled OTES cooling, and a loaded uGuru-powered BIOS, the Fatal1ty AN8 proves to be an excellent Athlon 64 platform for gamers, overclockers, and enthusiasts.
Here is what The Tech Report has to say about the new ABIT's flagship:
OTES and Extras
 Although designed primarily to cool the board's MOSFETs and power circuitry, the Fatal1ty AN8's OTES exhaust fans should also help vent warm air from around the CPU socket out of the system. The OTES exhaust fans are temperature-controlled and easy to manipulate. Each OTES exhaust fan is tied to a temperature-controlled three-pin header that can easily be used to power other system fans. Overclockers who require extra cooling can easily crank them all the way up, while those who desire lower noise levels can ratchet them down or even turn them off completely.
 Also, we should take a moment to applaud the Fatal1ty AN8's use of high-end Rubycon capacitors. Japanese-made Rubycon capacitors were largely immune to the cap-bursting problems that plagued Taiwanese-manufactured caps several years ago, and having them on-board should give users a little extra peace of mind.
The BIOS
The BIOS kicks things off with a robust array of memory timing options, allowing users to push the Athlon 64's on-die memory controller to its limits. CPU multiplier steps are available in 0.5x increments, giving overclockers plenty of opportunity to fine-tune CPU clock speeds. With HT link speeds available up to 410MHz, the ability to lock the PCI Express clock at any speed between 100 and 145MHz, and CPU voltage options up to 1.85V, overclockers should have a field day with the Fatal1ty AN8. The BIOS also has the most extensive set of fan speed controls we've ever seen. Users can set FanEQ reference temperatures, trigger points, and fan voltages for a total of six on-board fan headers, making it easy to balance adequate cooling with low noise levels.
μGuru software
While seasoned enthusiasts should be comfortable playing with the Fatal1ty AN8's extensive array of tweaking, overclocking, and monitoring controls, less experienced users may shy away from poking around in the BIOS. Fortunately, ABIT bundles the board with a number of applications that bring the BIOS's functionality to a more familiar Windows environment.
OCGuru handles overclocking and tweaking options, most notably giving users full control over the BIOS's FanEQ settings.
Overclocking
We were able to get the Fatal1ty AN8 stable with a 270MHz HT link speed, 8.5x CPU multiplier, and 3x HyperTransport multiplier. That put our DIMMs just shy of their advertised 275MHz (550MHz DDR) limits. That's further than we've been able to push any other Athlon 64 motherboard. Despite the fact that its CPU is running less than 5% above its stock speed, our overclocked system yields noticeably better performance in both Unreal Tournament 2004 and Sphinx. The board is actually capable of much higher HT link speeds, though.
Not satisfied by 270MHz HT, we started dropping the memory clock to see just how high the HyperTransport link would go. With a 2x HyperTransport multiplier, 6x CPU multiplier, and the board's DDR266 memory clock setting, we were able to get the Fatal1ty AN8 stable with HT link speeds as high as 360MHz.
With the nForce4 Ultra's impressive feature set, generally competitive performance, and extensive BIOS-level tweaking, monitoring, and overclocking options, the Fatal1ty AN8 proves to be an excellent Athlon 64 motherboard.
For full review, go to: http://www.techreport.com/reviews/2005q1/abit-fatal1ty-an8/index.x?pg=1
For more information on Fatal1ty AN8, go to: Fatal1ty AN8 | 
