[rdrash]

Hey all...I found this motherboard while shopping in Akihabara...we only saw one all day...so I had to buy it....I'll get around to installing next weekend ..then I'll post some results ....

ok..i've gone ahead and installed the MB....

Things like cpuz, everest, coretemp are reading most of sensors incorrectly...lavalys has a beta of Everest that they sent me, works much better on the sensors.

Pics below: Superpi 1meg is at 472x9. The max FSB I could reach was 505MHz with an 8x multiplier on cpu.

[rdrash]

System Specs:
MB -Abit IX38 QuadGT
CPU -Intel E6850
HSF -Ultra 120 extreme (35mm thick 120mm fan @3000rpm)
PSU -Silverstone 1Kw
GPU -eVGA 8800GTX Super Clocked
RAM -Corsair Dominator PC2 8500 2x1GB
HD - WD 74GB Raptor 16MB

The following screen shots are at stock clocks for CPU/GPU/Ram

[rdrash]

Checking out the box, and the board:
The board comes in fairly standard size box as far as motherboard boxes go. What is interesting, but really pointless, about this packaging is that once the shell is removed there is a thin clear plastic sheet covering the motherboard (no anti-static bag). The worst thing about the entire packaging must be the accessories….or rather the severe lack of accessories. Maybe I am just spoiled from other manufacturers giving me all kinds a gidegts and gadgets with the purchase of their motherboards. Abit gives you nothing, nothing save an IDE Cable, Floppy Cable (full width not even rounded ones), back IO plate, and of course the obligatory drivers disc and manual (which aren’t that great either).
Installing the motherboard wasn’t bad, I have the NZXT Zero case and I didn’t have any trouble physically getting the board setup in my case. The layout isn’t perfect but it isn’t bad either. The location of the Floppy port on the motherboard is not ideal for me (others may think it is in a great location). I had to rethink some of my cabling so that I could maintain the wire management to keep a clear air path. I also didn’t like that there are no fan headers in the lower right portion of this motherboard…also forced me to re-route some wires.

Working with the BIOS:
This is where things got fun. As I have not dealt with Intel products for a long long time,the BIOS was nearly a complete mystery for me (thankfully MIAHALLEN helped out here). While there are plenty of options and setting to choose from in the BIOS, some are hidden away and without reading extensively you won’t find them easily. But you know what, that is all just a matter of becoming familiar with this particular BIOS layout.

The BIOS that came with my board was the M704d10, I found a newer BIOS on the Taiwan website the M704d11 and flashed the motherboard. I installed WinXP pro and all the drivers, then the rest of my software. I noticed right away that CPUZ 1.41 reported really low vcore, tried using beta version 1.41.1 and the same low Vcore reported.. I tried using the Abit Uguru software, I did not like that it reported my CPU temps at 18c. I tried Everest Ultimate only to find that the sensors were really screwy. I sent a report into Lavalys and they replied very quickly with a beta version of their software that fixed the messed up readings as far as I can tell (link is here: http://www.lavalys.com/beta/everestu...e6lokjnmcx.zip

I tried using coretemp but found that it would crash my system immediately upon execution (this is at stock settings). Ok, so I’ll chock all those things up to this being a relatively new chipset…but I can not excuse Abit for not being able to write their code to properly read the sensors on their own product. I finally got Coretemp to run without crashing, but you can not load CPUz before loading coretemp without crashing.

Olliewbn sent me a newer beta BIOS, thanks Ollie! Unfortunately for me it was a bust and nearly killed all chances of me completing my initial project. The Beta BIOS flash went very badly....it froze during the eprom flash. I worked on trying to resuscitate the board for a few hours then finally gave up and went to bed, before going to bed I took out my ram, unplugged the computer and took the battery out (had already tried for a few minutes)..I left the computer in this state for 5-6 hours while I slept. When I woke up I reconnected the power plug, installed the cmos battery and one stick of ram. Then I went to my wifes computer created a new DOS Boot Disk on a floppy. Then I created a second floppy with Awardflash and a good BIOS (bios 11) on the disk. I booted with the DOS disk in drive A...got an A prompt after a few minutes...I took out the DOS disk and inserted the flash disk.....the flash to BIOS 11 went fine, took a very long time ...seemed like an hour but was actually about 15 minutes. Computer booted up fine...wow what a scare. This was all user induced..so no dig on Abit for that..

I don’t have the technical background that many members here do, so my explanations and descriptions may be received poorly from many people here. Please bear with me and if you don’t like what I’m saying…well, go buy the board and see for yourself and I hope you have a better experience than I ended up with.

I experienced more BSODs and lockups with this board than I can remember…ok new chipset, my inexperience with Intel…maybe. When I was able to get into windows at OC'd speeds for awhile I could only briefly capture screenshots, run a few small tests. I wasn’t going to break any world records and I knew that, but I expected to be able to pull down some good/decent 3Dmark scores in 03 and 06…guess what …I couldn’t run 03 or 06 3Dmark at any OC’d setting I tried. Got a couple of good runs with 01 and AM3 as well as a good superpi 1meg. I know some people are going to say I should have taken more time to tweak and test for stability. Well to be honest ..I know that, but I wanted to get a snapshot of how this board could perform now. I did manage to get above 500FSB, which is commendable.

Abit needs to hurry up with a newer BIOS for this board as it shows potential but is just too quirky at the moment to be anyone’s day to day platform. Quirky? What do I mean by quirky? Allow me to try and explain: at times this board would not boot at given settings/timings/voltages but then would boot right into windows without a hiccup if I missed the DEL key sequence. Another thing, I use a USB keyboard and mouse, you may not want to go that route. As it turns out I wasn’t missing the DEL key…the keyboard wasn’t getting recognized intermittently. Other quirkiness…freezing in BIOS at stock and OC'd. BIOS settings sometimes not "sticking" once changed...even when changed one at a time....just general weirdness.

Now to try and find the stable OC right? Isn’t that what everyone wants to know…is this another gem by ABit? I’m going to let you folks decide but I will say that there are so many problems with this motherboard right now it is worth waiting until Abit releases a few more BIOS updates.

[Deanzo]

Well let me be the first to subscribe

[aja]

Thanks man, looking forward to it!

[=ACID RAIN=]

I'll be watching this one too

[MIAHALLEN]

Hey Matt, so glad we found this yesterday. Too bad we couldn't find any of the new Penryn CPUs

[onguardtech]

Akihabara....what is this???

[thideras]

Originally Posted by onguardtech

Akihabara....what is this???

A 5 second google search () says:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akihabara

[onguardtech]

oh DUH wikipedia! Should have thought.

[Elluzion]

Oh cool. This is the board I wanna get. I didn't know they released these.... I want one!

[jason4207]

I'm anxious to see how high you can get the FSB on that quad. Do you have any P35 boards you can compare with? I'd like to know if this board can push past the FSB wall I'm seeing around 480 on my quad in my P5K-Premium.

[fritzman]

Dang that's a nice sounding board = subscribed also.

Thinking about grabbing this GA-X38-DQ6 board, but the Abit definitely holds my interest.

Bring on the review bud.

[rdrash]

bump...for new pic (screen shot)....full review coming on sat/sun...thats friday/sat for the Western hemisphere folks

[dkizzy]

how much did you dish out for this?

[rdrash]

Originally Posted by dkizzy

how much did you dish out for this?

just over 200 us dollar equivallent ~$216 to $220 depending on conversion rate...will get credit card bill later this month then I'll know for sure.

[dipspit]

You should find another one of those boards and send it to me .

Subscribed.

[Vento1]

Subscribed

Looking forward to your results.

[Tweaked!]

Subscribed

[olliewbnn]

So far i am happy with this mobo. To bad i dont have a Penryn or a q6600 G0 @ this moment. But i think this is a very good start

Pro's: well built, solid @ stock and overclock, good memory performance, very good layout, reset/cmos/power on buttons, FSB1600 and 45nm ready
Con's: hot pwm's with quad, very poor package only sata @ ide cable, bios could have been better

[MIAHALLEN]

Olliewbnn -
Thanks for sharing your results!
Where are you from? Where did you buy your board?

[bing]

Mind spare us few close up shots on the mobo's components ?

[olliewbnn]

Originally Posted by MIAHALLEN

Olliewbnn -
Thanks for sharing your results!
Where are you from? Where did you buy your board?

The Netherlands @ www.komplett.nl

[El<(')>Maxi]

Matt I envy you, Akihabara is hardware paradise. We'll be watching your progress

[rdrash]

Originally Posted by El<(')>Maxi

Matt I envy you, Akihabara is hardware paradise. We'll be watching your progress

LOL Mark...Miahallen and I are going again at the end of the month when my wife goes to Hawaii......the penryn launch was a bust as there were none to be found ...believe me we looked hard...not all was lost as Miahallen saw this board and I quickly grab it from his hands and bought it....its doing fairly well for a new release....some quirks, but that was expected...most likely future BIOS updates will fix the weirdness.....don't want to spoil anything but I'm already at 470x9....still working it and I have only tried the dual core thus far...may wait for my phasechange before I drop in the quad...not certain....at least I'm having fun and learning

[Deanzo]

Looking good Matt,

Hope the review is going well, It will be Sunday in less than an hour and a half, well for me any how

[rdrash]

Originally Posted by Deanzo

Looking good Matt,

Hope the review is going well, It will be Sunday in less than an hour and a half, well for me any how

LMAO......ahhhh...don't you mean saturday?? I think you are about 4 hours ahead of me there (GMT +13) right....LOL

Amyways, tomorrow (for me) I am posting some some good stuff....so by tomorrow evening you'll have your jones fixed....I have read everything that Clunk reported, I agree with some of his conclusions but I think the challenges will be overcome with BIOS updates (100% agree that the current BIOS is quirky and a genuine pain in the arse)...but it still works ok.

[Deanzo]

Originally Posted by rdrash

LMAO......ahhhh...don't you mean saturday?? I think you are about 4 hours ahead of me there (GMT +13) right....LOL

.

Hahaha, Your soo right, It's "Show Day" here (A public holiday) so I keep thinking it's Saturday

That and I'm hanging out for your review.

[Supershanks]

You look to be doing ok rdrash. Board sems to run fine with dual core but quads are an issue Vcore Issue This has also hit Clunk, am trying to see if anyone has had any success with a quad.

luck

[rdrash]

Originally Posted by Supershanks

You look to be doing ok rdrash. Board sems to run fine with dual core but quads are an issue Vcore Issue This has also hit Clunk, am trying to see if anyone has had any success with a quad.

luck

Thanks for the input ....I haven't tried my quad core yet. That may have to wait. My luck ran out last night when I tried a beta BIOS....had a bad flash...stayed up until 3:00am trying to get computer back to life. Just succeeded in doing so this morning. Fortunately I think I can get back to what I was trying to do.

ALL: I deleted the pics from last night. Don't be disappointed they were just examples and not final in any way. Tonight (Japan time) I will have the two reserved spaces filled with comments, settings, and screen shots in a more sucinct and pleasurable way. I just hope that my rough experiences can benefit someone.