Abit AL8

Verdict: The AL8 is packed with good features, in particular the decent on-board sound and support for next-generation hard drives and processors

As you'd expect for a company that makes calculating chips, there's an easy-to-spot logic to the progression of Intel's motherboard chipsets. For each new generation, the company begins by launching a high-end product, which is followed a few weeks later by a lower-priced version with fewer features.

Last month we reviewed the Asus P5WD2 Premium, which has support for the new dual-core Pentium CPUs through the Intel 955X chipset. Abit's AL8 motherboard uses the recently announced Intel 945P Express chipset, and is nearly £60 cheaper than the Asus.

So what do you lose with the lighter price tag? A major difference is the lack of support for Pentium Extreme Edition CPUs and the 945P also lacks the memory access optimisations of its higher-end sibling. These speed tweaks were called PAT (Performance Acceleration Technology), but are now called MPT (Memory Pipeline Technology) in the 955X. Regardless of their name, though, they've never had a massive effect on performance.

A bigger difference between the two chipsets is that while the 945P supports the maximum of 4GB of RAM, the 955X supports up to 8GB, all of which can be used with Windows XP Professional x64 Edition.

Aside from this, the 945P chipset is packed with many tricks. As well as support for dual-core CPUs, the AL8 has six S-ATA II ports, which support RAID, in addition to fast transfer rates when S-ATA II hard drives launch. Four of these ports run from the ICH7R Southbridge, while two are powered by a separate Silicon Image chip, which means that they're inconveniently placed near the CPU socket.

The AL8 supports DDR2 memory, and you no longer need matched-capacity DIMMs to run in dual-channel mode. As there are only two PCI slots, there's room for three 1x PCI-E slots and a single 16x PCI-E slot.

The on-board High Definition Audio is unchanged from the 915- and 925-based boards and the AL8 supports digital S/PDIF in/out too. Only one Gigabit Ethernet controller is provided, although this should be enough for most people, while a separate PCI backplate brings the number of USB 2 ports to six. There are also three FireWire ports.

There's a fan on the 945P Northbridge, which really is a necessity, especially with a dual-core CPU.

Another widely reported feature of the 945P chipset is built-in support for digital rights management. However, while Intel is involved in the development of DRM technologies, according to a company spokesman, the 945P itself contains no special hardware that specifically helps DRM.

Setting aside our worries about a Hollywood-dictated future, we benchmarked the AL8 using a dual-core 2.8GHz Pentium D 820, which we also used to test the ECS PF88 Extreme motherboard. The AL8 zoomed past the SiS-toting ECS. Intel clearly knows a lot about memory control for its chips, as the AL8 was a fair bit faster than the PF88 Extreme.

The AL8's BIOS is up to Abit's usual high standards, with plenty of fan control options, a selection of adjustable voltages, and the option to take the FSB up to 400MHz. However, we only managed to push the board to 220MHz before it refused to POST, no matter how much extra voltage we tried. This is lower than the PF88 Extreme, although new BIOSes may improve matters for the AL8.

CONCLUSION

The AL8 is packed with good features, in particular the decent on-board sound and support for next-generation hard drives and processors. It's a shame that the board isn't a more competent overclocker, but Abit's flashy Fatal1ty boards are more suited to this task.

At just over £100, the AL8 is reasonable value for money compared with the £150 or so you'd have to spend on the few Intel 955X boards that are currently available. If you're eyeing up a Pentium D then the AL8 is certainly worth considering. However, it will pay to wait until there are a few more 945P boards out there, as the AL8 isn't quite the complete package.