SPCR

Hey btw...

S12-600 and AN8-SLI work fine together in P180; cables reach where they need to without need for extensions, even with a pair of 7800GTX adapters and a Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZX blocking the path of the P4 cable.

In fact the only real issue was getting a cable to reach the spare molex power connector on the mainboard while still reaching over and connecting to a HDD in the lower chamber. I still managed this, but needed to use a solid molex-molex fan bypass/extension of about 3/4" to get the connector to reach, and just barely--it's quite tight.

Maybe I'll shoot some pics some time...

-Ed

shortbean wrote:The AN8-Ultra is very hard to find. NOT AN8 FATAL1TY!!!! Newegg, tiger, zip, directron didn't have it. Pricegrabber, froogle, copernic don't know it either. Took me about 5 hours of searching. $136 at ATACOM to bad in state Sales Tax.

Good work. Does anyone know if this board can use the Thermalright XP-120 or the Scythe Ninja?

Yes it fits XP-120, as I mentioned in a different thread; I have two computers with AN8-SLI and XP-120. One of them is the same one with S12-600 in a P180.

-Ed

Edward Ng wrote:Yes it fits XP-120, as I mentioned in a different thread; I have two computers with AN8-SLI and XP-120. One of them is the same one with S12-600 in a P180.

-Ed

I know the AN8-SLI fits. I read that thread. The pictures of the AN8 Ultra show that the heatpipe and chipset are in a different position and is closer to the CPU bracket. Also, it is hard to tell without good profile shots, but the heatpipe might be higher off the board than the AN8-SLI.

Interesting...

Seems someone found that the xp-120 fits the AN8 Ultra....

I found the following here

"Lmk see now ...
AN8 Ultra - check (stay away from BIOS 15)
A64 Venice core - check (3200+ though but overclocked)
XP-120 check - tight but it does fit.
X800XL - check (mine is a Club 3D)

I'm using an Antec NeoPower 480 though - I too think that the 380W may be marginal."

The AN8 2.0 is now in stock at Zipzoomfly.

shortbean wrote:Beware the Zip page does not say that it is a AN8 Ultra it's only a version 2 as silencetowrite points out... meaning your getting the nForce4 chip and not the nForce4 ULTRA chip.

"The main difference between the Nforce Ultra and the regular one is SATA II support. What this does is give an available bandwidth limit increase and native command queing."

At ABIT the board is called the AN 8 v 2.0 or the AN 8 ultra....same board it is an ULTRA either way, they have no basic NF4 non-ultra with heatpipe, the board,under either name,is SATA 2,NVIDIA Firewall,the Ultra package.

Apparently, Abit's website doesn't list the AN8 2.0 anymore, so I guess it was the same thing as the Ultra all along. Hmm.

Mar. wrote:Apparently, Abit's website doesn't list the AN8 2.0 anymore, so I guess it was the same thing as the Ultra all along. Hmm.

How odd.

Mar. wrote:so I guess it was the same thing as the Ultra all along. Hmm.

No they weren't. The AN8 (non Ultra) didn't have SATAII etc. I checked.

rpsgc wrote:

Mar. wrote:so I guess it was the same thing as the Ultra all along. Hmm.

No they weren't. The AN8 (non Ultra) didn't have SATAII etc. I checked.

Are you talking about the AN8 2.0?

Anyway, I'm helping a friend build a system, and we're going to use the board at Zipzoomfly, I'm sure he won't care if it's Ultra or not.

Please be sure to let us know how it goes because I want to buy this mobo for myself and a friend.

It seems that some people have been having problems with drivers, but it is hard to tell if there are actually problems or the people are inexperienced or using cheap power supplies etc.

I have always had pretty good luck with Abit boards though so I am willing to give this one a shot.....I have built five computers with Abit boards over the past four years.

Mar. wrote:Are you talking about the AN8 2.0? .

A8N 2.0

# NVIDIA® nForce™4 chipset
# AMD Athlon 64/64FX 939 CPU support
# 4GB DDR 400
# Silent OTES™
# µGuru™ 2003
# AudioMAX 5.1 Technology
# 4 x SATA 1.5Gbps


AN8 Ultra

* NVIDIA® nForce™4 Ultra chipset
* AMD Athlon 64/64FX 939 CPU support
* 4GB DDR 400
* Silent OTES™
* µGuru™ 2003
* AudioMAX 7.1 Technology
* 4 x SATA 3Gbps


AN8 SLI
# NVIDIA® nForce™4 SLI chipset
# AMD Athlon 64/64FX 939 CPU support
# 4GB DDR 400
# Silent OTES™
# µGuru™ 2003
# AudioMAX 7.1 Technology
# 4 x SATA 3Gbps

http://www.abit-usa.com/products/mb/pro ... &model=277

Both zipzoomfly and the Abit page say the the V2.0 has SATA2 at 300Gb/s

I guess I don't really care if it's SATAII or SATA since I'm not doing RAID and no single drive can put out even SATA data rates.

I went ahead and ordered the V2.0 from ZipZoom since it is a good price with free shipping.

EDIT: Holy crap these are already out of stock....looks like I got the last one

afrost wrote:http://www.abit-usa.com/products/mb/pro ... &model=277

Both zipzoomfly and the Abit page say the the V2.0 has SATA2 at 300Gb/s

I guess I don't really care if it's SATAII or SATA since I'm not doing RAID and no single drive can put out even SATA data rates.

I went ahead and ordered the V2.0 from ZipZoom since it is a good price with free shipping.

EDIT: Holy crap these are already out of stock....looks like I got the last one

How did you get to that page? It';s not listed on their list of mobos anymore.

link on zipzoom's site

afrost wrote:EDIT: Holy crap these are already out of stock....looks like I got the last one

They've gone in and out of stock 3 times now...hopefully they'll come back in again soon.

AN8 Ultra available at Newegg

http://www.newegg.com/product/product.a ... 6813127212

GAAAH! I just got the A8N SLI Deluxe and a Zalman Mobo Heatsink and the NB sits right in the path of where the Zalman Video Heatsink will be. Now if only I had known about this Heatpipe on the A8N SLI Premium I would have gone that way in the first place. I doubt Newegg will take my mobo back and let me upgrade it since I've already installed it?

*weep*

Yikes, I'm in the same boat (just bought a Deluxe) and it's on it's way; i guess I'll need to RMA it, but it's worth the restocking fee just to avoid the hassle of replacing the Deluxe NB fan.. Sheesh, thought I did all my homework on this guy!

So this motherboard does not work with the Zalman 7000 or 7700?

the 7000 zalman should fit for sure, and I'll bet the 7700 fits

does anyone think the reserator 1 could cool a 3000 cpu the north bridge (i have the non heatpipe version of this mobo) and a x850xtpe?

cheers.

that would probably be getting tight while playing games. obviously you couldn't overclock the A64 or GPU at all. maybe if you undervolted the CPU a bit....

I would think you would want to add a stronger pump and a passive heatercore.....but then you start to loose all your convenience.

Maybe just stick a zalman VF-700 on the GPU set to 5V?

Does anyone have links or descriptions of the bios problems people were running into with these Abit boards?

I definitely like the idea of a reliable passive cooler on an nforce4 board, and I have built 4 machines with Abit mobos in the past (my first build was a P3-450 w/ an Abit BE6), but I lost a lot of faith in them when they had massive defects on their Abit BP6 (dual Celeron board).

Since my BP6, I've tried out MSI, Asus, Chaintech, Tyan, and ECS. So far all except ECS have worked well for me, but I'm wondering if it's finally safe to go back to Abit. My fiancee is running a passive Chaintech nforce 4 ultra, but unfortunately Chaintech now includes active cooling on their VNF4 Ultra boards. Must ... have ... passive ... cooling.

NSParadox wrote:Does anyone have links or descriptions of the bios problems people were running into with these Abit boards?

I definitely like the idea of a reliable passive cooler on an nforce4 board, and I have built 4 machines with Abit mobos in the past (my first build was a P3-450 w/ an Abit BE6), but I lost a lot of faith in them when they had massive defects on their Abit BP6 (dual Celeron board).

Since my BP6, I've tried out MSI, Asus, Chaintech, Tyan, and ECS. So far all except ECS have worked well for me, but I'm wondering if it's finally safe to go back to Abit. My fiancee is running a passive Chaintech nforce 4 ultra, but unfortunately Chaintech now includes active cooling on their VNF4 Ultra boards. Must ... have ... passive ... cooling.

You want to browse the Abit forum. Just look for the Socket 754 & 939 section. http://forum.abit-usa.com/ Just remember that folks post when they have problems and most don't if they are running fine. You can certaintly post your question there though.
Edit: From what I have read, the BIOS issues are related to not being very mature and Abit is or has released updates.

i want the an8-ultra.

too bad the nasty red LED's are not toggle-able.

I've changed my mind about this cooling configuration, it shouldn't be hard to partially duct a (downward blowing)CPU fan to this additional opening, increasing exhaust at the rear instead of disrupting it.