**Official ABIT AB9 QuadGT Review/Overclock/Guide Thread**

Soldato
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Would be nice to see some overclocking results. . . .

Ammendments:-

1) Under Official Bios added - How to boot an Abit board from a USB flash drive.
2) Added driver list for Abit AirPace Wi-Fi Card Driver.

trojan698 said:
I'm being kinda lazy by asking this but what FSB are these boards hitting?
Upto around 525FSB but dont quote me & thats on the 1066 FSB Strap, I'll get around to posting my own results soon.
 
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MikeOCUK said:
the problem is they dont come with the dos systemn files,
you don't need or want system files to flash the BIOS - basically awdflash.exe & the .bin. You can use a batch file if you want.

trojan698 said:
I'm being kinda lazy by asking this but what FSB are these boards hitting?
Highest that I've seen reported is 572fsb - it's either RAM related or heat that appears to be the limiting factor.
 
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Soldato
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Downloaded and flashed!

Big smile :D

All that's left to complain about now is the limitations on my overclocking. I really think I should be able to get more than 3.8GHz out of an E6400 on water cooling, surely? :p Actually, I think the components are good for more, but my cooling isn't up to it unfortunately. And I'll be beggared if I'm going to buy something else to squeeze another 100MHz out the CPU.

I do think the Northbridge/PWM cooling on this works very well, it's hot, but not as hot as I've seen Gigabyte or ASUS boards get. Maybe there is actually something in this heatpipe?

And I still think this is the fastest implementation of the P965 chipset. It's definitely faster than the DS4's I have here and as I recall they were pretty much even-stevens with the P5B's. The P5B's might have a higher ultimate memory limit, but surely 540Mhz is fast enough for most people?

I genuinely always thought this was the best Core2Duo board yet, and now they've apparently got the BIOS release stable, I think you could recommend it.

I'll set Orthos running this evening ;)
 
Soldato
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Wow! Excellent news! funny really because I made a sarcastic comment on the Abit forums saying that the info they gave me regarding an official bios being released on tuesday! oh well only a day late! :) :)

Updated the bios details on the original post. :)

I'll start doing my build now. . . lol
 
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This board does look very promising. Seems abit are already starting to iron out some of the problems, which is good news. AFAIK now there aren't any MAJOR issues with these boards?Was digging around on the net and found a review by anandtech here, who show the high 1066 strap is really quite effective when ocing.

WJA96, I know you've had a lot of experience with most of the 775 boards...you reckon this is a winner yet, say compared to the DS3 or P5N-E (or do we need to wait for more bios updates)?
 
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cobxx said:
This board does look very promising. Seems abit are already starting to iron out some of the problems, which is good news. AFAIK now there aren't any MAJOR issues with these boards?Was digging around on the net and found a review by anandtech here, who show the high 1066 strap is really quite effective when ocing.

WJA96, I know you've had a lot of experience with most of the 775 boards...you reckon this is a winner yet, say compared to the DS3 or P5N-E (or do we need to wait for more bios updates)?

Well, I always backed off recommending it because of the PATA optical drive problem but I can confirm that is definitely fixed and I would have to say I think this is the best S775 overclocking motherboard available.

And it's easy to use too. Well laid out for tidy cable management and it seems to run relatively cool compared to the Gigabyte and ASUS boards I've used. The clear space around the CPU socket means I can use my EK S775 water-block in it's proper orientation and it just seems nice and stable.

I can't think of a feature it doesn't have and I'm very comfortable with the BIOS layout as I had several Abit S478 and S775 boards with my Pentium 4s.

Yes, it's £35 more than a P5N-E SLi or £20 more than a DS3P, but I think this is a keeper. After the NVidia chipsets I keep thinking "uncomplicated stability" whenever I work with this board. I think that pretty much sums it up - excellent performance and uncomplicated stability. But with my luck at the moment it'll blow up this afternoon when I'm fitting the water cooling :rolleyes:
 
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WJA96 said:
EK kit - NB, SB, PWM, CPU, GPU and probably ABS if they do that as well :rolleyes:

Just checked out their mosfet blocks, look pretty good. Though isn't it adding unnecessary heat to your loop, some regular heatsinks would be more effective surely, as they can be around 80C with no stability issues IMO.

Just placed an order for the quadgt, as well as an E6420. Let's see what this bad boy can do!
 
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Just for infomation purposes:-

The links to the ftp servers for downloading the Bios ID: 11 (Latest Official Bios) have now all been fixed:- So basically if you go onto this website clicking on the Asia/Europe/US now works http://www2.abit.com.tw/page/uk/mot..._NAME=AB9+QuadGT&fMTYPE=LGA775&pPRODINFO=BIOS I sent the webmaster a couple of e-mails.

The following directory on the ftp servers will hopefully be removed bios/qb9quadgt/ as that was the typo error directory it was created to in error.

Hope that makes sense.
 
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ive got this board, updated to bios 11 and everything is working ok with an intel 820 cpu.

ive got 2gb of crucial balastix 667mhz memory.

im getting an e6420 cpu, and wondering if its worth changing the RAM. im thinking of getting corsair pc6400 and selling my crucial.

is this worth doing, or do I need higher FSB RAM to make a difference?


also can somebody give me some pointers as to which settings I need to change apart from the core voltage and FSB to see some good results.
 
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the ballistix should go way past 667 if you slacken the timings/increase voltage.
I wouldn't be surprised if it will go past 1000.
 
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Agreed - the PC5300 Ballistix will usually run 4-3-3-8 at PC6400 speeds and 4-3-3-10 at PC7200 speeds. I run mine at 5-4-4-12 at PC8500 speeds. Crucial Anniversary is even better if you can get it 5-3-3-8-12-20@2T@552MHz PC8500.
 

Rab

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would u lot recommend this board then, Got An E6600 the now, need board & ram, with with ££ so low can only buy one @ a time.
reviews have read been promising, but nothing beter than ppl own thoughts that run it 24/7. been looking @ this & the new Dfi due soon.

good & bad points ?
 
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Rab said:
would u lot recommend this board then, Got An E6600 the now, need board & ram, with with ££ so low can only buy one @ a time.
reviews have read been promising, but nothing beter than ppl own thoughts that run it 24/7. been looking @ this & the new Dfi due soon.

good & bad points ?

Good - everything with the right BIOS
Bad - it took them ages to get it launched with a proper release BIOS
 
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