Welcome To Australia's No.1 Media Center Community!
You Are Currently Viewing As A Guest - you'll need to register in order to participate in our community and make this annoying message disappear!
By registering you'll be able to post & reply to questions, set up your own image gallery & blog, communicate privately with other members, create & respond to polls, access downloads and other "members only" features.
Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free so why not join our community today - you'll be glad you did!
For any problems with the registration process or your account, please contact support.
Abit Fatality F-I90HD
this thread has 30 replies and has been viewed 9717 times
Micro-ATX Media PC Motherboard Review
Published by MrBean
5th April 2007
Abit Fatality F-I90HD
Hello,
Lately it doesn't happen that often that I wait in anticipation for the arrival of computer components. Having been in the top-end overclocking business for the past 8 odd years, you get spoilt with the latest and greatest hardware.
Well, having first heard about this Motherboard, which would be classed Media-PC range rather than top-end overclocking, did not stir to much interest, but the last few weeks my Wife has been slowly applying pressure to put together a decent Media PC for her daily needs.
Now, don't get me wrong, she has a 6600 Core 2 Duo, Asus P5W Dh with 7950 GX2 card as her daily gaming rig, she just wanted something stand-alone for recording those late-night shows, and I always seem to miss the Super 14 Rugby Union games (I am South African in Oz), so it would suit me perfectly. Good thing the Wife initiates this, no problem spending money then - hehe
I started doing some research, and short before long, stumbled upon this: Abit F-I90HD
Quick and dirty of the specs of this board - not all, just the most important, check out the rest for yourself on Abit's site - don't be lazy now
CPU
- Supports Intel® Core™2 Duo, Core™2 Quad, Core™2 Extreme, Pentium® Dual-Core, Pentium® Extreme Edition, Pentium® D & Pentium®4 Processors with 1066/800MHz FSB
Chipset
ATI Radeon™ Xpress 1250
Memory
4 X 240-pin DIMM sockets support max. memory capacity 16GB
Supports Dual channel DDR2 800/667/533 Un-buffered Non-ECC memory
LAN
Gigabit Ethernet controller supports 10/100/1000Mbit LAN connections
Audio
7.1 CH HD Audio CODEC
Supports Auto Jack Sensing and optical S/PDIF Out
Expansion Slots
1 x PCI-E X16, 2 x PCI-E X1, 1 x PCI
Serial ATA
4 x SATA 3Gb/s with SATA RAID 0/1/0+1
Back panel I/O
1 x HDMI™ connector
1 x PS/2 Keyboard, 1 x PS/2 Mouse
1 x S/P DIF Out
7.1 CH Audio connector (Front, Line-in, MIC-in, Center/Subwoofer, Surround, Rear Surround)
4 x USB 2.0, 1 x RJ-45 LAN connector
and the conscise edition:
CPU Support Intel® Core™2 Duo, Core™2 Quad, Core™2 Extreme CPUs
System Bus 1066MHz FSB
Chipset ATI Radeon™ Xpress 1250
Graphics Technology ATI Radeon™ Xpress 1250 Integrated (X700-based)
HDMI™ HDMI™ 1.2 supports 1080p HD video output
LAN Onboard PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet
Memory Dual Channel DDR2-800/667/533, up to 16GB
SATA 4 x SATA 3G RAID 0/1/0+1
Audio 7.1-Channel HD with optical S/P DIF Out
USB Up to 10 x Hi-Speed USB 2.0 ports
abit engineered™ Silent cooling, 100% Japanese caps, solid state caps
Extras Onboard Power On & Reset buttons
As usual, Abit is one of the leading Companies when it comes to marketing their components, and this board is no exception - it is well presented, with a decent description of the functions and features of the product within.
Althought the packaging does it for some, and others are more concerned about the actual contents, let's take a looky inside, shall we?
Once removing the outer skin, the board sits there, in all it's glory, behind a protective plastic cover:
Underneath the motherboard, in it's own individual compartment, we find the manual, system CD, I/O plate, 4x Sata2 cables, and standard, 1.44" Stiffy (who still use those anyway) and 80-pin ATA IDE cables.
Please note the (first for me) HDMI adapter, that allows you to connect to any HDMI capable television set:
Taking a closer look at the board, here is a shot of the 4x Sata2 headers, right next to the new ATi SB600 Southbridge chip underneath a passive cooled black aluminium heatsink - a nice touch.
The CPU socket-area is surrounded by solid-state capacitors, which makes for cooler running caps under load, ultimately extendinding the life of these caps, and in the longer run will have a good positive effect on system stability.
Even though the rest of the board has standard electrolytic caps, they are of the topmost Japanese quality, and will be good for years to come.
a Close-up of the LGA775 Intel socket, which in my system will house the well-balanced E6400 Core 2 Duo CPU:
a Shot of the rear I/O ports, where you can see immediately to the right of the PS2 ports, the new 1080p HDMI output - jeesh, I can't get over this
a Bit of a disappointment is the fact that there is the standard SPDIF output, but the area where the input would have been, is well, there -but no supporting components.
Here's 2 photos of the board installed in my Anted Fusion case, it was painless, easy to install, yes, even thought the Antec Fusion is not the easiest case to install a Micro-ATX board in:
Last, but not least, my TV card, the decent all-rounder Video-Mate T750:
Initial Setup
I have decided to test this board not with high-end ram, or the fastest cpu out there, but rather the standard kit we all would use on a setup like this.
I have settled for Samsung ram, 2x 1gig sticks, which should give the memory subsystem a decent workout, they are rated at 4-4-4-10, and then a semi-decent E6400, clocked stock at 2.13Gig, but which can easily (and stably) do 3.2gig on stock Intel aircooling.
Though one would hardly overclock a board in this application, there are a few amongst us who would most likely use this in a very portable gaming rig, dump a big-momma gfx card in, and clock the hell out of the E6400 - yes, the Bios has some options for overclocking, we will get to that a little deeper into the review.
For now, intital setup, installation:
As always, the top-tier suppliers do a decent job of accompanying documentation, and in this case Abit did not fail to produce - even a non-techie will most likely succeed in mounting, and setting this board up.
All onboard socket pins, orientation, numbering etc are clearly marked, and if you have done a few setups in your life, you can actually get away without even browsing the manual - for those not so confident, the manual will get you there.
Once all hardware mounted, it's time to connect the power, and switch it on. The Bios supports the CPU outof the box, no need to use D820 or similar older generation cpu to get this baby going.
Boot-up is without issues, and a quick browse of the Bios.....damnnnnn.....
The Bios is as red as the board, a welcome change from the oh-so-boring blue Kewl, I like it.
All the standard features you come to expect of the Award Bios is there, from Advanced Chipset to System information.
I will revisit the Bios section a little later, this is just a quick break-down.
All the voltages are spot-on, but it seems the 3.30V needs a little calibration, as my Fluke Process Meter reveals 3.3V, but bios is indicating 3.16V - quite an error actually.
Temperatures in hovers around 40-41 deg C with the CPu at stock speeds on aircooling, with ambient around 25 deg C, and the 2x Antec 120mm sidefans spinning at a lowly 5V.
Quite good, and accurate, similar idel temps on my Asus P5W Dh, and P5 WS Pro boards - glad to see manufacturers are getting more accurate calibrating these values.
Did a quick check to set CDRom boot preference, Save and Exit, and mounted new Vista Premium rom.
Setup started without a glitch, and to be honest, I could not detect a measureable difference loading Vista on this setup, and my P5 WS Pro X6800 clocked at 3.51gig speeds.
Vista detected all drivers, and within 20-25 minutes I was greeted by the Vista Desktop.
a Quick glance in Device Manager revealed the only missing drivers were those for my T750 TV card, which I downloaded and installed the latest set of supporting Vista from Compro's site.
Testing FM and TV on that card showed all working well, no noticeable audio problems, crackling etc, but more thorough testing under various load conditions will be performed on this board to test complete suitability for Media PC use.
One glaring omission on this lovely board is onboard WiFi, as my only PCI slot is occupied by the TV card, and 1x PCI-Express devices is still pretty scarce Down Under, well, I am sure it would have been easy for Abit to include this as a standard.
Something to think about.
So, it would be very easy even for the most green amongst us to get this board up and running, and performing without issues.
Even using not-so-carefully selected/researched components, will still be much easier than say, a year ago, when we had batches of boards from both Intel and AMD which will only work with this or that high-end brand memory.
This new ATI Express 1250/1300 series chipset seems to be quite tolerant of different memory brands, low-to-high end, and I will be testing Samsung, OCZ and G-Skill on it to verify.
Please check back for testing and conclusion sometime over Easter.
Hello everyone,
a Few Everest Ultimate benchies below - I won't comment on all, as the results are quite self-explanatory, suffice it to say that the board performs well against a variety of competitors out there, I just used memory throughput and cpu performance as a yardstick, and even though this is a HTPC board, it would do well in the gaming environment.
I cannot post overclocking results, as there is a few small additions Abit needs to make to the Bios before this can be attempted with success, and keeping the stability of the system priority one, so I will be in discussion with the Powers to Be to address these small issues.
Anyway, see Everest results below - take note all tests are performed with CPU at default, and Memory SPD settings in the BIOS.
Please observe the slight descrepancies between Overall, and individual tests - I had some differences in background applications running, as the purpose of these tests are not to showcase MAX performance, rather what you can expect on a "Daily User Rig"
I've been looking for about a month now at almost the same setup for my first HTPC (Antec Fusion, Abit I-90HD, C2D E6400, TinyUSB2, Vista Premium). Very happy that Abit I-90HD is starting to arrive at the shops now...
How has the stabililty of the board been? Any audible noise issue with stock E6400 and Antec Fusion fans? I'm hoping to leave it running 24x7 if there are no issues with standby / low power / quick resume modes, and if the fans are quiet enough even with the TV or sound system off.
I'm also wondering what Realtek HDA codec is included on board? I could not find it listed on the Abit specs.
Wow, comprehensive review there MrBean, nice work.... thanks for the input!!
Boards like this are much needed by the HTPC community, I'm surprised that the other big name makers haven't come forward with a similar spec'd board...
HTPC owners want....
Core 2 compatibility (or AMD if so inclined, but Intel are considered to have the current lead in low wattage and performance)
Good onboard video with VGA and preferably HDMI output (Ok not everyone (i.e me) want/need HDMI, but it's prob important moving forward). Be nice to have SVHS out, but these days, if you need it, add a video card.
Good audio output, inc Digital out.
Fanless design.
4x SATA with RAID 1 (or 0 for the daring) option
Gigabit LAN
This board has al of the above, and it looks fantastic. Only 1 x PCI slot may be limiting for some, but in this age of good onboard audio and PCIeX1 Dual Digital tuners, not such a big deal.
All I can hope (and time will tell) is that it has
STABILITY, COMPATIBILITY AND RELIABILITY
Based on my Abit experience in the early days (1999-2002), I'm very sceptical about their reliability, but their recent efforts have been generally very good, so I'm looking forward to good reports on this potential little beauty...... I always get very nervous when yet another chipset hits the market...
How has the stabililty of the board been? Any audible noise issue with stock E6400 and Antec Fusion fans?
Hello Guys,
Thanx for the feedback.
I have been running Memtest 1.65 for the past 12 hours, around 18 passes without errors, all default settings, mem at 4-4-4-10-15
Same with Orthos (dual-Prime), just completed 17 hours of combined CPU_Memory blend stress testing, and glad to report no issues at all. So far taking everything that I have been throwing at it, no glitches at all.
I had a small issue with screen momentarily dimming under heavy load, like switching it off/on, just very fast, but after installing latest Catalyst drivers from ATI's site for this chipset, it is been all ok.
I will continue 100% stress-loading for the rest of this week, and if the board pass this torture, it should survive anything out there.
I will keep you guys posted.
edit: Wrt the sound levels from the fan/system, well in general quiet. I am sitting less than 1/2m away from the box as I type this, and can hear a soft sound emanating from it, made by the fans - but not disturbing at all, just a soft whir as the fan-blades cuts the air.
You will never hear this sitting 2m away with all else quiet in the room, and once you have the telly on, or video playing, it will be dead quiet.
Please note the (first for me) HDMI adapter, that allows you to connect to any HDMI capable television set
I'd reword this, as otherwise it is very misleading. I know alot of punters out there are excited about HDMI and are very interested in this new wave of product with HDMI support.
Please note: Only TVs that support PC HDMI input will display via HDMI.
My primary use of my PC is gaming. I do have a separate HTPC standaloen that is modestly specd and handles vista well with onboard graphics!
The fatality series is for serious gamers, power system builders. If you are lucky enough to have a 1080 monitor/TV that supports PC via HDMI. However, I can see the allure of this feature as an on-baord option for MCE builds.
Of course, once you get a graphics card, unless that has HDMI support, that you lose this feature.
