ABIT, a leading maker of mainboards for gamers and hardware enthusiasts, said it would unveil its first mainboards with PCI Express interconnection designed for AMD Athlon 64 microprocessorsat Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada, later this week.

New Fatal1ty Enroute

“At the show, we will introduce our latest foray into the realm of PC Gaming. Following the success of ABIT Fatal1ty AA8XE motherboard, we will showcase the NVIDIA nForce4-based Fatal1ty AN8 ultimate pro gaming motherboard, featuring our latest and greatest technologies like DualOTES, AudioMAX, OTES RAMFlow, and uGuru,” ABIT said in its statement.

ABIT claims Fatal1ty mainboards feature extreme performance, advanced tweaking flexibility, robust stability and reliability without compromises in terms of anything, including price. ABIT tuned-up the feature-set and layout of Fatal1ty mainboards for gamers’ systems, removing certain legacy ports, but adding some new components, such as Fatal1ity gaming panel that is an upgraded version of ABIT’s 3rd Eye which displays all the current information available on the 3rd Eye and also provides USB, audio, FireWire, Serial ATA power/connector as well as CMOS reset button with safety cover.

“Combining strong features and breakneck performance in the first ever PCI Express motherboards for AMD platform, the AX8, powered by VIA K8T890/VT8237 and nVIDIA nForce4 based AN8, will be just one of the most interesting products on display. AX8 and AN8 motherboards have been on the must-have list of many PC enthusiasts across North America,” the company claimed.

No SLI from ABIT Yet

The Fatal1ty AN8 based on NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra will be ABIT’s top mainboard for AMD64 processors for a while. However, the mainboard will not support NVIDIA’s premier technology SLI that allows installation of two graphics cards for higher performance, a capability that is highly-discussed by enthusiasts. The mainboard company is expected to release its NVIDIA nForce4 SLI later in the year.

NVIDIA nForce4 core-logic is NVIDIA’s latest media and communication processor for AMD Athlon 64 and AMD Sempron series of central processing units. The nForce4-series chipsets are among the first PCI Express chipsets that sport all currently available and yet-to-be-released microprocessors from Advanced Micro Devices, including AMD Athlon 64 FX, AMD Athlon 64 and AMD Sempron chips with 1000MHz HyperTransport bus. The nForce4 Ultra and SLI product series also offer an array of technologies designed to make computing more secure, efficient and rapid, such as NVIDIA RAID, NVIDIA ActiveArmor firewall, NVIDIA Gigabit Ethernet, Serial ATA-300 and other important technologies, like USB 2.0, FireWire, 8-channel AC’97 audio and so on.

Santa Clara, California-based NVIDIA positions its nForce4 products according to the needs of various markets: nForce4 SLI is designed for hardcore gamers, it sports all the latest processors and even contains enhancements for NVIDIA’s multi-GPU technology SLI; nForce4 Ultra is developed with high-end desktops and workstations in mind: it sports every capability advertised by NVIDIA, but cannot power systems with two graphics cards; nForce4 is targeted at OEMs and system integrators, lacks advanced security capabilities and support for SLI and Serial ATA-300.

NVIDIA’s SLI is a technology that enables two NVIDIA GPU-based graphics cards to operate in a single workstation or PC delivering higher graphics horsepower. A special mainboard with two PCI Express x16 slots is required for such configuration. According to NVIDIA’s estimates, typical performance advantage dual NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra setup brings is about 75% - 80% when operating on a system running NVIDIA nForce4 SLI chipset that boasts special enhancements for Multi-GPU technology. NVIDIA’s approach requires special circuitry to be incorporated into GPUs and, for extra speed gain, into core-logic.