Installation & Configuration

The MVKTech components we are going to stuff on the AN8 SLI will include the following list of manufacturers who have participated in our review process. Our configuration is going to based on this configuration:

• AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ Manchester
• ABIT AN8 SLI Mainboard
• 1024 MB Corsair XPERT Series Dual Channel Memory
• 1x PNY Verto 6800 Ultra
• 1x NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra (BIOS flash to PNY Verto 6800 Ultra)
• Thermaltake Aluminum Armor Series Chassis (Xoxide)
• ThermalTake 500 Watts TWV Modular PSU

SLI Switchboard Slot & Key

The first thing we are going to do is insert the SLI Switch Key into the SLI Switchboard slot and set this configuration for SLI Mode. The SLI Switchboard Slot is designed in such a way that you insert the card into the switchboard at an angle and then gently push inward until the golden terminals almost disappear. Now you just pressed down with two fingers until the locking mechanism clips into place.

Animated gif on how to use the key.

This Switchboard is cost effective and is extremely easy to configure, some boards uses a half a dozen jumper caps, some are auto detecting, but the ABIT solution for this board is the SLI Switchboard. Now that we configured the ABIT AN8 SLI for SLI mode, we are ready to stuff some GPU's. Let's take a look at the GPU setup.

The Graphics Processing Units

PNY Technologies sponsored the 6800 Ultra for MVKTECH allowing us to review this exciting product. PNY Technologies proves time and time again that they are a company people can rely on and offer help when ever possible. PNY has built a strong reputation around the world with rock steady reliable products and they were the first NVIDIA solution provider NVIDIA recommended for our review needs.

We can't thank them enough. If you are in the market for a new GPU, stuff a new PNY Technologies GPU in your system and take full advantage of PNY performance, stability and reliability with a great customer support team and warranty policies.

The ABIT AN8 SLI is going to get stuffed with a PNY Technologies Verto 6800 Ultra and its SLI clone, which is a early NVIDIA Engineers Sample NV45 that we have had for almost a year now. To compliment the ABIT AN8 SLI review, PNY Technologies proudly sponsored a second GeForce 6800 Ultra for our efforts.

After checking out both cards sub system and firmware, I was surprised to find that both cards are identical in nature. The SKU numbers matched almost identical from the PNY Verto 6800 Ultra as did the Beta BIOS on the Engineer Sample. Suffice to say we saved the BIOS as per Mavke's request and decided to flash the Engineer Sample to the PNY Technologies firmware. This is why we are referring to the card as a PNY clone.

With the SLI ready GPU's stuffed in the ABIT AN8 SLI we are ready to rock and roll. While these cards have been in the retail markets for over a year now, this configuration will rock your world without a doubt. Notice where ABIT decided to put the extra ATX 4-pin 12 volt power connector? Yip, that's right, right under the remaining two PCI bus connectors just below the PNY Verto 6800 Ultra! With this connector one can choose to have a power source to use such as a 3rd party cooling system.

The layout of the motherboard is user friendly and obstruction free when using our GeForce 6800 Ultra's. Here we can see the nF4 chipset and the Q-OTES heat pipe connector with a SLI configuration. We have plenty of room and the cards do not touch the passive nF4 sink design at all. The heatpipe pipe routing is a perfect blend of form and functionality. The first thing we noticed was the fact the pipe does not interfere with any components in our rig specifications and we will not have to worry about clearance issues.

Note the IDE channels and the Serial-ATA connectors, these are conveniently placed on the motherboard in one general area, making connections to peripherals easy to reach once the motherboard is inside a chassis.

The PNY GeForce 6800 Ultra's are reference designs and fit the ABIT AN8 SLI like a glove. The design of the dual PCI Express x16 expansion slots is just perfect as the dual slot cooling has enough breathing room to get rid of the heat produced by both cards. We also like to notice that the ABIT Q-OTES solution is ideal to cool the nForce4 chipset and still leaves enough space for the GeForce 6800 Ultra cards. The heatpipe design is just ideal as solution on this ABIT board.

I think its time we stuff the AMD X2 core into this bad boy and get some technical feedback from this setup. Now I will go ahead and install this configuration into our test bed and we can start the testing....