This motherboard has some peculiar options related to the ULI M1689 chipset so I will give a short info about them - and being shameless i will copy over from my old topic:
- M1689 gated clock reduces power to unused PCI slots
- PCI/14M/USB clock power down is a more enhanced version of the previous option and disable power to unused USB ports in addition to PCI slots.
I played with them and the scores in the benchmarks did not changed regardless of the setting.

In the AGP options page you MUST set the AGP secondary latency timer according to what you see in the picture in order to have compatibility between the board/chipset and the radeon x1950 pro!
The last interesting options are on the hypertransport configuration page:
- hammer to M1689 frequency represents the hypertransport frequency and it is set at 1000 MHz as it should be on socket 939.
- hammer to M1689 width is, as the name implies, the width of the hypertransport bus and 16/8 bits is the max value.
- M1689 HTT (hypertransport) tristate - this option enhances the stability of the system and it is mandatory on Abit UL8 otherwise you will get random crashes! Leave it enabled at all times!

Everest 5.50 shows all the system details; latest BIOS version has been used for all the boards:

The tests: I consider that the vast majority of people building a socket 939 system are interested in games so 3d performance is what we are looking for; most of the benchmarks test just that! Although one can use a socket 939 system for modern tasks with modern Windows performance is going to be so low that it is highly unlikely that are many interested in going this route!
All 4 platforms can take Windows 9X without any problem, tested with a Windows Me after downgrading the RAM to 2*256mb and the video card to a Radeon X600XT. However I consider that Windows 9X on such a system is far beyond its purpose; a socket 478 or socket A are, IMHO, ideally suited for a 98SE machine. Therefore I used Windows XP SP3 on all 4 platforms.
The "target period" for a retro PC like this is going to be the 2000 - 2004 period (early Windows XP) and is limited by the video card. I did tested FEAR from 2005 however x1950 pro is limiting performance so much that all 4 perform within 2% of each other. I strongly believe that for late Windows XP period you are going to need a strong directx 10 pci-express video card; not even the strongest Directx9 card can master the games from 2005-2006!

I must underline the fact that I have performed all synthetic tests at the default settings first and at maximum details in all subsequent runs. All games have been tested fully maxed out with the sole exception of Doom 3.
So now the tests: all are from the 2000 - 2004 period.

Synthetic tests:
DirectX7: 3dmark 2000;
DirectX8: Code creatures pro, 3dmark 2001;
DirectX9: 3dmark 2003, Aquamark3;
GUI test: Tom 2D;
CPU tests: Super pi, Cinebench 2003;
System tests: Pcmark 2002 & 2004 & 2005;

Games:
DirectX8: unreal tournament 2004;
DirectX9: Farcry, Half life 2;
OpengGl: Doom 3.

12 of the tests will include sound. A legitimate question would be: but they all got AC97 codec so they are equal! We shall see about that.

Quick recap before going into the results:
Drivers:
ULI platforms have the latest 2.20 version;
VIA has the 4.56v version of 4 in 1;
Realtek AC97 driver version 4.06;
Radeon driver version 10.2;
for the IC+ LAN controller i used driver v2.22.51104 from https://soggi.org/drivers/ic-plus.htm - I thank soggi for this one!

System A - socket 754
Athlon 64 Venice 3200;
Abit KU8 - ULI M1689 chipset;
2*1gb DDR-400;
radeon x1950 pro;
SSD Kingston 240gb + WD raptor 74gb.

System B - socket 754
Athlon 64 Venice 3200;
Abit KV8 PRO - VIA K8T800 PRO chipset;
2*1gb DDR-400
radeon x1950 pro
WD raptor 74gb.

System C - socket 939
Athlon 64 Venice 3500
Abit UL8 - ULI M1689 chipset;
2*1gb DDR-400
radeon x1950 pro
SSD Kingston 240gb + WD raptor 74gb.

System D - socket 939
Athlon 64 Venice 3500
Abit AV8 - VIA K8T800 PRO chipset;
2*1gb DDR-400
radeon x1950 pro
WD raptor 74gb.

We are interested in the difference that dual channel brings to the Athlon 64, as there is a 9.375% difference in the performance rating - PR - of these processors so let's see what the tests show us!
For easier viewing the ULI platforms have the default Windows XP Luna theme with the silver variation as this is the official colour of the company logo and the VIA platforms have the default Windows XP Luna theme with the blue variation as this is the official colour of the company logo.