nd22 wrote on 2026-03-15, 05:47:

UL8 is the only Abit board with a ULI chipset for socket 939; it is less wide than the ATX standard however it is not micro-ATX. […]
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UL8 is the only Abit board with a ULI chipset for socket 939; it is less wide than the ATX standard however it is not micro-ATX. Everything that you get comes only from the M1689 chipset, there are no extra controllers.
The main ATX connector is of the 24 pin variety which makes the board easy to use with modern power supplies. It is ideally positioned at the right edge of the board; unfortunately the P4 connector is right in the middle of the board.
You get 2 SATA 150 connectors that are fully compatible with SSD's and optical drives - a huge advantage! Because I used a WD raptor in the VIA system I also used one in this system for all drive-related tests.
The chipset hides under the blue heatsink and barely gets a little warm!

I seem to remember the ABit UL8 (and maybe ULI 1689 boards in general?) had some interesting memory dividers including a few higher ones. I can't remember now, but perhaps you could have a look next time you use this board?

I had a UL8 paired with a San Diego 4000+ in around 2007, I was quite late to the party after hanging on to my athlon XP system for too long. By then the parts were very cheap. I then changed it to nforce4 ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe with PCI-E, but this was a terrible board for overclocking. I had some XMS 4400 PRO DDR 550 ram that I was unable to take advantage of as the FSB speed could not get there with the A8N, I don't even think it had a higher option than 1:1. What is worse, it would not o/c even as well as the Abit UL8. I never understood why, it was either a terrible board or I was doing something wrong.

I always wondered if the UL8 could run the RAM at perhaps 2:1 ratio DRAM:FSB (i can't remember if it went that high?) but this would only work if you had an unlocked CPU as you would need something like 133MHz FSB to give you 266/533 DDR. and a 22x multiplier to get back up to the right clock speed.

DRAM clock for S939 comes from CPU frequency (using dividers).
For example :
DDR 550 (real clock 275MHz), would require CPU speed of :
1) 2200MHz (8x divider)
2) 2750MHz (10x divider)
3) 3300MHz (12x divider) <= HIGHLY unlikely to work on dual core CPU on S939.

There are multiple ways to get to those clock speeds (multiplier/"base"), few examples :
11 x 300MHz
11 x 200MHz
10x 275MHz
10x 220MHz

There is no point in forcing Intel's way of memory clocking on platform that simply doesn't do it that way.
You also don't especially need that extra base clock for performance (IMC takes care of that).
HTT* base, manipulation is nice option to have if you want to bypass some limitations (CPUs with half multipliers can be a pain to "match speed" of DRAM with other platforms).
(*no FSB on K8, similar to Intel's LGA 1366 and later platforms)

zuldan wrote on Yesterday, 09:18:

Very impressive! […]
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nd22 wrote on 2026-09-13, 14:09:

zuldan wrote on 2026-09-11, 03:21:

nd22 do you have the ABit Fatal1ty AN8 SLI with ABIT Guru Front Panel (GP-02) in your collection?

You mean this one:

Very impressive!

How about this one?

The attachment 20260921_160310.jpeg is no longer available

I have already shown my 3 AV8 in this post: Re: Battle of the platforms: socket 939!
I do not have the full package of this board but I have 3 guru clock version 1, 4 version 2 and no model 3 which is exceedingly rare:

I tried a Thermaltake pci-express extender and it does not work on either AX8 or AN8: https://www.thermaltake.com/tt-premium-pci-e- … nder-300mm.html
I tried a second one - a no name Chinese copy - and both boards refuse to work with it and halt with postcode 25.
I will try tonight another pci-express riser - options are running out...

nd22 wrote on Today, 06:40:

I have already shown my 3 AV8 in this post: Re: Battle of the platforms: socket 939!
I do not have the full package of this board but I have 3 guru clock version 1, 4 version 2 and no model 3 which is exceedingly rare:

Great clock collection. Yes very rare!

agent_x007 wrote on Yesterday, 23:17:

DRAM clock for S939 comes from CPU frequency (using dividers). For example : DDR 550 (real clock 275MHz), would require CPU spee […]
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DRAM clock for S939 comes from CPU frequency (using dividers).
For example :
DDR 550 (real clock 275MHz), would require CPU speed of :
1) 2200MHz (8x divider)
2) 2750MHz (10x divider)
3) 3300MHz (12x divider) <= HIGHLY unlikely to work on dual core CPU on S939.

There are multiple ways to get to those clock speeds (multiplier/"base"), few examples :
11 x 300MHz
11 x 200MHz
10x 275MHz
10x 220MHz

There is no point in forcing Intel's way of memory clocking on platform that simply doesn't do it that way.
You also don't especially need that extra base clock for performance (IMC takes care of that).
HTT* base, manipulation is nice option to have if you want to bypass some limitations (CPUs with half multipliers can be a pain to "match speed" of DRAM with other platforms).
(*no FSB on K8, similar to Intel's LGA 1366 and later platforms)

Thank you. I did overclock at 1:1 on both the UL8 and A8N. The UL8 would go well above 225Mhz but the A8N would not. I ended up swapping for an opteron 185 with the A8N but this was not any better for o/c.

Later I built another machine with a 4000+ for a family member that could do 3GHz but I can’t remember what board I used. had to run the memory on a Lower divider to achieve it (I had sold the good ram at this point!) but it worked. Damn I’m going to have to look through my emails now to see what I used.