Board Layout:

The KV8 Pro’s layout is unique in itself. It’s not the standard layout that everyone is used to where the socket is located towards the top of the board with maybe a 12v connector to its left and a few memory slots to the right. In standard layouts, the primary and secondary IDE connectors and floppy connector is usually besides the memory slot with a 20-pin power connector somewhere near the integrated componenents. With the K8T800, we found the northbridge to be in the middle of the board with the southbridge in its typical location. However, that’s not the case with this board. Although there aren’t significant changes, they are enough to grab your attention for a quick while.

Abit has slightly moved the socket where the memory modules would usually integrate. This leaves the top area of the board clean of interference. There are three columns of capacitors that are right next to the socket itself. The capacitors could potentially cause incompatibilities with certain heatsinks, but we found them to be in a perfect place with our Zalman and Thermalright coolers. The reason is that both Zalman and Thermalright heatsinks tend to have designs with enough space towards the bottom that the capacitors usually don’t cause very many issues. Of course, they could still pose issues with a few exclusive designs from other manufacturers. For that, we suggest you confirm board compatibility by e-mailing the cooler manufacturer’s technical support team.

Instead of seeing the northbridge underneath the socket, it has also been moved diagonally from the designated area. The northbridge is passively cooled, but that shouldn’t be an issue during overclocking. The two memory slots are integrated right next to the socket and support 2GB of DDR400, DDR333 and DDR266 modules. The only issue we have is that Abit could’ve introduced more DIMM slots on the board for expansion in memory capacity. Sure, having all four-memory slots filled hinders the overclocking performance, but it’s nice to have future upgrading factor considered into the motherboard. More than likely, this board isn’t the likely choice for those who usually work with massive video and audio files. Since these setups usually like to go by "the more memory the better the performance", this board will turn out to be quite expensive if you ever decide to utilize its 2GB functionality. Your only choice in that case would be to purchase the 1GB modules that cost much higher than their dual 512MB counterparts.

Even though you can’t see, the floppy connector and the power connectors are implemented towards the very edge of the board; both of these are placed in a well-thought out setting. We must also mention that Abit has congested certain areas of the board (for example, the floppy, power and IDE connectors are too close to the DIMM slots) to save a little bit of space. This isn’t an issue, but actually this strategy favors Abit, as they managed to free-up space around the critical segments of the board (CPU socket and northbridge). Due to this, the thermal performance of the CPU as well as the northbridge actually benefit, as they remain free from cables and have a typically superior airflow. Generally, Abit has a refined layout with the KV8 Pro that should please even the most decisive overclockers.

As you move down the board, you will encounter two IDE connectors that are rotated 90 degrees to deal with the cabling issue in larger sized cases, like the ones from Cooler Master and Thermaltake. Underneath the PATA connectors, you will find two serial ATA ports that are powered by VIA’s VT8237 southbridge. This particular southbridge has support for two IDE and SATA channels with RAID 0 and 1 capabilities. Abit has obviously utilized all features of the VT8237. You can see the southbridge itself next to the SATA ports. Moving on, if you look closely to the left of the southbridge, you fill find a yellow jumper. This jumper is the CMOS reset switch. Unfortunately, Abit has decided to implement this feature where the graphics adapter would definitely disturb its usability. We are not sure why Abit decided to place the jumper here instead of its regular spot, but it’s an immature mistake on their part.

The uGuru chip is based towards the right side of the southbridge along with Abit’s watchdog feature. The watchdog feature will allow the motherboard to display error messages in real-time instead of you having to listen to the speaker for beeps. This is definitely a step towards making the board friendlier to users, and we personally commend Abit for integrating this element on the KV8 Pro.

Unfortunately for Abit, they decided to leave the reset, hard drive, power LED and speaker pins white instead of color-coding them to make the installation process even easier. With all manufacturers making color-coding a standard, Abit should’ve also gone this route. Other than that, the PCI and AGP slots are based at their regular stations and there is more than adequate amount of space between the DIMM and the AGP slots.

The back I/O panel contains PS/2 ports for keyboard and mouse, one serial and parallel port, one SPDIF input/output port, five audio connectors, four USB 2.0 ports and a single RJ-45 LAN connector. The Gigabit LAN feature is supported by VIA’s VT6122 PCI controller while the audio is featured by Realtek’s ALC658 6-channel codec. The USB 2.0 ports are directly controlled by VIA’s VT8237 southbridge. Although the VT8237 supports eight USB 2.0 ports, only four of them are available in the back panel I/O. Regrettably, Abit doesn’t include the separate bracket to further provide the four additional ports, but you do have the choice to purchase a separate PCI card.

All in all, we are fairly delighted to see the board’s layout. Aside from the few minor issues we stated on this page, there isn’t anything significant that will cause issues with general-purpose usage.

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