The BIOS
Abit has a long history of loading its motherboard BIOSes with all sorts of tweaking and overclocking features and the KV8 Pro is no exception. In fact, the board has the most complete array of tweaking, overclocking, and monitoring features I've ever seen.

Kicking things off with memory, the KV8 Pro's BIOS offers control over just about every timing option imaginable. The only thing missing would be a memory bus lock that would keep DIMMs running in spec with an overclocked CPU bus.

Moving to HyperTransport, the KV8 Pro's BIOS lets users manipulate the width and speed of the board's processor interconnect. The BIOS doesn't offer HT options beyond 1GHz/16-bit, but slower HT bus speeds and narrower bus widths are available for those who want to experiment.

In the AGP department, the BIOS offers all the usual suspects.

But the real story for AGP is the BIOS's fixed AGP/PCI, which locks at 66/33MHz regardless of the CPU bus speed. If a fixed bus isn't your style, the BIOS also offers 6:2:1, 7:2:1, and 8:2:1 CPU:AGP:PCI dividers.

Abit complements the K8T800 Pro's fixed AGP/PCI bus with CPU bus speed options between 200 and 300MHz in 1MHz increments. Also available are a host of voltage options for the system's processor, AGP card, memory, north and south bridge chips, and even HyperTransport link. CPU voltages top out at 1.85V, which should be enough for all but the most extreme overclocking. Interestingly enough, voltage options aren't offered below 1.5V. However, if you're into underclocking to reduce power consumption and noise levels, it's probably best to rely on the KV8 Pro's Cool'n'Quiet support.

Although it's greyed-out in the picture above, the latest KV8 Pro alpha BIOS gives users limited control over the CPU multiplier. You won't be able to increase a CPU's multiplier, but lowering it should be no problem. We'll explore the alpha BIOS's multiplier options a little later in the overclocking section.

In addition to a wide range of tweaking and overclocking options, the KV8 Pro's BIOS also has a healthy serving of fan speed options. Users can set temperature thresholds and fan voltages for a system's processor, north bridge, and system fan. Since the KV8 Pro doesn't have a north bridge fan, its north bridge fan header could be used to power a secondary system fan.

So far, the KV8 Pro's BIOS looks pretty loaded, but the BIOS's monitoring features are really something else:

Users can easily set warning and shutdown thresholds for fan speeds, temperatures, and even voltages. This level of monitoring functionality was previously only available with Abit's uGuru Windows software, but the KV8 Pro integrates all these features into the BIOS.