The BIOS
It feels like I've said this in a dozen Abit motherboard reviews, and I probably have, but Abit's has an unrivaled reputation for putting out the most enthusiast-friendly BIOSes around. That reputation raises the bar of expectations for the AV8's BIOS, and true to form, Abit delivers.

Let's kick things off with memory timings, where Abit has every base covered, including some you may not have known existed.

All the HyperTransport tweaking options we've come to know, love, and probably never use are there, too. The latest AV8 beta BIOS, which should be available the public shortly, also adds HyperTransport multipliers of 5x, 4x, 3x, 2x, and 1x. The ability to slow down transfer rates on the HyperTransport link should help keep things running smoothly during overclocking.

The AV8 BIOS's AGP tweaking options are complete...

But the board's overclocking options, which reside in the uGuru section of the BIOS, are the real treat. In addition to supporting a host of multipliers for Athlon 64 processors, the AV8 BIOS supports CPU bus speeds up to 336MHz in 1MHz increments. To keep AGP and PCI clock speeds in line as the CPU scales up, the AV8 sports 6:2:1, 7:2:1, and 8:2:1 ratios for CPU, AGP, and PCI speeds. The BIOS also offers an AGP/PCI bus lock. The latest beta BIOS even gives users the option of locking the AGP bus at either 66 or 74MHz.

In the voltage department, the AV8's BIOS is also pretty stacked. CPU voltages up to 1.85V are supported in 0.025V increments. Users can also manipulate AGP, DDR, north bridge, south bridge, and HyperTransport voltages in 0.05V increments.

Like any well-behaved board should, the AV8's BIOS controls the system's CPU fan speed according to processor temperature. Users can set temperature thresholds to trigger high and low fan speeds, and the board also allows control over the voltages that determine fan speeds. This arrangement isn't quite as slick as the linear fan control offered by Intel's new LGA775 systems, but it's pretty good. Kudos to Abit for also providing fan speed control for the board's system and north bridge fan headers.

The AV8 BIOS's fascination with fans doesn't stop at speeds and voltages; uGuru also offers a host of fan speed monitoring capabilities. Paranoid users can set fan failure shutdown conditions and speed-triggered alarms to ensure that a catastrophic cooling failure doesn't toast a system.

The BIOS also supports extensive temperature monitoring, including more shutdown and alarm conditions.

Abit even goes so far as to extend the board's shutdown and alarm conditions to voltage monitoring, where users can set high and low triggers for a host of system voltages.

Thus far, I have yet to see another BIOS that comes close to emulating uGuru's monitoring and warning capabilities. I can't think of a single feature that's missing from this BIOS.