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AOpen AK89 Max / AK86-L (AMD 64) Mainboard Serious Sam: The Second Encounter is becoming very dated. Based on DirectX 7, it is one of the oldest benchmarks we run here. Running the Elephant Atrium Demo in OpenGL with the default "speed" setting for 1024x768 we found the results to be inline with the other OpenGL benches.
Finishing us up is the OpenGL grandpa, Quake III. The demo was run using the Guru3D's benchmarking program set to 'normal' while at 1024x768 resolution.
Overclocking Both of these products are the first Athlon 64 boards we have tested here. I wasn't sure what to expect from jacking up our Athlon 64 3000 processor. Our experience was warm but nothing really to write home to mom about. We capped out the AK86-L at 221MHz and the AK89 Max at 223MHz. Again, not a statistically significant difference between the two boards or particularly impressive. Below are screen shots of CPU-Z with the AK86-L on the left and the AK89 Max on the right.
We mentioned the AOpen EZ Clock at the beginning of the review. Achieving the same results with the EZ Clock as we did by doing some trial in error in the BIOS, AOpen has proved the value of their latest utility. Below are some pics of the EZ Clock interface. The plus and minus signs are for adjustments as well as the large arrows on either side of the FSB meter.
Conclusion So where does all this leave us? For starters the AK86-L and AK89 Max have a street price of $125 and $110 respectively. There aren't a lot of boards available that come full featured for $125 or under. The features most noteworthy being they each have SATA, Gigabit LAN, the EZ Clock utility, color coded front panel connectors, SilentTek and SilentBIOS noise reduction as well as the Watchdog ABS. The AK89 Max takes this and adds two additional SATA ports bringing that brings the total to four, the Die Hard BIOS and Firewire ports. Both boards were (and remain) running as the rock solid and stable without so much as a hiccup. Stability has always been one of AOpen's hallmarks and these Athlon 64 boards are no different. Our qualms were few but were tempered by the low price on both products. First off was the lack of high ceiling voltage options in the BIOS. The AK89 Max fared somewhat better but still not what we would have liked to seen. This very well may be addressed in a BIOS upgrade down the road. The SilentTek and Silent BIOS functions were outstanding ideas. I would have liked to see the SYSFan be an option as the manual said it was supposed to be. Our other issues are easily mitigated by the pricing. The AK86-L had no Firewire but again we're talking about a SATA / Gigabit / Athlon 64 board priced at $110; there is zero complaining room there. The AK89 Max had everything you could want and was only $15 more. So which is it, nForce 3 or VIA? From a performance standpoint the AK89 Max edged out the AK86-L. Averaging the percentage lead in each test and putting it all together gave the AK89 Max less than a 2% lead. I'd say these competing chipsets are about as evenly matched as you can get. With that said, it comes down to preference in the end. My pick between the two would be the AK86-L. It is less expensive and the few missing features aren't something I would use anyway. I also liked its more manageable size which made mounting and access smoother than it's larger cousin. In the end, pick either board and you have a winner.
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by R. Dean Barker.
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