vikonic
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Hardware Throwback
This week’s entry is an overarching look at the evolution of computer hardware. While many things remain the same over the last few decades, there have been a lot of changes in aesthetics and technology across many different types of hardware. Today we’ll be looking at a classic mid-range motherboard that is nearly a decade old, and comparing some of its defining features with a modern mid-range motherboard.  ABIT AA8XE – A Decade old warhorse, finally retired! Released in late 2004, the A-BIT AA8XE was an excellent socket 775 motherboard for its time. One of the first boards to support a 1066 MHz bus speed, it set a solid standard in that sense. Some of the changes motherboards have gone through are iterative, such as DDR3 replacing the DDR2 support on the AA8XE. This board also represents a precursor to a lot of the design mentality that goes into modern motherboards.  Fast forward 10 years, X99 Deluxe from ASUS, just entering the fray! Things like integrated audio and LAN were not exactly ubiquitous in 2004, and this board came loaded with those, along with on-board RAID support. We also see a diagnostic code indicator onboard, which helps when troubleshooting start-up issues, this has become a standard feature.  AA8XE – A preview of things to come! MSI X99S – Time marches on! In terms of clock frequency speed alone, processors have not moved forward a great deal in the last decade. The AA8XE was perfectly capable of driving Pentium 4 class processors to 4 GHz and above, which as a default frequency, is pretty common even today! Another performance enhancement it brought was the inclusion of DDR2, dual channel memory. Pentium 4, in it’s early days was limited to RAMBUS RDRAM which was both a bit slow and prohibitively expensive, so the move to DDR2 was certainly a relief for enthusiasts.  AA8XE - DDR2 slots, in the worst color imaginable! Like that old shirt you aren’t allowed to wear out of the house. 
ASUS X99 Deluxe – Color coordinated and absolutely gorgeous! It really ties a room together. While the AA8XE was forward thinking for its time, it is ten years old. A lot has changed in the PC space in those ten years, especially with regard to modernizing board design. The first and most obvious difference between the AA8XE and a modern motherboard is probably the coloration. A hasty mishmash of orange, green, white, black, purple and blue the AA8XE resembles the disorganized palette of a painter getting ready to depict an extremely weird sunrise. One can tell just looking at this board that not a lot of attention was paid to keeping a consistent theme. There are a few flashes of inspiration here and there, like the southbridge heatsink which actually spells out the word ABIT with its fins. Modern motherboards can still be oddly colored, but one would be hard pressed to find a board released in the last few years with such a seemingly random smattering of color as this one.  Not very obvious at first glance, but the ABIT heatsink cutout suggests plethora of creative thinking to come! Aside from the aesthetic differences and the color palette, another major difference is the size, shape and the sheer size of the capacitors! Positively packed with tall, black and grey cylinders the landscape of this board almost immediately dates it when viewed by an experienced observer. A modern motherboard will still tend to be riddled with small electrolytic caps, but they are normally less than half the size of the behemoth capacitor groups found on the AA8XE and definitely organized to be less obtrusive. This board even has caps in between DIMM slots, which is something we simply don’t see anymore due to the larger RAM heatsink configurations that are prevalent in modern computing.  AA8XE - Towering capacitors everywhere! 
Gigabyte X99 UD4 – Barely visible, tiny capacitors! Miniaturization of the capacitors isn’t the only technology difference we see here, as the inductors also get a serious shrink. Ten years is a lot of time, and a lot of technical advancements have come through the pipe in that span. Capacitors have been reduced to less than half their previous size. Coils on the modern motherboards have shrunk to the point they aren't even obvious, often completely self contained, and looking like nondescript black components without any visible copper at all! 
Speaking from any point of view from aesthetics to component quality, it’s safe to say that motherboards have made a quantum leap in the last decade. Few boards highlight this better than the ABIT AA8XE, forward thinking for its time, but still held back by the materials and know-how of the era. Personally, it makes me wonder just where we will be in another ten years! Written by: Michael Blystone Edited by: Vedran Ikonic
post edited by vikonic - 2014/10/31 08:10:12
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