If you follow the professional gaming scene, you probably recognize the name Fatal1ty. Jonathan Wendel, who goes by that handle, is one of the top professional gamers in the world. Specializing in shooters, he has won three CPL (Cyberathlete Professional League) championships, each in a different game, and has placed highly in or won several other major gaming competitions. Now he is teaming up with several hardware vendors to bring the Fatal1ty brand to top-notch gaming gear.

Wendel has now partnered with ABIT to produce Fatal1ty motherboards, geared for high-end gaming, overclocking, and extreme PC enthusiasts. The first such board is the AA8XE, a Pentium 4 motherboard based on Intel’s 925XE chipset. This isn’t just another motherboard with a pro gamer’s brand stamped on it, though. Wendel worked with ASUS engineers to produce a customized product that meets his needs—and the needs of those who push their PCs to extreme limits.

Sounds ExtremeTech to us! At a retail price of about $250 (you can find it online for about $20 less—check prices) this is definitely not a cheap piece of kit. We kick the tires on ABIT’s first Fatal1ty-branded motherboard to see if it’s worth the price premium. Continued…