RIP abit, Dec. 31st 2008

It's been a great relationship, abit. That 440BX, BP6, AV7, AN8, IC7 and AW9D-MAX that I reviewed, used or owned are fond memories indeed!

However its long drawn out departure has been something of an inevitability, especially since it stopped making performance motherboards earlier this year to concentrate on more consumer orientated items like the abit FunFab.

While we wished abit all the best at the time, part of us died inside having seen what the once and arguably "first" enthusiast brand had been reduced to.

What let abit down? TweakTown comments:"Its management were excused and charged for bad financial practices, key staff walked away from the company, engineers jumped ship – ABIT, as we knew it, would never to be the same as it once were." Those key staff went to other companies and helped create new enthusiast brands that we know and love today.

Since USI revived the brand in 2006 and basically didn't have the "enthusiast understanding" to know what to do with it, it's been on a slow demise ever since. Having known a fair few abit employees during our time, we know that many have already left for better things, and of those left we wish them luck in the future too.

abit will continue to honour RMA and warranty requests for motherboards for up to the next three years, according to a statement previously.

Well, farewell old chap, it was nice knowing you. Will someone else revive the abit brand in the future? Or should it just be laid to rest permanently, so us old school enthusiasts can scoff at the newbies when they claim they "never used an abit board"? Let us know your thoughts, and condolences in the forums.