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Written by WoobiaEroveva
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Sunday, 02 July 2006 17:05 |
Abit has been showing signs of returning to the
good old days ever since the USI takeover that resolved all of the company's
financial problems.
MAX is Abit's flagship brand for
overclockers - the MAX series boards are primarily designed with enthusiasts
looking to overclock in mind, whereas the Fatal1ty series are primarily
designed for rock solid stability and gaming - everything else is secondary.
The AW9D-MAX is by no means finished yet, as the
company is still contemplating adding more features, and tweaking the
aesthetics of the board before it reaches the market. Abit has some cool
asethetic touches planned, but we're unable to reveal specifics at this time.
We will bring you news on the planned inclusions if they materialise - we are
pushing to get the features added though.
It is based on Intel's 975X/ICH7R chipset, and features support for the
upcoming Core 2 Duo processors and DDR2-800 memory speeds. There are a total of
eight SATA 3Gbps ports included - one is an external e-SATA port, and all other
SATA ports seem to be in reasonably accessible locations. There is also support
for a pair of ATI video cards in CrossFire mode, thanks to the dual PCI-Express
x16 slots.
However, the lone PCI slot will be blocked if using a pair of Radeon X1900's in
CrossFire. Having said that though, the additional AudioMAX slot for the
included Realtek ALC880-based HD Audio daughter card, the need for an add-in
sound card isn't quite as crucial as it is on some solutions.
Because AudioMAX is an add-in solution, the signal noise is minimal when
compared to motherboards that have the audio codec onboard. Of course, AudioMAX
is no X-Fi solution, but it is a middle ground between onboard sound and
Creative's excellent X-Fi sound cards. Aside from that, the only other layout
niggle that we have on first inspection is the location of the 4-pin Molex
connector.
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!!! Go Console Crazy !!! 
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