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ABIT, which is now officially known as Universal ABIT, is recapturing is former glory. The ABIT AW9D-MAX motherboard is based on Intel's top of the line 975X Express and ICH7R chipsets, packs in quite a lot to get excited about.
80% Rating: 
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ABIT AW9D-MAX |
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ABIT AW9D-MAX motherboard highlights
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There's plenty of
space between the two Physical PCI Express x16 slots so if you're using videocards that take up more than two slots
you're ok. When used with ATI Crossfire, each videocard received 8 PCI Express lanes
each. With just one videocard installed, it gets the full 16 lanes
of PCIe. There are two PCI Express x1 slots for high bandwidth peripherals
and a 32 bit PCI slot. At the bottom left hand corner of
the ABIT AW9D-Max motherboard is the auxiliary power connector. It is a very poor
location for a power connector.
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The bottom right hand corner of the ABIT AW9D-Max
motherboard has the front panel I/O header, Port 80 diagnostics card, and
actual Power/Reset switches. Most of the Serial ATAII headers are located here, along with
the IDE port.
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ABIT's Silent OTES
2 uses copper heatpipes to conduct the heat from both the Intel 975X Express
Northbridge and ICH7R Southbridge chipsets to the larger MOSFET heatsink in
the far corner. The system is totally
silent.
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It's
recommended that you use an ATX 2.0 spec power supply (24 pin) with the
ABIT AW9D-Max motherboard. Note the ESP12V connector at the top of the
motherboard, the AW9D-MAX is compatible with ATX12V connectors too. The four
DDR2 memory slots can be installed with up to 8GB of memory. Install the memory
in the same colour slot to enable dual
channel mode.
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Space around the CPU socket is a bit tight, though not out of
Intel specs. If you opt for a passive watercooling system, you'll want to blow air in the
direction of the CPU socket to cool the MOSFET heatsinks and Northbridge
heatsink.
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ABIT places the second Silicon
Image SiI3132 Serial ATA II controller and floppy drive connector at the
very bottom of the motherboard. A bad location as the cables will have to
wrap around the other system
devices.
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