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Quality and Setup of the Abit IT7-MAX2 |
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Straying From the Norm... |
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Just by looking at the
IT7-MAX2's black PCB, it's obvious Abit put
considerable thought into this board's design and
layout. Even with the wide array of integrated
components, Abit equipped the IT7-MAX2 with four PCI
slots, along with the obligatory AGP slot, which
should allow for plenty of expansion. In the
external I/O ports on the back plane, six of the
available USB ports are visible, along with the PS/2,
LAN, IEEE-1394 (Firewire) and audio connectors.
We should note that some of the USB ports are powered
by VIA's VT6202 controller, the IEEE-1394 controller
is made by Ti, and Realtek's ALC650, and 8100B 10/100
controllers handle the audio and Ethernet duties.
ATA/133 RAID and
Serial-ATA functionality is handled by High-Point's
excellent HPT374 controller We have tested quite
a few different IDE RAID controllers and to this
point, the HPT374 has been the most impressive.
As you'll see later, RAID 0 performance was very good
with the IT7-MAX2. Until we're able to
appropriate some Serial-ATA hard drives, we can't
comment on the board's Serial-ATA capabilities, but
remember that Abit included a Serillel adapter that
allows the use of standard IDE drives on the
Serial-ATA controller. Just below the IDE RAID
connectors, the very useful POST debugger LEDs are
visible. These LEDs generate codes that make
diagnosing some hardware related issues a breeze.
In the event of a problem, simply look up the debug
code being displayed in the included manual and you'll
know which subsystem is malfunctioning. Abit has
also installed two, small reset and power switches on
the IT7-MAX2. These switches are useful for
testing a board prior to taking the time to mount it a
case.
There is also plenty of
room around the CPU socket, so installing an oversized
CPU cooler should not be a problem. The
Northbridge is cooled by a large aluminum heatsink,
held in place by a strong metal clip. We
normally prefer active cooling on the Northbridge, but
throughout testing the passive heatsink barely got
warm to the touch. Simply put, active cooling
would have been overkill. Overall, we were very
pleased with connector placement, and, as you can see
in some of the shots above, all of the ports and
headers are clearly labeled on the IT7-MAX2.
THE BIOS:
The Abit IT7-MAX was equipped with a very complete Phoenix / Award v.6.0 BIOS
derivative. All of the standard BIOS menus are
visible above. From within the BIOS, all of the on-board components can be enabled
or disabled, something users who plan on installing
high-end audio or NIC card will be happy to know. There are also a slew of options
for tweaking memory timings for
optimum performance, that allow CAS
latency settings as low as 1.5. User's worried
about overheating can also set a specific shut-down
temperature, and can even specify what percentage to
throttle down their CPU should things get a little too
toasty...
Something
else
we were happy to find in the IT7-MAX2's BIOS was Abit's
popular SoftMenu III. Within the SoftMenu III, users can adjust the FSB (Front Side Bus)
between 100 and 250MHz in 1MHz increments. The IT7-MAX2
also has a wide assortment of dividers that allow for
better stability at higher bus speeds, but the most
useful feature allows users to lock the PCI clock at 33, 37 or
44MHz, regardless of what FSB is being used. This
feature will no doubt make this board a favorite amongst
hardcore overclockers. Another great "feature"
gives users the ability to run their memory using a
4:5 bus to memory speed ratio. Using the 4:5
setting in conjunction with a 133MHz FSB, effectively
runs the memory at 172MHz (+33%), or DDR354.
This is a feature designed to allow owners of CPU with
100MHz FSB to run their memory at DDR266 speeds, but
luckily it works with any CPU that is installed. The Vcore and DDR
voltages are also user adjustable, but unfortunately the I/O
voltage cannot be altered. The Vcore can be set as high as 1.7v in .25v
increments, which is a little low, but we suspect
future BIOS upgrades will change this limit. The DDR memory
voltage can be set to any voltage between 2.5v and
2.8v in .1v increments.
OVERCLOCKING:
We had
very good luck overclocking our 2.4GHz "Northwood" P4
on the IT7-MAX2. With the Vcore voltage set to
its 1.7v maximum, we slowly raised the FSB until the
system was no longer stable. We hit our limit at
an FSB of 160MHz, which brought our CPU up to 2.87GHz.
This was the highest we have ever been able to take
this particular CPU with simple air-cooling (so far
only the MSI 845E Max2 and IT7-MAX2 have been able to
take this CPU that high). Actually, we were able
to boot into Windows with a 168MHz FSB, but the system
could not reliably complete any benchmarks. We'd
be willing to bet that breaking the 3GHz barrier would
have been possible had we been using a more exotic
cooling solution.
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