Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C., September 10th, 2002 - One of the first reviews of the new ABIT IT7 MAX2 has shown that the new board will
be making a big splash. This week FiringSquad has given the board their Editor's Choice award. The main reason? The advanced features. "From a features perspective, the IT7-MAX2 is stuffed with goodies. The IT7-MAX2 is based on Intel's 845E chipset, which brings official support for the
533MHz system bus to the DDR platform. Onboard you'll
find Serial ATA (an upcoming next-generation storage technology from Intel and
other partners), ATA/133 RAID, 5.1 audio, Firewire, networking and more! Quite
simply, the IT7-MAX2 is the most feature-filled 845E motherboard on the market."
One of the most advanced aspects of the IT7-MAX2 is the ability to have up to 10 hard drives with two of them Serial ATA, plus having them in RAID configuration, even mixing the Serial ATA with the IDE drives. plus an ABIT exclusive, the Serillel
adapter.
"Serial
ATA is an evolutionary replacement...giving it a theoretical performance advantage
over today's storage technology supports rates of up to 150MB/sec, and for added
flexibility Serial ATA cables are considerably thinner than their predecessors.
The IT7-MAX2 features an onboard 2-channel Serial ATA controller bringing
support for two Serial ATA devices. But, since Serial ATA hard drives aren't
slated for release until next year, ABIT bundles its SERILLEL adapter for use
with today's hard drives."
"Simply plug the SERILLEL
adapter into the back of your hard drive, and then hook your Serial ATA cable
into one of the two Serial ATA ports on the IT7-MAX2 motherboard and you're good
to go: one less gigantic IDE cable constricting airflow within your system case!
We see no reason why any IT7-MAX2 owner should not take advantage of this
feature; it truly puts the IT7-MAX2 in a class of its own at the top of the 845E
market... Unlike all of the other 845E motherboards, the IT7-MAX2 is ready to
support the next generation in storage technology today, making it the most
future-proof solution currently available."
The other major advancement with the ABIT IT7 MAX2 is the port expansion. "If you recall, Intel's 845E chipset natively supports up to six USB 2.0 ports. USB 2.0 offers up to 480MB/sec of bandwidth, in comparison USB 1.1 tops out at 12MB/sec. On top of this, ABIT adds VIA's VT6202 USB 2.0 controller to the mix, bringing support of up to four more USB devices (for a maximum of 10). A Texas Instruments Firewire controller supports up to three devices."
The ABIT IT7 MAX2, like all great ABIT boards, features ABIT's SoftMenu™ technology. "Based
on their third generation SoftMenu™ technology... bus speeds of 100-250MHz are available in 1MHz increments, just like the original IT7-MAX. Also, the PCI bus can be locked at speeds of 33, 37, or 44MHz, regardless of what bus speed is used. In terms of voltage adjustment, voltages of up to 1.7V in .025V increments are available for Northwood Pentium 4 processors. DDR voltage adjustments are also provided. In its case, 0.1V increments are provided up to
2.8V."
"Besides adjusting those functions, end users can also tweak memory timings to their hearts delight. In fact, the IT7-MAX2 offers a setting for CAS latency 1.5 memory! Unfortunately, the 845E chipset doesn't support DDR333 memory, so you're stuck with DDR266 only, but at least ABIT provides all the settings you'll need to run your memory as fast as possible."
"One other feature we really like about the IT7-MAX2 is its ability to enable/disable
all of the integrated functions on the motherboard within the SoftMenu™
III BIOS. With many other motherboards pulling jumpers on the motherboard itself
can only disable these features. It's a lot easier to press a button on a
keyboard than reaching inside a case to pull a jumper!"
"Porsche,
Ferrari, Lamborghini. All three of these of these brands are well known for
producing high-end sports cars. Just as these companies represent the cutting
edge in automotive performance, ABIT has established itself as a dominant player
in the upper echelon of performance motherboards. ABIT's IT7-MAX2 is the most feature-packed
Pentium 4 motherboard on the market. "
For the full review please click
here:
http://firingsquad.gamers.com/hardware/it7max2/default.asp
or more on ABIT please click here:
http://www.abit.com.tw |
