November 10, 2006 – Pro-Clockers got a chance to examine the abit AW9D-MAX motherboard, the second release of abit's Core 2 Duo product line after the AB9 series. Their first impression: "I interact with a lot of people on a daily basis who feel that if you have seen one motherboard you have seen them all. Well, I've got to tell you that is far from the truth. Upon opening the box the sheer beauty of the MAX was evident. With its dark theme it really is a sexy motherboard."
In the PCMark05 test, the abit AW9D-MAX got a score of 6080, compared to 6050 and 6020 from the two competitors. Other tests in Sandra and Everest also showed the AW9D-MAX "outbenching" the two competing motherboards.
In terms of overclockability, Pro-Clockers think that "overclocking the MAX was a breeze. There was no need to disable minor things in the BIOS like on the [competitor]. All we had to play with was voltages, timings and FSB settings. These are the things that really matter. Ah, Sweet settings … One advantage that the MAX has over the [competitor] is the higher MCH voltage which is a real contributor to maximum overclocking. In the BIOS, the ABIT board has the option of up to 2.0 volts, while the [competitor's] offering only goes up to 1.65v."
Pro-Clockers muse further: "The AW9D is the most delightful 975 chipset board I have dealt with so far. Visually it is awesome looking. From the dark color theme to the blue LED display it looks as good as it performs. And it really performs. It is in the small things that abit shows its class, like how all the ports and connectors are located near the edges of the board".
They also concluded that one very important strength of the AW9D-MAX motherboard, when compared to the competitors, "is its out-of-the-box overclocking ability. As soon as the board was removed from the box I was able to take it straight to 375MHz without any major voltage hikes. After some initial playing with this speed we set it back to default and did some basic testing. After all the boring stuff was done we obtained a very generous overclock to 400MHz max. This was 10 megahertz more than the [competitor's board] tested weeks ago, and a full 50% overclock on our e6600!"
Although certainly not the highest overclock ever reached on the AW9D-MAX, this is still a very respectable leap in performance; so respectable in fact that Pro-Clockers chose to endow the AW9D-MAX with the honorable Highly Recommended Award!
For the full review, go to:
http://www.pro-clockers.com/reviews.php?id=166&page=1
For more information on the AB9 Pro, go here: Universal abit AW9D-MAX |