ABIT IT7-MAX2 V2.0
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By now, just about everyone has heard of the ABIT MAX series motherboards. Enthusiasts have been calling for a cutting edge motherboard solution that not only provides us with great flexibility for tweaking and overclocking, but also does away with some antiquated form factors such as serial and parallel ports, more commonly known as "Legacy Free." You gotta hand it to ABIT. They are currently the only manufacturer today doing this, and in order to advance the evolution of our computing experience, we need to see more bold steps like this.
Today we have the ABIT IT7-MAX2 V2 Intel Pentium 845PE based Motherboard for review. Lets start things off by looking at the official specifications of the board
Specifications
Processor
- Supports Intel Pentium 4 Socket 478 processors with 533/400 MHz Front Side Bus
- Supports Intel Hyper-Threading Technology
Chipset
- Intel 82845PE / 82801DB (ICH4)
- Supports Ultra DMA 100/66/33
- Accelerated Graphics Port connector supports AGP 4X Interface (1.5V only)
Memory
- Three 184-pin DIMM sockets (unbuffered Non-ECC DIMM)
- Supports 3 DIMM DDR 200/266/333 or 3 DIMM DDR 200/266(Max. 2GB)
Serial ATA
- On board 2-Channel Serial ATA interface of 150MB/sec
ATA 133 RAID
- High Point HPT374 IDE RAID controller
AUDIO
- 6-Channel AC 97 CODEC on board
USB 2.0
- Supports 10 Ports USB 2.0 at 480 Mb/sec transfer rate
IEEE1394
- Supports 3 Ports IEEE 1394 at 400/200/100 Mb/s transfer rate
LAN
- On board RTL8100B 10/100M PCI Fast Ethernet Controller
BIOS
- SoftMenu™ Technology to set CPU parameters
- Supports Plug-and-Play (PNP)
- Supports Advanced Configuration Power Interface (ACPI)
Internal I/O Connectors
- 1 x AGP, 4 x PCI slots
- 1 x Floppy Port supports up to 2.88MB
- 2 x Ultra DMA 100/66/33 Connectors
- 2 x Ultra DMA 133/100/66/33 Connectors (RAID)
- 2 x Serial ATA 150MB/s Connectors
- 1 x 6 Channel audio FPIO pin header (for Media XP)
- 2 x USB headers, 1 x IEEE 1394 header
- 1 x CD-IN, 1 x AUX-IN
Back Panel I/O
- 1 x PS/2 Keyboard, 1 x PS/2 mouse
- 4 x USB connectors
- 2 x IEEE 1394 connectors
- 1 x S/P DIF Out connector
- 1 x Audio connectors (Center/Sub, Surround Speaker)
- 1 x Audio connectors (Front Speaker, Line-in, Mic-in)
- 2 x USB, 1 x RJ-45 LAN Connector
MISC
- ATX form factor
- Hardware monitoring - Including Fan speeds, Voltages, CPU and System environment temperature
- Supports Wake Up by LAN, Modem Ring, RTC Alarm
- Supports Keyboard and Mouse Power On
- Supports STR (Suspend to RAM)
OK. I'm not sure about you guys, but my first reaction is WOW! What more can ABIT really have included to make this a better motherboard? You'll get everything you need to build a great system and then some. Lets take a look at the package and contents.
Packaging
ABIT revamped their packaging awhile back and it has improved quite a bit. This particular board comes in their new "briefcase" type box with a nice clear plastic packaging design. Here is a shot of the box and it's contents.
Box and Contents
Generally packaging is not something you'll get excited about when it comes to mobo's. ABIT goes the extra mile to include custom black IDE and Floppy cables that are definitely a touch above the standard. Also included is a USB2.0 Bracket (As if the 6 on board wasn't enough), a custom made back plate for your case, tie straps and cable mounts as well as instructions and the SATA (serial ATA) adaptor with 1 serial cable. My only qualm with the SATA adaptor is those of us running IDE Drives setup in RAID will not be able to take advantage of the SATA on this board. It would have been nice to see 2 of them with cables included.
The ABIT Manual is very well written and covers just about everything you need to include installation, BIOS options and troubleshooting. It also has a very nice section for getting setup in RAID if you are interested in running with this motherboard.
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