Abit AW9D-MAX - A First Look
JC 04.09.2006 - 08:54 1789 11
JC
AdministratorDisruptor
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First Look @ bit-tech.netAbit has taken the time to give enough attention to the details - the layout is superb and the little details really make this board for me. There are some changes required in the BIOS before it makes its way on to the shelves though. We want to see more memory timings made available. Afterall, this is supposed to be an overclocker's board, and not giving enthusiasts the option to tweak memory timings to their hearts content could limit this board's potential in the long run. It would be good to see if Abit can get downward multiplier adjustments on Core 2 Duo processors to work aswell - it'd help to satisfy those looking for incredibly high front side bus speeds.
I'm excited at the prospect of Abit re-uniting itself with the overclocking crowd. It's been a long time since Abit was a household name among overclockers, and the AW9D-MAX is a board that could go a long way to help re-establish the Abit brand at the top. The AW9D-MAX has all of the bases to establish itself as one of the best 975X motherboards out there and it just needs a little time to iron out the issues that we've come across during our short time with the board. Once the issues are ironed out, I can see this board setting some records...
We will revisit the AW9D-MAX for a full review when the product is in mass production and available for purchase.
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b_d
© Natural Ignorance (NI)
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hört sich ja extrem gut an  abit wieder an der spitze, wird ja auch langsam zeit...
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Symon
Addicted
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abit wieder an der spitze, wird ja auch langsam zeit... das is wohl eher fraglich, obwohl das preview von coolaler natürlich sehr vielversprechend aussieht. irgendwie kann ich nur nicht ganz glauben, dass die retail boards alle so gut laufen werden 
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masterpain
bofh
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nach coolalers review hoff ich auf jeden fall das die retail versionen die selbe oc fähigkeiten haben.
coolaler hat aber auch eine andere testumgebung genutzt.
das board werde ich mir auf jeden fall kaufen, obs im gegensatz zum p5wdh was kann werd ich dann feststellen.
das board kann mich alleine schon wegen der vielen überflüssigen features, da sieht das abit wesentlich aufgeräumter gegen aus.
Bearbeitet von masterpain am 04.09.2006, 15:45
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b_d
© Natural Ignorance (NI)
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das board kann mich alleine schon wegen der vielen überflüssigen features auf, da sieht das abit wesentlich aufgeräumter gegen aus. word! das einzige was ich mir eventuell noch gewünscht hätte: zumindest 2 pci steckplätze. das p5wdh hat ja sogar 3...
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jet2sp@ce
Wie weit?
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Endlich kein PCI mehr. 
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jollyfriend
Banned
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na ja -das bios is halt wieder mal "schlechter" als bei asus. da hat das ami-bios einfach mehr drauf..
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sp33d
aka Fas7play
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bin auch ein alter abit fan! IT7-MAX2 IC7-MAX3 hatten die ehre verbaut zu werden  nur ganz überzeugt bin ich noch nicht!
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masterpain
bofh
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na ja -das bios is halt wieder mal "schlechter" als bei asus. da hat das ami-bios einfach mehr drauf.. das ist ansichtssache, ich halte amibios persönlich für eine bestrafung und ist auch immer einer der hauptpunkte gegen asus in meinem rechner gewesen. und vmch @ max 2v finde ich einfach nur geil...
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JC
AdministratorDisruptor
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AnandTech hat auch mal einen ersten Blick auf das AW9D-MAX geworfen. Our preview of the Abit AW9D-MAX now shows a motherboard capable of living up to its heritage. In fact, this is probably the best performing Abit board we have tested since the IC7-MAX3 board that was one of our all time favorite Intel 875 boards. While we noticed a few minor issues with the BIOS during a rigorous test schedule, we have to state once again that the overall performance of the board is extremely impressive at this time. However, our enthusiasm is curtailed by the layout and expansion options on the board. While the minimalist and almost legacy free nature of the board may appeal to some, we found the lack of useable PCI slots to be a major drawback during operation with this board. We did come to accept this limitation as we found the on-board audio solution to be very good for most purposes and accepted the fact that this board would probably not be used in a home theater setup. That still does not excuse Abit for not including more PCI slots or at least changing the location of the single slot provided.
If the typical enthusiast utilizes a CrossFire arrangement then you lose both a PCI Express X1 slot and the only PCI slot. This will probably not be acceptable to most enthusiasts as that PCI slot usually contains an aftermarket sound card or possibly a TV tuner card among other things. Even with a single PCI slot open your choices are still limited if you want to use the system as a media station unless you upgrade to a PCI Express based TV tuner card or plan on utilizing the on-board audio solution. Our other issue has to do with the location of the floppy connector (it could just go away in our opinion) and the 4-pin 12V molex connector (needed for CrossFire) at the bottom of the board next to the audio max connector. The location of the first two SiL3132 SATA ports could be debated but we did not have any issues in using the ports if they were plugged in before we installed our Creative X-FI card. The same holds true for the first two Intel ICH7R SATA ports as our ATI X1900XT card almost blocked these two ports.
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JC
AdministratorDisruptor
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Auch NordicHardware hat ein Engineering Sample unter die Lupe genommen. Performance and stability
We will continue to test this board and its final version and put them next to other leading motherboard at equal circumstances. We experienced the performance as just as fast, if not even slightly faster, than Intel's equivalent, BadAxe. We didn't experience any stability problems or inconsequential behavior at all, but we will continue to test the board before we will be able to give you a final answer.
Overclocking
The BIOS let us set a wide variety of voltages for the processor, memory and northbridge. 1.7125V for the processor, 2.65V for the memory and 2.0V for the northbridge is enough to go really far, even during extreme circumstances. What we miss though is the ability to adjust the voltage for the system buss, Vfsb. On the memory front you can set all of the regular latencies, but with an enthusiast motherboard as this we we wouldn't mind if there had been some more parameters for the latencies of the northbridge. These shortcomings are far from critical, and can be changed through software in Windows. The overclocking was a positive surprise to us. Without any hardware modifications we managed to reach a system bus of about 470FSB, something far from all i975X motherboards are capable of, and even fewer without modifications.
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Hornet331
See you Space Cowboy
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results schaun sehr nett aus, aber nur 1 pci slot... endlich ein 975 board das mehr als 5 interne sata ports hat aber wieder nur 1 pci slot...
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