Mainboard Review

abit AW9D-MAX - Intel 975X + ICH7R

Introduction

If you already were a PC hardware enthusiast 10 years ago, you may have loved abit for the innovations the manufacturer introduced. abit pioneered BIOS overclocking with SoftMenu, whereas jumpers were the only way to change FSB. abit is also known for unique products, like the popular BP6 in 1999, that was the only affordable dual socket 370 mainboard at that time.
After it leaded the market for years, abit encountered some financial problems that caused the brand to become silent for almost 15 months. At the very beginning of 2006, abit merged with USI (Universal Scientific Industrial Co.Ltd), specialized in electronics products manufacturing. This opportunity meant a new start for abit, that decided to strike hard to retrieve the position it used to have : new commercial policy based on innovations and quality, and -of course- a new line of products.

abit at Cebit 2006 (click to enlarge)

abit proposes three mainboard series based on Intel chipsets : IL8 and IL9 Pro based on 945P "Lakeport", AB9 and AB9 Pro based on P965 "Berlake", and the AW serie based on 975X "Glenwood". This last serie consists in three models : the AW8D, the AW9D, and the AW9D-MAX we tested today.

Packaging

abit's new marketing line relies on Bushido. Bushido means "way of the warrior" and is a Japanese code of conduct and a way of life. abit clearly shows the picture : "abit AW9D-MAX is the essence of Bushido, the true "way of the warrior". This board is built with only one thing in mind - destroy the competition - no thought, no mind, only perfect results through righteousness".

The board is provided in a large and very good looking box. The top part opens to reveal the mainboard main features through a plastic window.

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abit definitely made great efforts on the presentation of the bundle.

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• 1x IDE rounded cable and 1x floppy rounded cable.
• 7x SATA cables.
• optical-fiber audio cable.
• connector for additional USB and Firewire ports.
• SLI bridge.
• AudioMax add-in card.
• I/O shield plate.
• Manuals, drivers CD and RAID driver floppies.

Cables and accessories are provided in two separated carboard boxes (click to enlarge)

Cables, documentation, and drivers (click to enlarge)

Mainboard Presentation

Layout diagram

AW9D-MAX mainboard layout.
(click for a large view of the layout diagram)

Feature summary

Photos gallery

The AW9D-MAX offers no less than 7 SATA connectors on the board, plus one external eSATA connector to plug an external hard drive.

The eSATA connector takes place near the two PS/2 ports

Slient OTES 2 ensures an optimal heat dissipation out of "hot" spots of the mainboard : : the first heatpipe conducts heat from the northbridge to the top heatsink and the second heatpipe from the southbridge to the top heatsink. Therefore, all the heat is concentrated to the top heatsink that beneficiates from the air flow generated by the CPU fan and the power supply fan. This makes sure that all bases are covered efficiently.

Silent Otes 2 : northbridge (click to enlarge)

Silent Otes 2 : southbridge< (click to enlarge)

Four memory slots for a maximum of 4x2GB. (click to enlarge)

Solid state capacitors (click to enlarge)

Processor voltage regulator uses a 4-phase system, and relies on solid state and armor plated capacitors. These components give longer life, durability and stability to the VRMs.

AudioMax plugin card dedicated slot (click to enlarge)

AudioMax card in place (click to enlarge)

Expansions slots in a glance (click to enlarge)

OC strips on the back of the mainboard (click to enlarge)

OC strips consist in copper strips that help dissipating the heat away from the PCB.

Post code debug display and on-board switches (click to enlarge)

In red is UGURU panel connector (click to enlarge)

The AW9D-MAX includes onboard switches for "power on" and "reset". If this feature is very convenient when testing the mainboard outside of a case, it becomes useless once the system is built, because obviously you won't open a case panel to start or reset your system.
The mainboard offers a connection for the optional uGuru panel. This device stands in a 5"1/4 drive bay and allows to monitor the system : temperatures, voltages, frequencies, fan speeds... The panel also allows to overclock the system through a predefined set of profiles. Finally, the panel includes a protected button that allows to reset the CMOS. That is much more convenient in comparison to manipulating the jumper on the mainboard.

The optional uGuru panel

Components

• Northbridge Intel 975X

The Intel 975X chipset, codenamed "Glenwood", belongs to the Intel's Performance Desktop Chipsets line. Therefore, it is mostly choosen on the high range mainboard products, rather than the recent P965.

In spite it is designated by Intel as a "mainstream desktop chipset", the P965 is more recent than the 975X and therefore offers new capabilities. The most noticeable one is the support of DDR2-800, where the 975X tops at DDR2-667. By chance, this limitation is only "official", and the 975X allows the use of memory ratio that allow the use of DDR2-800.
P965 also has some drawbacks in comparison to the "ancestor". Actually, only the 975X allows the use of dual PCI Express graphics, thanks to its Peer-to-Peer write capability. Well, even if P965 is not supposed to support CrossFire, manufacturers use a trick : 4 PCI Express lanes taken from the ICH to allow the use of two graphics devices, one in x16 and the other in x4 mode. However, the 975X native capability provides better results in CrossFire mode, even if the difference does not exceed 10%.

The datasheet of the 975X Express chipset is available here.

• Southbridge Intel ICH7R

The Intel 82801GR (ICH7R) is the southbridge companion of the 975X chipset. This southbridge supports PCI revision 2.3 and PCI Express revision 1.0a. It provides :

• up to 6 PCI Express root ports.
• up tp 6 PCI ports.
• 4 Serial ATA ports.
• 8 USB 2.0/1.1 ports.
• Intel High Definition Audio interface.
• Integrated LAN controller (10/100 Mb/s Ethernet support).
• Intel Matrix Storage Technology for support of RAID 0/1/0+1/5.

Its datasheet is available here.

• IEEE 1394 OHCI controller Texas Instruments TSB43AB23

The Texas Instruments TSB43AB23 is an IEEE 1394 FireWire controller, compliant with the Open Host Controller Interface (OHCI) standard, meaning that it is natively compatible with the operating system's OHCI driver. It provides three 1394 ports. Its datasheet can be downloaded here.

• Gigabit Ethernet Controller Realtek RTL8111B

This chip is a PCI Express compliant 10/100/1000 transceiver. The AW9D-MAX includes two of these chips.
For a complete description please check this page or download its datasheet here.

• Clock Generator ICS 954127BFLF

The ICS 954127 is a CK410 compliant clock generator for Pentium 4 processor, driven by a 14.318MHz crystal. It includes two separated PLL, one for the CPU, and one that can be configured to drive the PCI and the PCI Express busses, allowing to keep them constant regardless of the FSB frequency.

• Serial ATA II Controller Silicon Image SiI 3132

SiI3132 is a single-chip, one-lane PCI Express to 2-port Serial ATA (SATA) II host controller. It supports all Serial ATA II features, including 3.0 Gbps SATA II transfer speeds, Native Command Queuing. The AW9D-MAX includes two of these chips.
For a complete description please check this page or download its datasheet here.

• Super I/O Winbond W83627DHG

The W83627DHG is a Pb-free multifunction LPC interfaced Super I/O chip. It features monitoring functions : 3 temperatures inputs, 9 voltage inputs, 5 fan inputs, 4 fan outputs (PWM speed control) with SMARTFAN III, alert output and 8 VID input/output. It also supports Intel PECI/SST interfaces (Platform Environment Control through the Simple Serial Transport bus). It also acts as floppy, mouse and keyboard controller.

• GPIO abit uGuru IC

The uGuru chip consists in a Winbond general-purpose I/O controller. On the AW9D-MAX, the chip controls the clock generator, voltage control, fan control and monitoring functions.

BIOS

Clocks

Clocks adjustment is made in the OC Guru part of the BIOS.

Front Side Bus is adjustable from 100 to 600MHz, with a 1MHz step. The CPU multiplier can also be changed. There is strangely no option to set the PCI Express clock speed from the BIOS. However, the uGuru software suite reports its value and allows to modify it within Windows. But what about Linux users ?

OC Guru also allows to set the PSB ("Processor System Bus") value. Depending on its value, the memory controller proposes a different set of memory ratios, regardless to the current FSB.

A Core 2 Duo uses a default PSB of 1066, that allows to use a maximum memory speed up of 400MHz (DDR2-800). Setting the PSB to 800 provides different memory ratio, especially 1:2 that results in a memory speed of 533MHz (DDR2-1066).

Voltages

CPU voltage can go up to 1.725 volts (with a Core 2 Duo CPU), DDR2 voltage up to 2.65 volts (!!) and MCH voltage up to 2 volts.

Monitoring

No less than 12 voltages are monitored.

Temperature monitoring

Other features

Memory timings can be manually set. abit only included basic timings (that is fairly enough).

Several CPU features are changeable : EIST, C1E. No option is present to enable or disable a core.

Software suite

The AW9D-MAX is provided with three utilities for Windows.

uGuru offers the same feature than the BIOS but propose to apply new settings on-the-fly within Windows. This includes clocks, voltages and fan speed control.

The main uGuru interface shows the main monitoring parameters, and allows to switch between different predefined profiles (quiet, turbo, normal modes).

The "Setup" dialog allows to manually access to uGuru features. The OC Guru tab allows to change FSB, PCI Express clock, but also VCore, DDR2 and MCH voltages. Everything is here to achieve a good overclock within having to use the BIOS, except maybe the ability to change the CPU multiplier. Note that uGuru changed are kept with a system shutdown.

The second utility called FlashMenu allows to save the currently installed BIOS, and flash a new one from internet or from a file.

The third utility is named BlackBox. It auto-detects hardware info for quick communication between users and abit Tech support. An opportunity for us to talk about the abit customer service, that distinguish abit from its competitors. abit offers one of the best support forum with the Universal abit USA forum. This very active forum treats of virtually everything that concerns abit products, and is definitely the first place to go when a problem occurs, or just before you update the BIOS. Amongst the vast domain of subjects :

• abit products announcements and news ;
• abit parts store ;
• online eRMA (Return Material Authorization) ;
• general technical support ;
• BIOS ;

Besides, each product line has its own dedicated forum. abit is dynamically sopporting the users community, and this is a great plus in comparison to its competitors.

Conclusion

The AW9D-MAX is definitely a very high quality bundle, and responds to the wishes of the most demanding hardware enthusiasts. The mainboard itself has no major default, except maybe the lack of PCI expansion slots. Of course the PCI Express x1 will replace the PCI connection, but it is not the case yet, and lot of expansion cards are still using the common PCI slot.
The quality of this bundle has a price of course, and the AW9D-MAX can be found for around $250, that is slightly more expensive than its direct competitor, the Asus P5W DH Deluxe, but below the price of the P5W64 WS Professional. In this price range, only the presence of some extra feature can push a user to choose a model or another one. Some features of the AW9D-MAX are cool at first glance, like the onboard "Power ON" and "Reset" switches, but their usefulness is void when the board is installed where it shoud be, namely in a case. Hard to say if removing these switches would drop the price drastically, but maybe some $ could be saved on this kind of features.

abit AW9D-MAX

Useful links

• AW9D-MAX Home Page.
• Universal abit USA forums.

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