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ABIT IT7-MAX Review
Review Date: November 25, 2002
Reviewed by: Dwayne Sessom
Manufacturer: ABIT Computer Corp.
There are few products that are truly innovative, because innovation requires companies to step away from the norm and take risks. The PC platform has remained relatively unchanged for the past several years. When you look at the back of any given PC, you know you will probably find things like parallel ports, serial ports, PS/2 ports for mouse and keyboard, and maybe a couple of USB ports.
All that is changed with the IT7-MAX. Gone are all the legacy ports, and in their place you will find 8 USB2.0 ports and 2 firewire ports. But, the innovation doesn't stop there!
Packaging:
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The packaging of the IT7-MAX stands out among other motherboard boxes, and actually resembles a suitcase! The motherboard and accessories are enclosed in a rigid clear plastic shell, protecting it from damage and also allowing a window in the front of the package so you can see the board. That's pretty cool.
Once you open the box, you will find that ABIT packs this package with lots of extras! Along with the board itself, you get the manual, driver CD, driver for the RAID controller on floppy, a package of black IDE and floppy cables, an extra package of 2 IDE cables for a RAID array, an ATX backplate for your case, a bracket for an additional two USB2.0 ports (there are 6 onboard ports), and a bag of blue cable organizers.
Features:
- Intel 845E Based Pentium®4 ATX Mainboard.
- ATA133 RAID, DDR 266.
- USB 2.0, IEEE 1394, 6-Ch Audio.
- SoftMenu™ III Technology to set CPU parameters.
- Intel Socket 478 Pentium 4, up to 2.6GHz (400MHz FSB), up to 2.8GHz (533MHz FSB).
- Intel Socket 478 Pentium 4 Celeron, up to 2GHz.
- Supports AGP 4X 1.5V device only.
- Supports Dual Ultra ATA/100,Ultra ATA/66,Ultra ATA/33 channels supporting 4 devices.
- High Point HPT374 IDE Controller, DMA 133MB/sec data transfer rate.
- RAID-0, RAID-1, RAID 0+1.
- Supports up to 2 GB MAX. (64, 128, 256, 512MB DDR SDRAM).
- Realtek ALC650 (AC-Link), Supports 6CH DAC for AC3 5.1 CH audio.
- Professional digital audio interface supporting 24-bit SPDIF OUT (Digital Optical output).
- On board RTL8100B 10/100M PCI Fast Ethernet Controller.
- 6 USB 2.0 Connectors.
- On board VIA VT6202 USB 2.0 header for four extra USB channels.
- Three P1394a fully compliant cable ports at 100/200/400 megabits per second.
- ATX form factor.
- 1 AGP 1.5v slot, 4 PCI slots.
- Hardware monitoring - Including Fan speeds, Voltages, System environment temperature.
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The most apparent thing that strikes you about this board is the lack of legacy ports. All the legacy deadwood is gone. You are left with a very clean looking layout of USB2.0 and Firewire ports, a 10/100Mbit LAN connection and sound ports that include a 24-bit SPDIF output! This is the first motherboard I have ever personally seen with digital optical output, so I was very impressed with this feature. It will come in extremely handy when playing games. Now I can have true 5.1 digital surround sound!
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One of the best features of the IT7-MAX in my opinion is the onboard Highpoint HPT374 RAID controller which allows for eight devices! I run lots of drives, and having four RAID channels is a welcome sight. Together with the 2 regular IDE channels, the IT7-MAX is capable of running 12 IDE devices and with the capacity of today's hard drives, having a PC with 2 terabytes of storage capacity is now possible.
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The IT7-MAX has an onboard diagnostic display to assist in pinpointing any problem you might have on bootup. Along side of the diagnostic display are power and reset buttons - right on the board! Not too handy for normal users, but a very welcome feature to guys like me who often test motherboards on the workbench, outside of a case. Right beside the BIOS chip, you will find a vertically mounted battery. If you have ever had to change the battery on a motherboard, you will be able to appreciate this arrangement. It makes changing your battery a snap!
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ABIT puts stickers over the CPU socket to keep out dust and any debris, along with a suggestion on what type of CPU cooler to get. The CPU socket placement is on par with most other i845E boards. There is a row of capacitors very near the socket, but they aren't so close as to cause problems. I mounted a Thermaltake Volcano 7+ on it without a hassel.
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The picture on the left is the RealTek 10/100 ethernet controller chip which allows you to connect to a local area network, cable or DSL modem without having to install a PCI NIC. The pic on the right shows the VIA VT6202 USB2.0 controller which adds an additional 4 USB2.0 connections in addition the the 4 that are available already - for a total of eight USB 2.0 ports. Very impressive!
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The ATX power connector's are both located at the very top of the board, and considering the very limited real estate on this board, the engineers at ABIT deserve kudos for not sticking these in an awkward place. Being at the very top of the board allows you to not have to stretch and twist the power cables to make them look right, and also prevents the power cables from covering other things like the memory slots or IDE ports. Like all new Pentium4 motherboards, the IT7-MAX comes equipped with a 4pin ATX2.03 12v power connector to feed juice to the CPU directly. I highly suggest a PSU that has this extra power connector, especially if you are running RAID arrays and/or overclocking.
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