Introduction and Specifications

The 975X enthusiast chipset has been on the market for some time now. Abit offers a refreshed version of their 975X line with the AW9D-MAX. Does supporting dual graphic slots for Crossfire, dual gigabit Ethernet ports, 7.1 channel sound on a daughter card, 100% solid state capacitors and Silent OTES 2 cooling on the chipsets bump this 975X product to the top? Read on to find out.

Introduction

The AW9D-MAX is abit’s latest 975X board offering support for Intel’s Core 2 Duo and quad core based LGA 775 processors. The board is built around the Intel 975X chipset, which has been out for awhile now, but is still king of the mountain for the Intel camp.

Abits AW9D-MAX’s cup runneths over with the following component list: 1 IDE ATA-100 port and 4 SATA ports (RAID 0, 1, 0+1) on the Intel ICH7R controller, 2 SATA ports (RAID 0 and 1) on the primary Silicon Image controller, 1 SATA port and 1 e-SATA port (RAID 0 and 1) on the secondary Silicon Image controller, 8 USB 2.0 ports, 2 Realtek Gigabit Ethernet ports, Realtek 8-channel audio codec featuring an S/PDIF optical output port, 2-digit diagnostic LED display, onboard power and reset buttons and onboard blue leds with alternating flashing patterns configurable in the BIOS.

Specifications (from Abit.com)

CPU

– Designed for Intel® LGA775 processors with1066/800MHz FSB
– Supports Intel® Core™ 2 Duo(Extreme Edition) & Pentium® Extreme Edition & Pentium® D & Pentium® 4 Processors
– Supports Intel® Hyper-Threading / XD-bit / EM64T / EIST Technology / Virtualization Technology
– Intel® Quad Core ready.

Chipset

– Intel® 975X / Intel® ICH7R Express Chipset

Front Side Bus

1066/800MHz FSB

Memory

– 4 X 240-pin DIMM sockets support max. memory capacity 8GB
– Supports Dual channel DDR2 800/667 Un-buffered / Non-ECC memory

Expansion Slots

– 2xPCI-EX16,2xPCI-EX1,1 xPCI, 1x AudioMAX™

Serial ATA

– ICH7R: 4 x SATA 3Gb/s supports Intel® Matrix Storage SATA RAID 0/1/0+1/5
– ICH7R: Support SATA AHCI, providing native command queuing and native hot plug & play
– Silicon Image:3132: 4 x SATA 3Gb/s, two SATA connectors of the same area can support SATA RAID 0/1

LAN

– On-board Dual PCI-E Gigabit LAN controller supports 10/100/ 1000M Ethernet

Audio

– abit AudioMAX™ HD 7.1 CH
– Supports Jack Sensing and S/PDIF In/Out
– Dolby® Master Studio Certificated

Internal I/O

– 1 x Floppy port, 1 x UDMA 100/66/33 connector
– 7 x SATA 3Gb/s connectors
– 2 x USB 2.0 headers, 2 x IEEE1394 headers
– 1 x FP-Audio header, 1 x CD-IN

Back Panel I/O

– 1 x PS/2 Keyboard, 1 x PS/2 Mouse
– 4 x USB 2.0, 2 x RJ-45 LAN
– 1 x eSATA

RoHS

RoHS Compliancy

Form Factor

– ATX form factor 305 x 245mm
– PCB Color: Black & Blue

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