ABIT IT7 MAX2 Motherboard

Company: ABIT
Product: IT7 MAX2  Rev. 1
Street Price: ~$169 USD
Date Reviewed: November 13, 2002
Reviewed By: Joey C. aka Chong345
Rating: (9/10)

Introduction:

ABIT has been a leading manufacturer of motherboards for quite some time now. They have provided some of the best boards for the overclocking community as well as just great boards in general. Recently ABIT released the IT7 MAX 2 featuring serial ATA. The ABIT IT7 MAX 2 motherboard is brother to the IT7 MAX. Essentially, it is the same motherboard but this one has serial ATA. Even though there are not many hard drives on the market that support serial ATA, it will be a standard in 2003. ABIT is obviously trying to provide a board that will give good performance and that will be ready for the future when serial ATA takes over. Just like the IT7 MAX the MAX2 is loaded with features. The MAX series motherboards provide many onboard features such as USB, LAN, Sound, etc.

Specifications:

CPU
· Supports Intel Pentium 4 Socket 478 processors with 400/533 MHz Front Side Bus

Chipset
· Intel 845E / ICH4
· Supports Ultra DMA 33/66/100
· 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 (Max. 2GB)

Serial ATA
· On board 2-Channel Serial ATA interface of 1.5 G bps

ATA133 RAID
· High Point HPT374 IDE RAID controller

Media XP (Optional)
· Supports card reader function for Memory Stick™, Secure Digital™ and Type I/II CompactFlash™
· Supports Wireless Remote Control and S/PDIF Out / Mic In / Headphone Out / USB 2.0 / IEEE 1394

Audio
· 6-Channel AC 97 CODEC on board

USB 2.0
· 10 Ports USB 2.0

IEEE 1394
· 3 Ports IEEE 1394

LAN
· On board RTL8100B 10/100M PCI Fast Ethernet Controller

System BIOS
· SoftMenu™ Technology to set CPU parameters
· Supports Plug-and-Play (PNP)
· Supports Advanced Configuration Power Interface (ACPI)

Internal I/O Connectors
· 1 AGP slot, 4 PCI slots
· Floppy Port supports up to 2.88MB
· 2 x Ultra DMA 33/66/100 Connectors
· 2 x Ultra DMA 33/66/100/133 Connectors (RAID)
· 2 x Serial ATA 1.5G bps Connectors
· 1 x 6 Channel audio FPIO pin header (for Media XP)
· 2 x USB headers, 1 x IEEE 1394 header
· 2 x CD-IN, 1 x IrDA

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 SPDIF Out connector
· Audio connectors (Center/Sub, Surround Speaker)
· Audio connectors (Front Speaker, Line-in, Mic-in)
· 2 x USB, 1 x RJ-45 LAN Connector

Miscellaneous
· 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)

*Specifications Courtesy of ABIT Computer Corp.

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