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ABIT IT7 MAX2 i845E


Date
: 12/7/02 – 01:47:18 PM

Author
:

Category
: Motherboard

Page 1 : Introduction

Manufacturer: ABIT
Price: $200

Introduction

A few months ago, ABIT shocked the hardware community by releasing their first "MAX" boards: the AT7 for the AMD platform and the IT7 for the Intel platform. Both motherboards were so called "legacy free", meaning they did not have a parallel, serial or PS/2 ports. Apart from that, both boards were packed to the top with features like onboard RAID, FireWire, USB2.0, onboard LAN, onboard 5.1 sound and more! Add to that the excellent overclockability and stability, and you'll understand why these boards took home many awards, including the O² POWER Award. Of course, ABIT's engineers don't sit still, and came up with new versions of these max boards, called the AT7 MAX 2 and the IT7 MAX 2. Today, I'm putting the latter on the testbench and investigating how ABIT tried to improve an already excellent piece of silicon … Let's get this show on the road!

Page 2 : Specifications

Specifications

As usual, we start out with a copy/paste of the specs directly from ABIT's website:

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)

To start off, let's see what ABIT includes in the box:

- the IT7 MAX 2 motherboard
- 3 black IDE cables
- 1 black floppy cable
- 1 serial ATA cable
- a serial ata converter to use a normal hard drive with the SATA interface
- a powercable for the SATA converter
- a cd with drivers and tools
- a floppy disk with the High Point drivers
- a custom I/O backpanel
- anIT7 MAX 2 an additional USB2.0 bracket with two USB ports
- the manual
- some blue zip ties to tighten up the case ;)

As you can see, ABIT includes quite a bunch of stuff with the board! Perhaps it would have been good to include two instead of one serial ATA cable (and also two converters) so you could use both SATA channels out of the box.

Now, when we take a closer look at the board' specs, you'll notice that the heart of the IT7 MAX 2 is based upon Intel's i845E chipset. This is the same chipset used on the original IT7 MAX (read the review here) and still proves to be an excellent choice when it comes to performance, stability and overclockability, as you will see later on the review.

Finding a suitable CPU for this board shouldnt be a problem either, as it supports all current Intel processors out there, including the latest P4 and Celeron CPU's.

Apart from CPU performance, the amount of available memory is critical to overall system performance. Thanks to the three available memory slots, the IT7 MAX 2 can handle up to 2GB DDR memory (non buffered – non ECC) which should easily cover your needs. Although ABIT officially only guarantees support up to DDR266, you can use DDR333+ memory as well (and it will come in handy when we overclock the living daylights out of it).

The IT7 MAX 2 uses 1/4/0 layout, meaning it comes with one AGP 4x slot (indeed, no AGP 8x yet), four PCI slots and no ISA slots or CNR slots. Personally, I love this configuration since ISA cards are seldom used and those CNR devices are targeted to low budget systems, in which you won't find an IT7 MAX 2!

And that's not all … The IT7 MAX 2 comes with a total of 10 USB2.0 ports and 3 IEEE1394 FireWire ports, offering an incredible amount of expansion options. In a time where digital audio and video recording are available to the end users, these kind of ports come in very handy.

In case that's not enough, this mainboard also features an onboard RAID controller: the High Point HPT374 controller which we also saw on the first MAX boards. Unlike the IT7 MAX, the IT7 MAX 2 does not features four IDE RAID connectors, but only two. Instead, the MAX 2 boards are fitted with two Serial ATA connectors, supporting the brand new Serial ATA hard drives. This new interface supports UDMA150 whereas the current IDE interface is limited to UDMA133. In case you don't own a SATA hard drive, don't panic! ABIT includes a converter so you can connect your current hard drive to the SATA interface.

Besides the onboard RAID controller, there's also an onboard 10/100 LAN controller which uses the Realtek 8100B controller and a 6-channel soundcard based upon the AC'97 soundchip featuring an SPDIF-out. This soundchip performs pretty nice and will do fine for occasional gamers and music lovers. As usual, die-hard gamers and audio freaks should go out and buy an additional soundcard.

Some other nice features of the IT7 MAX 2 are the diagnostic display which tells you what is wrong with your box in case something goes terribly wrong during the POST sequence. The onboard power and reset button are also very sweet, especially for people like me who tend to use motherboards outside a case. No more "jumpstarting" the board with a flathead screwdriver ;). Did I mention that there is also an onboard power and IDE-activity LED?

Page 3 : Layout

Layout

I have always been a sucker for motherboards with a sweet layout, so I was very eager to check out how ABIT's engineers took care of it. At first glance, it seems that they have kept the layout of the IT7 MAX, which is a good thing since that layout was already very well laid out.

The only difference I could find, was the color of the PCB which was used. Where the IT7 MAX features a brown PCB, the new IT7 MAX 2 is fitted with a totally black PCB which looks much more slick! Although this is a detail, I prefer a board with a nice color compared to a standard brown or green … and I'm sure fellow case modders out there agree with me on this matter.

The CPU socket has a lot of clearance, offering more than enough room to install some extreme cooling onto you processor. The memory slots are sitting to the right side of the CPU socket, close to the edge of the board. Nevertheless, the video card will interfere with them, making memory expansion a pain in the ass since you'll have to take out the video card first (unless you feel lucky and want to risk killing your memory by installing it the hard way).

What did satisfy me a me a lot, is the way how ABIT has installed the ATX power connectors. At the right top of the board sits the normal ATX power connector. At the left top side, close to the CPU socket, sits the ATX-12V connector. Most manufacturers are installing the ATX-12V connector above the AGP slot, causing the powercable cluttering up the space above the CPU. With this design, both powercable are out of the way and won't be a hassle.

The board comes with a total of five fan headers: two at the bottom middle part of the motherboard, two to the right of the CPU socket and one to the top left side of the CPU socket. This should definitely cover your needs as you got enough fan headers to power a CPU fan, a add-on video card fan and a bunch of case fans!!

Note that the AGP slot is equipped with one of those handy AGP retention clips, which guarantees that the AGP card won't be going anywhere during transport to a LAN party :).

Page 4 : BIOS & Overclocking

BIOS & Overclocking

Over the years, many boards passed through our O² lab. Many boards means many BIOS' … and from all BIOS' I ever played with, I always preferred the ABIT SoftMenu model. After having played around with the IT7 MAX 2 for a few days, I can only say one thing: ABIT still kicks ass when it comes to BIOS'.

The SoftMenu III, ABIT's BIOS, has a very good design and is pretty easy to use. On the IT7 MAX 2, everything can be modified. The most important section is the SoftMenu III Setup screen. In this section, you can alter the CPU multiplier (if you have an unlocked processor), modify the CPU voltage in 0.025V steps up to 1.7V, modify the DDR voltage in 0.1V increments up to 2.8V and of course change the front side bus in 1MHz increments up to 250MHz! The BIOS also lets you set the PCI bus speed accordingly to the FSB or at a fixed speed of 33MHz, 37MHz or 44MHz.

Another important part of the BIOS is the "Advanced Chipset Features" section where you can modify all the memory related settings. CAS, RAS, … you name it, ABIT has it :).

Of course you can also alter other settings like the onboard RAID controller, USB settings, … everything we're used to.

And in case you want to monitor your system, ABIT uses the Winbond hardware monitor chipset to let you track the CPU temperature, case temperature, voltage readouts, … You can also set alarms to in case the CPU fan fails or the temperature gets too high.

Now, how far was I able to overclock my P4 1.6A? I won't keep you into suspension any longer: I was able to use a FSB of 175MHz, resulting in a CPU speed of 2800MHz!! That's a 1.2GHz overclock, which is certainly not bad if you ask me. I feel that the board was able to clock even higher, but that the CPU was the limiting factor.

All in all, the IT7 MAX 2 is one hell of an overclocker and will be very popular among the overclockers out there. I only wish ABIT would allow us to increase the core voltage and the DDR voltage even more … perhaps an idea for the IT7 MAX 3?

Page 5 : Testing

Testing

Now that I told you about the possibilities of this board, I'm sure you're all wondering what it can pull in a benchmark environment … Here we go!

Test System:

- ABIT IT7 MAX 2 Motherboard
- Intel Pentium 4 1.6A CPU
- Twinmos 256MB PC3200 DDR Memory
- Western Digital 20GB 7200RPM Hard Drive
- ABIT GeForce3 Ti500 Video Card
- Windows XP Professional + all latest drivers

MadOnion 3D Mark 2001SE

16-BIT

32-BIT

Quake 3 Arena

Demo 001

Torture Demo

SiSoft Sandra 2003 – Memory Benchmark

Page 6 : Conclusion

Conclusion

The ABIT IT7 MAX 2 has proven to be an excellent socket 478 motherboard. It comes with everything the first IT7 had (which already was a winner in my books) and more! One feature many people will welcome, is the reappearance of the PS/2 connectors for keyboard and mouse. Many people stayed away from the MAX boards because they did not want to buy a new keyboard and/or mouse … I know there are PS/2 to USB converters out there, but extra buttons like the ones we can find on Microsoft keyboards will no longer work when using one of those converters. Also the onboard SATA channels are an interesting feature, especially with the future in mind. The black PCB color makes the board looks "cool" too, so case modders are happy too. Add to that the excellent overclockability and stability, resulting in top of the line performance, and it is clear as water that the IT7 MAX 2 is another winner. If you're putting a socket 478 motherboard on your wishlist this Christmas, make sure you add the IT7 MAX 2 to it, you won't regret it. With this said, I am happy to praise this board with the one and only
O² POWER Award
.

Good

- Performance
- Overclocking
- Features
- Stability

Bad

- Only one serial ATA cable / convertor included
- We want more core and DDR voltage options!