ABIT

ABIT have been one of our favourite motherboard manufacturers for some time now. This is because they continue to produce high performing, feature packed motherboards that include the most overclocking features we have seen from any motherboard manufacturer to date. Abit had quite a few new products on display at Computex, including the latest in their MAX series as well as some new audio products and their range of GeForce4 graphics cards.

The first thing I noticed was their AMD 8151 ClawHammer board which has been simply called "K8". This is obviously an early sample, however, it features ATA133, AGP 8x, DDR333, 4 PCI slots, 1 ACR slot, 3 USB 2.0 ports and onboard 2-channel audio.

The first motherboard in ABIT's MAX series of legacy free motherboards was the AT7, based on the VIA KT333 chipset for AMD processors. ABIT have recently released their Intel-based MAX motherboard based on the i845E chipset, the IT7. It features 4-channel ATA133 RAID, four PCI slots, ten USB 2.0 ports, three IEEE1394a ports, a 10/100 Ethernet port and 6-channel integrated audio.

There are two flavours of the IT7. The first is the one mentioned above and the second is the IT7-S, featuring SerialATA. The IT7-S includes all of the same features as the regular IT7, however, the ATA133 RAID controller has ben replaced by a SerialATA controller.

If you purchase an ABIT MAX board, you are given the option of having ABIT's MediaXP drive bay panel included. It features a CompactFlash/SecureDigital/Memory Stick card reader as well as an IEEE1394 port, two USB 2.0 ports, MIC In/Line Out, SPDIF output and BlueTooth. What's even better is that the unit also comes with its own remote control for use in applications such as WinDVD and Power Point presentations.

ABIT also had their Crush18D (also known as nForce II) board on displayed, called the NV7II-8X. It features AGP 8x, six USB 2.0 ports, three IEEE1394 ports, one 10/100 Ethernet port and 6-channel integrated audio.

ABIT had an interesting demo setup at their stand featuring their new Siluro Theatre SP70 speaker system. The system was hooked up to an XBox running demo loops of various XBox games and from what we the demos we saw at their booth, the sound quality was very impressive. Although these speakers are packaged in XBox style enclosures, they can be used in the PC as well as the XBox through an SPDIF output.