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THE IT7's
BIOS:
The IT7
MAX was also equipped with a very complete revision of
the Phoenix / Award v.6.0 BIOS. We also captured
screenshots from within the IT7's BIOS with is even
more complete than the one provided with the AT7!
Again, all of the on-board components can be enabled
or disabled, and the settings for tweaking memory for
optimum performance even allow users to set a CAS
latency as low as 1.5!
Abit's
SoftMenu III is also found on the IT7. With this
board, users can adjust the FSB (Front Side Bus)
between 100 and 250MHz in 1MHz increments. The
IT7 also has an assortment of dividers that allow for
better stability at higher bus speeds, but as an added
bonus the PCI clock can be "locked" at 33, 37 or
44MHz, regardless of what FSB being used. This
ability should make this board a favorite amongst the
hardcore overclockers out there. The Vcore and
DDR voltages are also user adjustable, but not the I/O
voltage. The Vcore and be set as high as 1.7v in
.25v increments. 1.7v is OK, but we would have
liked to have been able to go even higher. The
DDR memory voltage can be set to any voltage between
2.5v and 2.8v in .1v increments.
We found
one annoyance within the BIOS of both the MAX branded
motherboards. When we were overclocking and
tried a setting that was too aggressive for our
particular CPUs or memory, the system would no longer
POST. To regain control of the BIOS, we had to
manually short the "Clear CMOS" jumper on either
board. On some boards holding down the "Insert"
key resets the BIOS to default settings but not on the
AT7 or IT7 MAX. We are hopeful that Abit will
add this feature into future BIOS revisions.
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Layout and Quality |
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Solid As A
Rock... |
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THE IT7's
LAYOUT:
Many of the
physical attributes of the AT7 carry over the IT7 MAX, but
there are some notable differences. The backplane
has the exact same functionality and connector placement,
but on the IT7, all of the USB ports are 2.0 compliant. We should also mention that
on both of these boards, USB 2.0 functionality is handled
by an integrated VIA VT6202 controller. Both the AT7
and IT7 MAX also share the same Ti IEEE-1394 controller,
Realtek ALC650 audio controller and Realtek 8100B 10/100
Ethernet controller.
There is an AGP slot on the
IT7 MAX, but there is one more PCI slot available,
bringing the total amount of available PCI slots up to
four. The IT7 gains a PCI slot, but loses a DIMM
slot. There are three DIMMs slots on the IT7, that
allow for a total of up to 2GB of RAM. The same
HPT-374 ATA/133 capable RAID controller is available on
the IT7, and the Intel Southbridge proved another two IDE
channels, but they are only capable of ATA/100 speeds.
ATX power connector placement
is also very good on the IT7. The connector is
placed at the upper, right corner, mounted parallel to the
edge of the board. The Socket 478 also has ample
room around it for mounting an oversized cooler, but then
again, most Socket 478 based motherboards do. We
didn't find active cooling on the Northbridge, but there
is a large aluminum cooler mounted to it, with a sturdy,
yet easily removable clip. The IT7 also brings a few
other useful features to the table. This board has
two small, on-board momentary button switches that allow
users to power on and reset the board without having to
connect their case switches. We find this extremely
useful when testing or troubleshooting. There are
also a set of diagnostic LEDs that will display a code
identifying the cause of the error, should a problem ever
arise.
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Overclocking and
Some Numbers...
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