Review: ABIT IC7-MAX3

Processors

• Supports all Socket 478 CPUs (400FSB & 533FSB & 800FSB officially)
• Hyper-Threading support
• Prescott support

Chipset

• North bridge: Intel I875P MCH
• South bridge: Intel ICH5R

System Memory

• 4 x 184-pin DDR SDRAM
• DDR200 / DDR266 / DDR333/ DDR400 support @ 2.50v - 2.60v (Dual Channel)
• 4GB maximum system RAM
• Supports configurable ECC function

Slots

• AGP slot, 8x AGP compliant
• 5 x 32-bit PCI 33MHz slots

On-board peripherals - I/O

• 1 Serial port
• 1 Parallel port
• Mic-In, Line-In, Line-Out, Centre/Bass, Rear Out jacks
• RJ-45 LAN Port (Intel CSA Gigabit LAN)
• 4 USB2.0 connectors on the back panel
• 1 FireWire 1394a connector on the back panel (6-pin)
• PS/2 ports
• Optical In and Out S/PDIF connections
• OTES fan

On-board storage

• An IDE controller on the ICH5/R chipset provides IDE HDD/CD-ROM with PIO, Bus Master and Ultra DMA100/66/33 operation modes
• ICH5/R provides 2 x ATA150 Serial ports (1 drive per port). Can be configured for independent or RAID0 functions
• Silicon Image Sil3114 provides 4 x ATA150 Serial ports (1 drive per port). Can be configured for independent, RAID0, RAID1, or RAID0+1 running

Integrated Components

• Intel Gigabit LAN (via CSA)
• Texas Instruments 3-port FireWire controller
• Silicon Image Sil3114A 4-port SATA controller
• Realtek ALC650 5.1 sound CODEC
• Headers for another 4 USB2.0 portsio
• 3 usable fan headers
• IrDA, CD-In, Aux-In connectors

BIOS & Voltages

• ABIT Softmenu
• FSB speeds of 100Mhz - 412Mhz (quad-pumped for 200FSB CPUs)
• Default - 1.925v Vcore, adjustable in 0.025v increments (for a 3.2GHz ES CPU)
• 2.5v - 3.2v Vmem adjustable in 0.1v increments
• 1.5v - 1.65v VAGP adjustment
• Fix AGP/PCI option or AGP speeds of 66 to 99MHz

The board is jam-packed with extras, especially with respect to SATA. However, the bundle is no less impressive. Let's take a peek.