Layout and Installation
Lets kick off with the layout as usual. Starting in the top left of the board and working our way from left to right and top to bottom, we see the CPU socket with plenty of room around it. Only 3 capacitors on the bottom edge of the socket and a couple either side give us lots of room and the board passes the Swiftech MCX462 test quite easily. Other big sinks should fit without issue and the board supports the 4 mounting holes.Moving past the 2 capacitors on the right of the socket, you hit a pair of fan headers and then the ATX power connector right next to it, oriented vertically and flush against the top edge of the board. Anywhere in this top area of the board is a good position for the connector meaning a bulky ATX connector doesn't have to be pulled over the CPU socket in todays tower cases.
Past that connector towards the far right edge of the board you have the trademark 4 DIMM slots. ABIT are pretty much the only manufacturer in this market segment (I can't think of any other) to provide 4 slots in a DDR board configuration. Supporting a maximum of 3.5GB of PC2100 or 3GB of PC2700 in registered modules or 3GB of PC2100 and 2GB of PC2700 in unregistered modules, it should keep even the most extreme power user happy in terms of memory expansion. Beware of the conditions on the slot usage however with registered and unregistered modules.
Oriented vertically and past the DIMM slots flush up against the right hand edge of the board you find the black IDE ports that are provided by the southbridge. Supporting 4 of the 12 total devices, they support up to UDMA133 mode. Only a few capacitors remain in the top right hand corner of the board to regulate power to the 4 DIMM slots.
The northbridge is actively cooled with the same heatsink and fan combination that we've seen on most ABIT boards of late. No change there. Without removing the sink I can see thermal compound but it doesn't mean much unless it's applied properly. The sink never gets that hot but there is some thermal transfer indicating that the thermal interface isn't that badly applied.
We usually comment that from the AGP slot downwards, everything is standard and in the usual position but that's obviously not the case here. With the gamut of extra on board features, the bottom half of the board from the AGP slot downwards is where all the action is.
Before you even get to the 3 PCI slots, you can see the VT6202 USB 2.0 controller on the left and the Realtek 8100B processor just below the VT6202 to the right. On the right hand side you have the bare southbridge that controls PCI traffic, USB 1.1 ports and the interface for the extra processors used for USB 2.0, audio and networking. With a 266MB/sec V-Link bus between north and southbridges, the southbridge works hard but has no need for cooling of any kind.
Finally we come across the 3 PCI slots flanked on the right by the massive HPT374 processor, tiny audio processor and then the remaining 4 IDE ports, coloured yellow and provided by the HPT374. They are horizontally oriented and down in the bottom right hand corner of the board, a position and alignment that isn't ideal for all case layouts. The only component beneath the RAID ports is the floppy disk connector, a 'legacy' interface that survived the cull.
While I don't usually cover backplane layout, on the MAX series of boards it's a must. With it being a new laout designed by ABIT, you get the requisite I/O shield in the box. Working from left to right you see a 2x2 grid of USB 1.1 ports with a pair of FireWire (IEE 1394) ports next to them. These take care of most of your peripheral expansion straight away. Next to the FireWire ports you have a space where an S/PDIF-In optical connector will be depending on AT7 version but it's not present on this one. S/PDIF output follows on from that space. Next up you have 2 vertical blocks of 3.5mm audio connectors. The first houses 2 connectors, top being the rear channel output and bottom being centre channel output. The next tower block of audio connectors is, from top to bottom, mic input, line input and front channel output. Lastly in this unusual setup, the 10/100Mbps Ethernet port for the RTL8100B and the pair of USB 2.0 ports underneat. Not a 'legacy' port in sight!
The layout is unusual for sure, but given the integrated components and the PCB space their controllers require, the layout can be forgiven to some degree. IT7, the Intel P4 sister board to the AT7, manages 4 PCI in a similar PCB size so it's a shame the AT7 doesn't provide the same amount, even given the large amount of integrated hardware.
Quirky for sure and some component placement isn't ideal but it was never going to be easy for ABIT here.
Installation was simple. Remove the old board that occupied the chassis, screw the board down, hook up the USB 1.1 backplate, install SCSI card and graphics card and boot the machine. The ATX connector placement helped here, making installation of the big heatsink very easy.
Onto the bundle and presentation.
