The Bundle and presentation
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More and more emphasis is being placed on the packaging and the associated bundle.
ABIT continue their theme of having homogenous boxes for the majority of their motherboards, the obvious exceptions being the MAX series of motherboards.
Included in the bundle itself is the motherboard, a decent manual that clearly spells out the basics of installing and operating the motherboard, a floppy disk containing the drivers for the Highpoint HPT372 RAID controller, two IDE cables, a floppy cable and a utility CD. The CD contains the necessary drivers for installation, although these were not really needed for Windows XP. Contrary to other reports, Intel's USB2.0 drivers were included along with LAN, sound and chipset drivers. You also get WinDVD, Norton AntiVirus, hardware monitoring software, AWARD BIOS flashing utility and a few other goodies on the CD. Seeing as the motherboard natively supports 6 USB2.0 ports from the southbridge, 2 are hardwired to the backplane and 4 are available from 2 extra headers. It's a little disappointing that only 1 USB2.0 bracket, providing an additional 2 USB2.0 ports, was included. The other header remains bare. The bundle is decidedly average when compared to some that I have reviewed recently.
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