Layout and Features II
The bottom left of the MAX2 is just as interesting as the initial MAX motherboard. The vertical battery mounting makes a reappearance again. Not only does it look good, it saves valuable motherboard real estate in this feature-packed 'board. The longer jumpers make a welcome reappearance, too.
You can see the Highpoint HPT374 chipset that controls the IDE RAID ports. The interesting thing, however, are the two small ports that sit just to the left of the left-hand-side IDE RAID port. These are the serial ATA connectors. Next to them are the Marvell chips that control the ports. You can see just how diminutive the ports are compared to the 80-pin IDE standard. The HPT374 gives you the option of running in RAID0, RAID1, and RAID0+1 for increased reliability. As mentioned previously, the S-ATA ports work in the just the same way as the standard IDE RAID ports, although you can only use one with the single Serillel converter provided.
The excellent debug LCD has found its way onto the IT7-MAX2. It runs through a series of POST codes, so if you encounter any problems, the LCD should isolate them and report the fault by stopping at the appropriate number. You can then cross-reference the fault code with the manual, this should make troubleshooting that little bit easier.
The two small buttons just to the left of the debug LCD are invaluable tools for motherboard testers and reviewers. They allow you to power-up the motherboard without having it installed in the case, something that I can really appreciate. Two of the five on-board fan headers are in close attendance.
ABIT have once again chosen to go with the VIA VT6202 USB controller to provide the 4 USB2.0 ports in addition to the 6 provided by the ICH4 southbridge. The ubiquitous Realtek RTL8100B 10/100 LAN controller is once again employed for on-board network duties. Considering we only have 4 PCI slots, its inclusion is most sensible.
Next to the Realtek ethernet controller sits a premium on-board sound chip. The ALC650 is an 18-bit, full duplex AC'97 2.2 compatible stereo audio CODEC. It natively supports full surround sound 5.1 configuration with a maximum of 6 separate or discrete channels (Left, Right, Center, SL, SR and Sub). It also supports S/PDIF out (provided on the backplane). From basic listening, it appears as if it's more than capable of basic Windows duty, perhaps not quite as good as the excellent CMI 8738 CODEC, though.
The backplane is high-speed connectivity heaven. We have 6 USB2.0 ports and 2 Firewire ports along with the ethernet jack, S/PDIF, and audio outputs. The only difference between this and the original MAX is the inclusion of the keyboard and mouse PS/2 ports. Still not serial or COM ports in sight.
The IT7-MAX2 brings everything to the table that the IT7-MAX did, but adds a funky PCB colour, PS/2 ports, and replaces two 80-pin IDE RAID with the smaller S-ATA ports. It may not be an evolutionary update, but why fix something that really isn't broken ?.
