Abit IN9 32X-MAX

Abit’s IN9 32X-MAX comes packaged in a near perfect box, on the front we have a pretty cool (radioactive?!) dragon graphic however it’s the raft of product information which is important. The various logos tell us about the ability of the board to support SLI as well as DTS sound and that it comes bundled with Wi-Fi. On the back of the box there is a decent picture of the motherboard and each important component is highlighted and described. To further educate the consumer on their purchase the front of the box flips open to reveal segments of motherboard and further product information. Really we couldn’t ask for more.

Inside the packaging we find a further box which protects the motherboard and displays some of the extra components. As mentioned on the packaging this includes an AirPace wi-fi card(shown above). Abit also offer a plentiful number of connectivity options which include numerous Sata cables and dual SLI connectors which ensure that the board is future proof for the next generation of SLI. Also included with the IN9 32X-MAX is the usual selection of drivers and manuals. Each of the manuals is well written, as we would expect from Abit, and the driver versions on the disc are reasonably up to date though we still recommend a visit to Abit's website for the latest version before installing the motherboard.

Those who read our original 680i motherboard analysis will remember that we found it to be one of the worst boards we had ever used and we felt the product had been launched far too early, basically rushed to market with a lack of testing and some major outstanding issues. This theory was further backed up by the fact that reference board makers such as Evga have had to create 2nd revision boards which fix issues such as PS/2 device support and Quad Core overclocking.

Rather than rush out their version of the 680i board, Abit took a further 2 months to bring their product to market and the result is shown above. The basic design of the IN9 32X-MAX is very good, there is plenty of room around the CPU socket for large coolers and the large fins on the heatsinks allow for passive cooling with some active cooling when used with a CPU fan that would direct air over the sinks. Memory support on this board is also far superior to both the reference 680i boards and Asus's P5N32E-SLI. On the other 680i boards we encountered numerous problems such as incorrect timings being selected by the BIOS and several high specification sticks of memory that just wouldn’t work with each board. The IN9 however was happy to boot with any stick we installed and ran without issue, even when running at speeds in excess of DDR2-1000. (Whilst we are on the subject of memory, the IN9 is able to accommodate up to 32Gb of memory). One of the major gripes we had with the reference boards was the location of the clear CMOS jumper. It was located directly beneath the 2nd graphics card when using an SLI system and the result was that if something went wrong with the system the card had to be removed before the BIOS could be reset. Abit's design still has the jumper set in a location which isn’t ideal however they have worked around this...

... shown above is the back panel connections for the IN9 32X-MAX. If you open a larger view of the image and look between the PS/2 and optical sockets there is a small switch. This is actually the clear CMOS switch. That’s right, without opening the case it is possible to clear the CMOS. This is a unique and hugely useful feature of the IN9 and Abit should be highly commended for its inclusion. Also on the back panel we have all of the basic connectivity that any user should need. 2X Nvidia GB LAN (3 network connections in total if we include the bundled Wi-Fi), 4xUSB 2.0, 7.1 surround outputs (analog and optical powered by Realtek) and two external Sata connections, 1 more than most high end boards.

Looking along the right edge of the board we see that Abit have taken into consideration the size of 8800GTX cards and rather than have all of the Sata/ide sockets pointing up out of the board they are placed so that the cables are inserted horizontally, this is great for an easy installation and ideal for making cable routing neat and tidy within the case. The two Sata controllers on this product come from Nvidia and Silicon Image , the internal ports use the Nvidia controller (RAID 0/1/0+1/5 and JBOD) and the external use the SI 3132 controller.

Moving on to the bottom left of the board we can see the configuration of the PCI/PCIe slots. There are two 16xPCIe slots for graphics cards (SLI capable) and the 3rd large slot (blue) is for future use. Also included are two PCIe 1x slots however one of these is taken out of the equation by dual slot cards and the other is used by Wi-Fi if going with the bundled connector. The 2nd PCI slot is also covered by a cooler when using SLI which means that in high end systems the only additional connectivity is likely to be the 3rd 16x slot and the 1st PCI slot, unless a high end audio card is installed. It would be great to see a motherboard manufacturer install the two graphics slots at the top or bottom of the slot layout leaving many of the other connectors free however this isn't an occasion where this has happened. One final hardware feature is worth discussing and that too is shown in the above image. Below the bottom PCI slot there is a 4pin power connector. This is something the reference design boards did not feature and is there to provide the board with some additional power when two cards are installed in SLI, potentially enhancing the stability over other models.