Abit AW9D-MAX

Who said anything about Crossfire? Didn't yall use a 7900GTX? Furthermore, In the Gigabye article it was said that with a simple bios update it is fully compatible with crossfire as this abit is not a "true" Sli mobo but with the right forking it is completely.

And again, you brilliant chaps (I really think) only test Nvidia hardware on Ati specific mobo's. Baffling to me just because I would assume that the Ati Gpu's would be much more natural on boards built with them in mind... Please slay my logic here.

Clams.

This isn't an ATI board though Nature(I think that's what your trying to say), it's an Intel chipset that ATI lets Crossfire run on(Suprising since they are owned by AMD) If nVidia wanted to, they could give this mobo full SLI support, they just don't choose to. I also think that there should be more PCI and less PCI-E 1x slots on mobos, I do not know of any instance where more then one PCI-E 1x device is used in the system for normal and gaming systems, which seems to be what these motherboards are going for..

I know Ati didn't make it, but bit-tech still tested this abit against R580 and 975x boards which are meant for ati products ( thinks me, maybe(probobly) wrong ).

Originally Posted by Nature
And again, you brilliant chaps (I really think) only test Nvidia hardware on Ati specific mobo's. Baffling to me just because I would assume that the Ati Gpu's would be much more natural on boards built with them in mind... Please slay my logic here.

In the interests of a level playing field, we test all boards with a single 7900 GTX and then we test CrossFire specific boards with X1900 CrossFire (like this one was - the 37-hour burn in test was run with CrossFire installed too). Boards that officially support SLI are tested with 7900 GTX SLI.

The Mercury Market Research numbers suggest that Nvidia has a much stronger hold over the DirectX 9 market, and more people are using their hardware. If it was the other way around, I'd hazard a guess that we'd be using ATI hardware in our single card testing.

However, I understand where you're coming from, but the additional testing involved in testing another configuration in a motherboard would mean that Rich and I would have to spend both Saturday and Sunday in the office to get everything done - I enjoy doing what I do (in much the same way that I think Rich does), but I also like a bit of time to myself every week - that time is on a Sunday. :)

Originally Posted by Mighty Yoshimi
Bindi, is slowly becoming my hero.. its scary, he has a plausible answer to everything

Bindi, what is the meaning of life?!

42.

Nature, the numbers are just there for reference against each other. You can't compare it to other people because of different setups and stuff. It just keeps the field consistent whilst not unnecessarily taking days to do performance testing (FWIW it already takes at least three or four days to complete a full road test if everything goes right, not including writing the article).

Problem with boards like that mean I cant use my PVR TV card or Audigy Card or even add SATA controller cards or any of the hundreds of differnet PCI cards.

Its stupid removing all its expansion slots, or not adding any. Its like buying a PC World PC with no hope in expanding its ability

Yh i've wiped out all the slots on my p5n32 sli se by installing dangerden sli waterblocks

Only have one PCI left.

Ugh, my experience with those audiomax duaghter boards on an Abit I used to own, not so great.


The ports were mis-labelled and mis-colored. Wouldnt detect half the things I plugged in :(

Originally Posted by wafflesomd
Ugh, my experience with those audiomax duaghter boards on an Abit I used to own, not so great.


The ports were mis-labelled and mis-colored. Wouldnt detect half the things I plugged in :(

Never ever had that problem. All the boards are standard and provided across Abit's range. Despite the fact it's meant to be better, I can still hear the PCI bus working through my AW8-MAX on the audiomax with ALC882M.

Originally Posted by Bindibadgi
Never ever had that problem. All the boards are standard and provided across Abit's range. Despite the fact it's meant to be better, I can still hear the PCI bus working through my AW8-MAX on the audiomax with ALC882M.

It was on their Fatal1ty branded boards. It was so obnoxious. Those baords were crap anyways.


They've been discontinued since then, at least that model.

Originally Posted by mikeuk2004
Problem with boards like that mean I cant use my PVR TV card or Audigy Card or even add SATA controller cards or any of the hundreds of differnet PCI cards.

there are PCI-E TV cards, SATA cards etc. - about the only thing that there aren't PCI-E versions of are sound cards.

Originally Posted by wafflesomd
It was on their Fatal1ty branded boards. It was so obnoxious. Those baords were crap anyways.


They've been discontinued since then, at least that model.

Well I'm testing the AN9 32X Fatal1ty board as I type so I'll be sure to test the AudioMAX board. ;)

My two Abit AW9D-MAX motherboards(Yeah I have two) are meant for the QX6700 cpus and yeah I have two on Backorder for $2,138.75 which from what I've been told they will be in on the 27th of November or 16 days from now. But then I crunch for Seti, So I need more than one cpu. ;) :D

(off topic)

Originally Posted by zoom314
My two Abit AW9D-MAX motherboards(Yeah I have two) are meant for the QX6700 cpus and yeah I have two on Backorder for $2,138.75 which from what I've been told they will be in on the 27th of November or 16 days from now. But then I crunch for Seti, So I need more than one cpu. ;) :D

You have the same avatar as I have on my start menu, and I saw someone else with Ali Landry, who is on my desktop. I swear, people are watching over my shoulder sometimes.

Originally Posted by Miser
(off topic)


You have the same avatar as I have on my start menu, and I saw someone else with Ali Landry, who is on my desktop. I swear, people are watching over my shoulder sometimes.

Sorry, Pure coincidence as I own a 2006 Mustang GT and It's that color. :D

Hi Bit-tech, I have a question.

I currently own this board for under a month now. And I Have some Corsiar PC8500 2Gb Dual RAM with it. the thing is, the RAM refuses to go to DDR2 800, But I see in your test DDR2 ran fine with yours. It's so annoying as I have bought DDr2 800 Memory, but it cannto be used.

Why it cannot be used cause 5-10 minutes into ANY game the PC will crash and jam. Sometimes BSOD and sometimes just a jam. I really hope someone can shed light on this problem, cause its starting to tick me off. I have run Memtest for many hours on 667. But as soon as I run it on 800 with the bootable CD, PC will jam.

If anyone has the answer, then please shed light. :)

Thanks

Originally Posted by MajorGN
Hi Bit-tech, I have a question.

I currently own this board for under a month now. And I Have some Corsiar PC8500 2Gb Dual RAM with it. the thing is, the RAM refuses to go to DDR2 800, But I see in your test DDR2 ran fine with yours. It's so annoying as I have bought DDr2 800 Memory, but it cannto be used.

Why it cannot be used cause 5-10 minutes into ANY game the PC will crash and jam. Sometimes BSOD and sometimes just a jam. I really hope someone can shed light on this problem, cause its starting to tick me off. I have run Memtest for many hours on 667. But as soon as I run it on 800 with the bootable CD, PC will jam.

If anyone has the answer, then please shed light. :)

Thanks

I know this is not really what You want to hear, But I have DDR2 1000 ram and It runs at 533 max, If You want DDR2 800 I'd suggest PC2-6400 dimms, Otherwise I don't know what to say, Maybe try a newer Bios version maybe, 1.4 is out and official too, There is also 1.5B03, But to find that You need to go to here. Good Luck. You may have to scroll down the page some to find the link for 1.5B03 of course.

Major, what voltage and timings are you using at DDR2-800?

Originally Posted by Tim S
Major, what voltage and timings are you using at DDR2-800?

The timings are defult, they are 5,5,5,15. The voltage is at 2.1.

have you tried up to and including 2.3V? 2.3V should be fine for most DDR2 memory if you've got good case cooling, but I can't remember whether this board was heavy on memory voltage or not.

Originally Posted by Tim S
have you tried up to and including 2.3V? 2.3V should be fine for most DDR2 memory if you've got good case cooling, but I can't remember whether this board was heavy on memory voltage or not.

No I haven't tried this. Do you think I should? Seems too much voltage, or isn't it? I have used 2.2. Same though.

It should definitely work at 2.1 or 2.2 at 5-5-5-15 and DDR2-800. Sounds like you've got an iffy board or iffy memory tbh. Try memtest.

Originally Posted by Bindibadgi
It should definitely work at 2.1 or 2.2 at 5-5-5-15 and DDR2-800. Sounds like you've got an iffy board or iffy memory tbh. Try memtest.

Rightio, I changed the voltage to 2.25. And changed the Vmch (Whatever the option is at the bottem, Lol) from 1.5 to 1.55. And that seemed to have fixed it nicely. Although I'm not keeping my hopes up. But I did play for 30 minutes and it seems to be smooth.

Cheers guys.

Well after many hours of gaming, PC hasn't chrashed once, guess it fixed it. :)

;)