Abit IC7-MAX 3
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Abit IC7-MAX 3

A fast, feature-packed mother of a board.

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Price: £173
Manufacturer: Abit
Specifications:
Ratings
Overall rating: Overall rating
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Verdict
Pros:

Good range of features. Raid support.

Cons:
Is the OTES necessary?

Verdict:
A great board packed with features. Abit does it again.

Simon Crisp, Personal Computer World 19 Nov 2003

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The IC7-MAX 3 keeps up Abit's tradition of innovation, offering an interesting mix of features.

Designed for Pentium 4 and based around Intel's 875P Canterwood chipset, the IC7-MAX 3 uses the ICH5-R version of Intel's southbridge, which allows users to set up a Serial Raid 0 array and supports hot-swapping of hard drives. Not content, Abit has added two more Serial ATA interfaces to the board (bringing the total to four) and a Silicon Image Sil3114 controller chip, enabling hard disks to be arranged in either Raid 0 or Raid 0+1 configurations.

The inclusion of an Outside Thermal Exhaust System (OTES) raised an eyebrow. This cooling system, normally found on Abit graphics cards, is housed over the capacitors, drawing hot air away from them and venting it through a fan. It does keep temperature down, but the unit adds another noise generator to a board that is already equipped with a large northbridge fan.

Another byproduct of having a fan introduced to the I/O panel is the lack of room for serial or parallel ports, though there are still two PS/2 ports along with S/PDIF in and out sockets, six-channel audio, four USB2 ports, Firewire and a Lan port for Gigabit Ethernet.

The IC7-MAX 3 is a feature-rich, fast motherboard, and with its multi-Raid setup would form the basis of a fast workstation or high-end PC.

Contact: Abit 01438 228 888
www.abit.com.tw

Specifications:

  • Pentium 4 (800/533MHz FSB)
  • Intel 875P/ICH5-R Canterwood chipset
  • Four DDR-Ram Dimm slots (up to 4GB)
  • AGP 4x/8x - Six-channel audio
  • Five PCI slots
  • Two ATA100 parallel slots
  • Four Serial ATA (Raid-supported) slots
  • Six USB2 ports -
  • Two PS/2, two S/PDIF, Firewire, Gigabit Lan

See also:

AOpen AK86-L MotherboardA motherboard built around VIA's latest K8T800 chipset.  15 Dec 2003
AOpen AX4C Max IIA well-featured motherboard that helps you quieten your PC.  01 Dec 2003
Gigabyte K8VNXPA traditional design with numerous added features.  26 Nov 2003
FIC P4-865PE MaxAnother multicoloured motherboard, but is it any good?  16 Sep 2003
Soltek SL-86PE-L Violet EyesSoltek's violet motherboard. (Extreme PC).  03 Sep 2003

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