I932 MAX due later today

[gilgamesh]

I have spoken with abit and hopefully I should have a review out for you.
I am just waiting for a call from abit to look at a minor issue.

Hopefully the review should be out around 5pm today

cheers


Gilgamesh

[Flanno]

That's great news. There is a serious lack of reviews and it's got to the point some people over on the abit forums think there in an NDA in effect !!

Can you answer 3 quick questions for me :

1. Do you think the Tuniq Tower has enough clearance over the NB heatsink, even with the 40mm fan on ? If you don't have a Tuniq can you tell me how tall the NB is at it's tallest point, and also with the fan on. Thanks. This would be a major downer for me if I could not fit the Tuniq.

2. Do you think you need the fan if only running 300fsb (like on a quad core which I hear still has these limitations).

3. Any word on whether Abit fixed the sound distortion in SLI. I believe this was fixed on the reference 680i boards in a previous bios update.

thanks a million

[quicksim]

my questions:

4) Does the mainboard loses the bios-data wenn disconnect the power-supply for hours ?
5) Why are´nt there any bios-informations in the manual ?
6) What´s a good FSB for E6600 with OC ?

Thanks ...

[gilgamesh]

That's great news. There is a serious lack of reviews and it's got to the point some people over on the abit forums think there in an NDA in effect !!

Can you answer 3 quick questions for me :

1. Do you think the Tuniq Tower has enough clearance over the NB heatsink, even with the 40mm fan on ? If you don't have a Tuniq can you tell me how tall the NB is at it's tallest point, and also with the fan on. Thanks. This would be a major downer for me if I could not fit the Tuniq.

2. Do you think you need the fan if only running 300fsb (like on a quad core which I hear still has these limitations).

3. Any word on whether Abit fixed the sound distortion in SLI. I believe this was fixed on the reference 680i boards in a previous bios update.

thanks a million

1. Tuniq tower is forthe CPU right and not for the northbridge? There is plenty of room for a massive heatsink on the board as there is no capacitors around the CPU. OFcourse this also depends on the limitations of your case.

If you are using a fan ontop of the tuniq I would if i were you as this chipset is one hot beast

No sound distortion in Sli that I am aware of in SLI

Sorry about the short answers mate im trying to get this review out for you all.

Cheers

gilgamesh

[gilgamesh]

I have spoken with abit and hopefully I should have a review out for you.
I am just waiting for a call from abit to look at a minor issue.

Hopefully the review should be out around 5pm today

cheers


Gilgamesh

Review of this motherboard weill be delayed until tomorrow due to abit posting me a vital BIOS update. I needto evaluate the motherboard with this new Bios.


take care


gilgamesh

[PeteBest]

Looking forward to the review, it does look like a very nice board, but the £246 pre-order price tekheads are currently trying to charge is a bit rich for my blood for just a mb

[Flanno]

I know the Tuniq is for the cpu - but if you place it so the longer end is parallel with the i/o shield in the case then there is a good chance the heatsink could be touching one of the chipset heatsinks on the mobo (possibly the NB), especially if the chipset heatsink has the fan on it. Sorry if my question was not clear. And the tuniq has a fan, actually inside the heatsink.

[gilgamesh]

I know the Tuniq is for the cpu - but if you place it so the longer end is parallel with the i/o shield in the case then there is a good chance the heatsink could be touching one of the chipset heatsinks on the mobo (possibly the NB), especially if the chipset heatsink has the fan on it. Sorry if my question was not clear. And the tuniq has a fan, actually inside the heatsink.

Can you give me the dimensions of the tuniq tower and i will measure the space around the cpu tonight please? I will avise you to keep your fan on even on 300FSB the reason for this is that the ANY board based on the 680 runs HOT! As as you know the southbridge is doing ALOTm ore more work than it used to, as its also controlling the 8x pci slot and a 16x the other x26 pcie slot is controlled by the northbridge.

cheers

Gilgamesh

[Flanno]

Cheers.

Actually all I need to know is the height of the Abit's NB heatsink with the fan and clips attached at it's highest point. If it's less then the clearance height on the Tuniq which I don't know off the top of my head (distance between the base of the tuniq and the cpu) then even if the Tuniq overhangs the NB it will be ok.


The tuniq is
131mm (W) x 108mm (H) x 153mm (D);

The side that will be positioned parallel to the rear i/o shield is the 153mm side so I am guessing it will cross over the nb, but hopefully without touching.

[gilgamesh]

Cheers.

Actually all I need to know is the height of the Abit's NB heatsink with the fan and clips attached at it's highest point. If it's less then the clearance height on the Tuniq which I don't know off the top of my head (distance between the base of the tuniq and the cpu) then even if the Tuniq overhangs the NB it will be ok.


The tuniq is
131mm (W) x 108mm (H) x 153mm (D);

The side that will be positioned parallel to the rear i/o shield is the 153mm side so I am guessing it will cross over the nb, but hopefully without touching.

OK please give me until tomorrow (ill measure area tonight after work) and iwill have a final answer for you tomorrow as in GMT time.

As I sdaid before maker sure you keep the fan on!



gilgamesh

[Xptweaker]

@ gilgamesh

Will the review be shown today ?

[gilgamesh]

@ gilgamesh

Will the review be shown today ?

Im afriad not abit and I are working on a few issues I raised. I am communicated with abit to replicate conditions used, as ot igve an accurate review.

I can howver give you a brief summary now.


I received from abit their new and in their words 'overclocking monster' of a motherboard board. This of course would be the IN9 32-MAX which for those whom are not in the know is based on the NVIDIA 680I chipset. Many overclockers and hardware enthusiasts will be have this answer on their mind, 'so what 680i chipset has been out awhile' The answer to that would be, this is because abit had decided to take their TIME with this board and made sure they got it right. Need I explain the nightmare of BSOD errors, hard drive corruption problems with SATA drives, which has happened with other manufacturers (need I mention them) motherboards. So in essence there is something to be said about 'abit' taking their time to 'get it right'

So before we go on let us compare this to their 'overclocking' dream, the AW9D MAX which was the motherboard in my system before this one. The AW9D MAX is a great performing motherboard having achieved results of 424 to 430 FSB (Front Side Bus) with a 9X multiplier on a 6600 Conroe. This achieved an overclocking result of 3.817 (a 66% overclock). This motherboard is capable of so much more but is let down by only a few minor things, such as dodgy placement of FDD connector (on the next motherboard abit should remove the FDD connector altogether (). Only 1 PCI slot and if you used the board in crossfire mode this then would disable that pci slot. This for some would be frustrating if anyone did NOT wish to use the onboard soundcard! The standard rubber-like substance underneath the Northbridge, around the CPU and PWM just simply cannot even begin to compete with good old artic silver 5. Spraying the bottom of the heatsinks with black paint was a bad idea-therefore decreasing the conductive properties of the heatsink. Cleaning off the black paint and using artic silver 5 on these achieved an 8 to 10 degree lower temperature on the Northbridge. Users also complained of the apparent lack of advanced memory timings with this board. Another thing was the placement of SATA sockets all over the board again the same for the USB, firewwire headers. Many large capacitors placed around the CPU, this lead to a CPU block namely the Apogee and the Storm (by swiftech) not quite fitting as good as it should. Lastly but the most frustrating of all is no fsb 1333 strap and (this is now corrected I believe with the 1.3 BIOS UPDATE). Having said the above this is a great motherboard and a brilliant overclocker. This board should make abit proud and goes along way to reclaiming the old glory days of the IC7-MAX3 (Yes we ALL remember that board with very fond memories )

Now we have the IN932-MAX let us see if abit has listened to the overclockers, gamers and hardware enthusiasts.

So let’s have a first look. I am tempted to skip the trimmings like the box design as overclockers aren’t interested in this sort of thing we just wish to hear about its performance. However the box design caught my eye and so must be mentioned. On ripping off the 'citylink' wrapping I was greeted with a black box with a rather colourful dragon emblazoned exclaiming 'tame the beast within' Lifting the box flap I was greeted with the main parts of the motherboard displayed such as the 'silent otes and its Northbridge.

Let us now go onto the specification of this motherboard.

Specifications

ALL copper HEATSINKS
The usual SILENT OTES heat pipe system
A PCI-E Wireless LAN card (YES PCIE and not the usual PCI) AT 54mbs Three PCIE slots (2 are x16 and 1 is a x8) 2X External SATA ports 6x Internal SATA sockets Supports up to 32GIG of RAM FSB strap of 1333 (At last yes ) Dual gigabit LAN cards HDMI header ready Onboard 7.1 Digital AUDIO 7.1 DTS soundcard Onboard power switches The usual OC strips Debug display.
Lastly an EZ Clear CMOS switch

Overview of features

Now we take a look at the motherboard layout and we can see what abit has learned and to see if they have listened to their fan base.

On first looking at this board I was greeted with HUGE amounts of copper and realised that the 680i is one 'hot beast' to tame and the fact with this amount of copper it should be a ‘doddle’ to ‘overclock’ The next thing that jumped out at me was TOTAL LACK of capacitors around the CPU, this would make it IDEAL for ANY third party heatsink/waterblock of YOUR choice and this factor should make it the ‘motherboard of choice' for overclockers/watercoolers. The next thing we take a look to see if they have fixed the dodgy placement of the floppy drive connector. It seems that we no longer have to worry about this as abit have altered this and placed the connector on the near side, just above the LED display. I am aware that the ONLY reason why we still use floppy drive connectors is to enable the RAID function during the F6 install sequence of Windows XP. However when Windows Vista is released we should look forward to abit REMOVING this piece of out-dated legacy hardware forever, as Windows Vista can use Raid drivers from a CD/DVD. So abit we are asking you to REMOVE the floppy drive connector (on your future boards) forever as soon as windows Vista is released. Next week we look at the SATA connectors. Again abit have listened and have placed every SATA connector (bar the external ports) on the edge of the motherboard there for removing the need to trail your SATA cable over the motherboard itself. It must be noted that SATA ports are placed at a 90 degree angle for the reasons I have stated above.

One of the things I like about abit boards is that they always put a power on and reset switch on the motherboards, thus saving you lots of hassle when doing a 'desk build'. I.E building the computer OUTSIDE of the case for testing and fault diagnosis! The main feature that I am most impressed with is a simple feature but so-overlooked by many and that is the 'EZ- clear CMOS switch’ this alone is a 'god-send' for many overclockers and saves the hassle of opening the side of the case when a bad overclock has occurred. Whilst compiling this review and test results this switch was very handy indeed. The EZ-clear CMOS switch is located at the back of the motherboard next the optical and external SATA ports at the back of the motherboard. Lastly I am impressed with the HUGE amounts of copper on this motherboard and I for one am glad for this as in theory we should have a cooler running motherboard.

Modification

On inspecting this motherboard I came to the conclusion that this motherboard BEGS to be modified. The reason for which is that upon removing the heavy copper heatsink from the Northbridge we encounter a rather large thermal pad upon which the heatsink rests due to it being copper. Scraping a small hole through this (just large enough for the Northbridge core itself) but leaving the thermal pad AROUND the core untouched, so as to have the heavy copper heatsink rest upon the thermal pad. Squeezing a small amount of Artic silver 5 upon the core (about the size of a grain of rice) rendered a 4 degree temperature difference on the core itself. This is an old trick for motherboard modders but an effective one. I have yet to do the Heatsink above the 'PULSE' chip. This also brings me to the reason WHY there are no capacitors around the CPU. The reason for which is that NVIDIA in their wisdom decided to control power flow to the CPU digitally thus negating the need for all those capacitors, according to what I have read on the various forms. Backtracking to the Northbridge itself I am at least happy to discover the abit has done-away with that awful brown rubber substance that plagued the AW9D MAX. I am given to understand that abit has an understanding that this in itself does NOT void you warranty so long as you do NOT use a third party ‘stick on’ Northbridge heatsink as this could damage the Northbridge core itself.

That sll I can give right now.

Will be in touch when the changes have been sorted.

I think I should be allowedot post Pics ofthe board, so if thats ok by SEAN@ abit I willpost the link to them
Sean is it ok for my to post pics etc of the board and components?

cheers

Gilgamesh

[Xptweaker]

So there are no results like ... overclock ore something because of a buged bios ... And abit is trying to fix that as soon as possible.

[Flanno]

Thanks for the udpate gilgamesh.

Also - at least 2 people on OcUK forums have them, so I hope we have overclocking results tommorrow the latest.

[Flanno]

Just took some measurements.
There is a fraction over 2.8cm clearance between the bottom of the base of the tuniq tower and the 120mm fan which is suspended inside it. (this would be the lowest point in the tuniq).

This means if you position the tuniq facing the rear exhaust fan it will be the widest side (15.3cm) which could overhang the NB chipset on this board.

If it does overhang it, and if the NB chipset is higher then 2.8cm which looking at the pics seems likely then the Tuniq will not fit in the optimal position.

[ABIT Sean]

I think I should be allowedot post Pics ofthe board, so if thats ok by SEAN@ abit I willpost the link to them
Sean is it ok for my to post pics etc of the board and components?

cheers

Gilgamesh

Feel free to post any images of the motherboard.