ABIT AT7-MAX2.... Update: Does NOT Have 1/6 Divider

[Technonut]

The ABIT AT7-MAX2 is available for $185.00 shipped at Newegg for those that are interested. Looks like a sweet board.

EDIT: Has anyone seen any reviews of this board?

 

[eplebnista]

 

[Technonut]

The board is out of stock at Newegg now. (Not before I ordered one though ) I have done some reading up, and found the AT7-Max2 has the following features:

1/6 divider EDIT: The BIOS has the 6:2:1 option, but the board does not POST when enabled in one person's system in a post that I read. Hopefully will be fixed in a BIOS revision. (Or may be user misconfiguration)

DDR Voltage up to 3.25V

Vcore up to 2.325V

I also read a post by someone that has the board working with the Radeon 9700 Pro.

Looks Good......Very Good.......

 

[mbdowns]

Was looking at this board also. I like the Highpoint 374 RAID with capabilities for 4 devices/ channel. Only the EPoX 8K5A3+ has same RAID. The Epox mobo has 4 IDE's for the RAID, but the Abit only has 2 IDE's. How does the Abit support 8 IDE devices with just the 2 connecters on mobo?

Also noticed that it only supports the DDR333 on 2 of 4 memory slots. Are they being more honest than other manufactures who claim support for DDR333 in 3 slots?

 

[CraigRT]

:Q:Q:Q
that mobo looks awesome!!! (looks and specs!!!)

giddyup!!

 

[Technonut]

There is a review of the AT7-MAX2 up Here.

Overclocking options are also amazing. Abit finally gives you the option to select higher voltage on memory as well as CPU- the only thing left out is the AGP Voltage. You can provide upto an astonishing 3.25V to your memory module while the VCore can also be taken as high as 2.325V. These are awesome options and we would seriously recommend the casual overclocker to play it safe. Abit also provides lots of CPU Multipliers- all the way from 5X to 22.5X and everyone who?s unlocked their Athlon is sure to have a field day.

Damn, no AGP voltage adjustment. Also:

Another option that Abit provides is selecting the PCI divider between 3, 4 and 5. That five will come in handy for overclockers as well as once the 166MHz FSB Athlons are released. We were able to take our unlocked Athlon XP 1800+ to 202MHz FSB. Anything above that corrupted the Hard Drive. At 205MHz FSB, the board would freeze during POST. Not bad at all, but we have reached a bit higher with this CPU/RAM configuration.

This is contrary to the person that has one up and running with the 6:2:1 present in his BIOS. Link It is reported as not functioning, but there.

The AT7 MAX2 performed very well as far as stability is concerned. We would have loved to try this board with the Radeon 9700 and AGP 8X, however, we dont have one in our labs at the moment. We should be getting one in the next few days and will try to come back to testing the KT400 with the Radeon 9700 at AGP 8X. With all the other hardware, including GeForce4, SB Live! and a Microsoft USB Trackball, the AT7 MAX2 worked like a champ. Even at overclocked speeds of 200MHz, we did not run into any crashes. Good job Abit.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed concerning the Radeon 9700. EDIT: Looking better for 9700 compatibility. I saw this posted at Rage3D:

"I am just done my system for new ABIT AT7max2, Everything from begining is errorless, I also did the benchmark of UT2003 DEMO for 800x600, 1024x768....no lock up...very smooth. Really don't see any problem..."

Anyway, just one of the first reviews... I am confident with some BIOS revisions and tweaking, the Max2 will be a fine board. I will start an "official" thread when I receive mine later in the week.

 

[Civic2oo1x]

How does the Abit support 8 IDE devices with just the 2 connecters on mobo?

I'm assuming they mean more IDE devices hooked up to the SATA with adapters.

 

[Technonut]

If you look at the board, you will see that there are 2 IDE RAID ports, and 2 IDE ATA100/133 ports. 2 drives per port= a potential 4 harddrives on the RAID ports and 4 hard drives or optical devices on the ATA100/133 ports= 8 drives. On top of that there are the Serial ATA ports that can be used with adapters. (ABIT includes 1 adapter with the board)

 

[Technonut]

I received the AT7 Max2 today. I had no problem getting it to boot and run as few loops of 3DMark2001 SE with the Radeon 9700 Pro, which is a good thing.

The bad thing was that I had difficulty obtaining a FSB above 150, even with the divider set at 1/5.

I knew of a thread going at AMDMB, and saw that someone (probably from ABIT) posted a beta BIOS that did not include the 1/6 divider. Instructions were also posted on settings with the beta BIOS to obtain a higher FSB overclock. (which is working... 190FSB )

1/6 divider is removed in new bios , AT7 Max2 Clock Gen does support 1/6 PCI Divider , however VIA has confirmed that KT400 does not support 1/6 PCI divider even the clock gen can support 1/6 PCI divider , this is the chipset limitation and can not be solved by motherboard maker

I still am in the early stages of testing this board. I will start a separate thread when complete. So far performance is on par with the 8K52A+, but with more features. This is just a heads up showing that this stepping of the KT400 does NOT support the 1/6 divider.

The Radeon 9700 does not take well to a high (above 190) FSB in either the 8K5A2+ or At7 Max2 with a 1/5 divider, so keep that in mind. I have had the 8500 at a stable 214 FSB on the 8K5A2+. I am going to see what it will do in the ABIT.

 

[Insane3D]

Sorry to hear of your experience Sonny. I still think, at this point anyway, the KT400 is not really an "upgrade", other than AGP 8X. They are, at best, a smidge faster than the high end KT333 boards, but in most cases just barely as fast or slightly slower. I hope you have better luck than 150mhz FSB...that is pretty sad..especially for an Abit.


Hopefully a few bios updates will improve the situation...

 

[Technonut]

I did flash to the beta BIOS Pete, and am at a 190 FSB. You are right about the performance being on par with the KT333 so far. (I have yet to tweak) The ABIT does have the Serial ATA ports, the HP374 RAID controller, Firewire, LAN, very complete BIOS setting control, and USB 2.0. The BIOS also has dual CPU temps shown. I think they can be separately set to shut down at a set temp. (Core or socket probe)

EDIT: The shutdown temp is controlled only by the in socket probe.

If the performance and stability is the same as the 8K5A2+, I will probably keep the ABIT.