Intel has for the last 12 months released two different setups of motherboard circuits for the performance segment which have introduced certain complications for motherboard manufacturers. i955X was Intel's first chipset with support for processors with dual cores, while the Pentium D processors of the 900 series which arrived at the end of last year required the updated chipset, i975X. To top it all off it turned out that these motherboards would not support Intel's upcoming Core processors. They needed a minimal modifications of the voltage regulation, but alas an essential such. Abit, together with several other motherboard manufacturers, got stuck in between revisions and uncertainties up until a few months ago when the final chipset specifications arrived. These months of hard work has resulted in Abit's new AW9D and the "MAX" version AW9D-MAX.
Today we have the honor as one of the absolute first hardware sites to seriously test Abit's
coming AW9D-MAX motherboard. The sample we've received is one out of very few engineering samples and doesn't come with all the features of the retail package. We've been informed that the differences are only cosmetic though, the function remains the same. Waiting for a full review of the board, with all of its accessories, we will start by investigating how this motherboard overclocks.
We start with a look at the specifications.
