I know that on the AN7 there was problems with uGuru and MBM5 not working on that motherboard, I couldn't see it anywhere in the review, but did you get the chance to try Motherboard Monitor with the board? If so, did you manage to get it working alright?
Would anyone else agree with me if I were to say that the Abit IC7 Max II is a much better board for your hard earned bucks, to top it off it is an 875p chipset motherboard. Just my oppinion, when I came noticed this review I realized how old that mobo is compared to the IC7 Max II. I apologize if this post offends anyone, namely *Spike* since he wrote this review.
He'd have to be quite pedantic and over sensitive really, to be offended by you calling his motherboard old But I am actually pretty sure the AI7 is actually newer than the IC-7 MaxII series, given that on the abit USA site the AI7s earliest BIOS release is version 11 and is dated second of October 2003, whilst the earlist BIOS release (version 10) for the IC7-G is dated 27th of March 2003 I would say the IC-7 was better on paper, in that its a Canterwood board and seems more feature packed (especially in -G form), though then again I'm not sure how good prescott support is on the IC7-G these days. IC7-G and Canterwood in general was released as a high end workstation type solution for the P4, whilst Springdale (ala the AI7) was aimed more at the mass market, hence it being a bit slower and cheaper (at least initially, we see the newer Springdale boards like the AI7 being similar in price to the more established i875P solutions like the IC-7).
ok ok my bad his board is newer, but the IC7 Max II still seems like a better buy for your money, and seeing that the motherboard in my oppinion plays a huge role in the performance of a system why not get the best.
you'd be surprised by how many problems people have had with the IC7 MAX3. Especially in the early stages of it's use
The first thing that struck me certainly wasn't the orange/red pcb. It was (as pictured) the fact the cpu socket has been rotated 45 degrees. Never seen that before. Good review though
Yes, that is an interesting point, still, the heatsink mounts parallel to the side of the board. More and more northbridges are now at 45 degrees too, I guess it is just easier for the tracks between everything if they are at that angle.
Yes a little problem your HS has to have a flat bottom unlike the one i bought thermaltake POLO735 if not one coner hangs off the chip.