Motherboard: Abit IT7 MAX Review :: Installation

If you are not planning to use a TV Tuner or a SCSI device, there is not much to install on this motherboard as add-on cards go (everything is included). You will even find cable holders supplied in the package. You have to install the motherboard's custom backplane to your chassis before installation.

You don't need any special skills to set it up if you are not interested in tweaking it. But of course we would like to tweak every bit we can. ABIT lets you do that.

On the main Soft Menu page you can choose default CPU settings up to 3200 MHz. Or you can play with the multiplier if it is not locked in the CPU. It is possible to increase frequency up to 250 MHz by 1 MHz stepping.

If you would like to pump more energy to CPU you may set its Voltage up to 1.7 V by 0.025 Volt stepping. There were two more settings for Overclockers' taste. AGP voltage setting was missing but you may increase DDR Voltage 2.5 to 3.2. When you overclock, you increase the Bus for PCI. On this motherboard it is possible to fix PCI Frequency for more stability.

To put all these features on a motherboard is really difficult. ABIT did its best on the IT7. The CMOS battery placement design was ingenious.

The board design was mostly jumperless. There were just jumpers in two places. One is for termination, if you don't have a Media XP drive. Most of us won't have it. It is not included in the package. You have to find and buy it. The second one is a clear CMOS Jumper. Even those jumpers have headers for ease of use.

They did their best to pack all these features into limited space. The memory slots were stuck between the AGP card and the power supply connector. It is possible to install memory without opening the tabs all the way, but it is difficult to do so.

There was an AGP securing lock to secure the card in its place, when the system is on the way to its happy owner.