OC3D Review: abit AW9D Max Socket 775 Core2Duo Motherboard
- Thread starter FarFarAway
- Start date
FarFarAway
New member
Thanks guys...great board...was fun (and hard work) playing with it 
NickS said:475FSB is amazing @ 975x no mods. I'm guessing 1333MHz strap
not at the moment although it's been requested.
re. LEDs aren't there meant to be 5 settings incl. Off (except for 4 around the PWM area)?
For those of you that don't like blue the imminent Fatal1ty version will have a red PCB & red LEDs.
FarFarAway
New member
Yeah there's 4 settings for the LED's...and off. abit lists this as 4 settings.
Nice on the fatailty tho
Nice on the fatailty tho
FragTek
New member
I get this wierd feeling like the Fatality version will be an extra $100 and the only things it will have will be the red pcb and led's. *sigh*
/me likes this mobo though, this thing is amazing. I can't say I've been dissapointed with my AB9 so far, only thing that REALLLLLY sucks is the layout, they were smokin' some mad crack when they thought that one up.
/me likes this mobo though, this thing is amazing. I can't say I've been dissapointed with my AB9 so far, only thing that REALLLLLY sucks is the layout, they were smokin' some mad crack when they thought that one up.
name='FragTek' said:
http://forum.abit-usa.com/showthread.php?t=111757
I'm guessing that it will be a similar price to the MAX.
Of course the regular AW9D is £20 cheaper than the MAX, loses the LEDs, the southbridge on heatpipe cooling & only the important caps are solid rather than all.
FragTek
New member
If they pull it off at a decent price then mad props to abit. It's not really abit that I'm worried about setting the price too high, rather them taking in to account how much they have to give to Fatality for every board sold which usually seems to be why everything with his name on it is so darn expensive.
kimandsally
New member
Great review, AMAZING attention to detail must have taken ages to do, you obviously enjoy what your doing
FarFarAway
New member
name='kimandsally' said:Great review, AMAZING attention to detail must have taken ages to do, you obviously enjoy what your doing
Thanks mate. diod take a while but I enjoyed it and it's a lovely board!
Author/ Kempez:
I am SOOOOO glad this article was written, I bought the AW9D thinking it was a dual ATI/nVidia dual-graphics mobo (naive, but hopeful). Anyway, I have a pair of 7900GT's and when I saw the SLI bridge connector I figured I couldn't go wrong... can you say FALSE ADVERTISING? But someone figured out a way to get SLI going on it, can you please give an in depth guide on how to make that work, talking where you got the drivers to anything that has to be tweaked in the BIOS... you would really make my day.
I've had AMD systems the past few years and am comfortable overclocking them, but new to Intel... and most guides are still foreign to me. The biggest thing that gets me is the different RAM settings I see, I don't know if I'm putting a divider up or down. Also, I didn't see an "FSB" setting in the BIOS, but "PSB 1066"... could really use some "overclocking for dummies" help. (and what dumb@$$ makes a hot-pink BIOS!?)
Thanks in advance for any help you can give me...
TJS:worship:
I am SOOOOO glad this article was written, I bought the AW9D thinking it was a dual ATI/nVidia dual-graphics mobo (naive, but hopeful). Anyway, I have a pair of 7900GT's and when I saw the SLI bridge connector I figured I couldn't go wrong... can you say FALSE ADVERTISING? But someone figured out a way to get SLI going on it, can you please give an in depth guide on how to make that work, talking where you got the drivers to anything that has to be tweaked in the BIOS... you would really make my day.
I've had AMD systems the past few years and am comfortable overclocking them, but new to Intel... and most guides are still foreign to me. The biggest thing that gets me is the different RAM settings I see, I don't know if I'm putting a divider up or down. Also, I didn't see an "FSB" setting in the BIOS, but "PSB 1066"... could really use some "overclocking for dummies" help. (and what dumb@$$ makes a hot-pink BIOS!?)
Thanks in advance for any help you can give me...
TJS:worship:
Hi TJS,
No doubt kemp is probably already writing you a reply, but if you look in the review there is actually a link to download the modified drivers.
Simply install those and pop your graphics cards + bridge in your system and you should get the Nvidia balloon asking you if you'd like to enable SLI.
Everything after that should be hunky dory
No doubt kemp is probably already writing you a reply, but if you look in the review there is actually a link to download the modified drivers.
Simply install those and pop your graphics cards + bridge in your system and you should get the Nvidia balloon asking you if you'd like to enable SLI.
Everything after that should be hunky dory
FarFarAway
New member
As XMS says there's a download link to the hacked drivers I used, but they are here I installed the cards in the system, made sure the bridge was in place and then simply installed the drivers in the normal way.
Ignore the first SLI balloon straight after you install the drivers, but reboot and go into the drivers and tick "enable SLI"
It was THAT easy for me to use SLI on this board.
As for the overclocking - you have to enable manual overclocking in the BIOS, then set the external clock to change the FSB. Strap the NB at 1066 and up the CPU volts, taking care of temps
Overclocking on Intel is pretty simple, though I have asked someone to write a guide for you
Ignore the first SLI balloon straight after you install the drivers, but reboot and go into the drivers and tick "enable SLI"
It was THAT easy for me to use SLI on this board.
As for the overclocking - you have to enable manual overclocking in the BIOS, then set the external clock to change the FSB. Strap the NB at 1066 and up the CPU volts, taking care of temps
Overclocking on Intel is pretty simple, though I have asked someone to write a guide for you
Hoo-ha! (shark Bait!)
Thank you XMS and Kempez, you've made my day!:worship: Will have SLI going tonight when I get home...
Got one more question... if I leave the RAM setting on SPD, that's basically the same as "auto", right? Which leaves the FSB (external clock) and vcore as the only things I need to overclock, or will I need to up the vdimm manually as well? (OK, it was two questions, where can I make donations...
)
Thanks again,
TJS/ /-¯öÖk~/-¯ury/ The Ayatollah of Cool/ The Al Queda of Computers/ Iceman
Thank you XMS and Kempez, you've made my day!:worship: Will have SLI going tonight when I get home...
Got one more question... if I leave the RAM setting on SPD, that's basically the same as "auto", right? Which leaves the FSB (external clock) and vcore as the only things I need to overclock, or will I need to up the vdimm manually as well? (OK, it was two questions, where can I make donations...
) Thanks again,
TJS/ /-¯öÖk~/-¯ury/ The Ayatollah of Cool/ The Al Queda of Computers/ Iceman
FarFarAway
New member
Well to get to decent speeds you'll have to set the RAM manually. I'd set it to the correct timings (chipset config) and then when overclocking I'd put the RAM voltage up to 2.0 or 2.1 (whatever works...usually the highest it can go without voiding the warranty). Then when you OC you change the DRAM Spec:
There's a number below it called estimated new DRAM clock...keep this as close to DDR800 as possible. Remember a basic thing when overclocking Intel is that although bandwidth does give you more FPS, clocking the CPU higher will give you more
This is BASIC though...you can fiddle (relax usually) the timings on the RAM and up the volts to get the RAM to run higher and the AW9D does do this better than some boards I've used.
There's a number below it called estimated new DRAM clock...keep this as close to DDR800 as possible. Remember a basic thing when overclocking Intel is that although bandwidth does give you more FPS, clocking the CPU higher will give you more
This is BASIC though...you can fiddle (relax usually) the timings on the RAM and up the volts to get the RAM to run higher and the AW9D does do this better than some boards I've used.
Similar threads
