OC3D Review: abit AW9D Max Socket 775 Core2Duo Motherboard

TJS said:
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?
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You wouldn't get very far with that claim as it is a dual ATi/nVidia gfx mobo - it can run 2 of either e.g. for multi-monitor use - there is no mention of SLI.

However, as you have discovered the only thing that prevents running SLI on an Intel, ULi chipset etc. or Crossfire on an nVidia chipset is driver support as the PCI-E slots are a standard.

Abit go further than most mobo manufacturers do by incl. the SLI bridge.

We all live in hope of an Utopia where they all open up driver support.
 
Bah! ST boys forgot to send it! Might have to wait until Monday now, lets hope it weights less than 2kg - ST said they will send it special delivery if it is under the magic weight, meaning i'll have it tomorrow... Looking forward to this mobo
 
Gotta disagree with you, BUFF... dual-graphics card mobos are set for either SLI or Crossfire, not both. ABIT says the AW9D 'supports' Crossfire, and you're right in that they don't mention SLI, but then why put an SLI bridge in with the product if it doesn't support it natively? That's not right, or they should at least make it clear that the SLI bridge is for possible future expanability to nVidia gpu's but not currently. How many people (besides me) bought it because they already had two nVidia gpu's for SLI, only to find out that bridge is for show? I don't think too many got lucky like me and found a website that just happened to have modded drivers to enable SLI on the 975 chipset.

Speaking of which, thank you Kempez, worked great first time!:worship: Got the hang of OC'ing now, thank you for that information as well. Currently 3.42GHz with an E6600, RAM was 5-5-5-15 by SPD at DDR2-800, but going good at 380MHz/4-4-4-12 timings:D I think I found a new home.

TJS
 
The reason that you won't find a motherboard that says it supports both Crossfire & SLI (or any worded implication) is because any board that wants to use Nvidia's SLI trademark (logo's/name..etc) cannot also carry the name of a competeing product (Crossfire).

Hence the reason why you won't find a power supply either that says it supports SLI & Crossfire (PCP&C have even gone to the trouble of creating 2 power supplies which are exactly the same internally but have different names)
 
name='TJS' said:
dual-graphics card mobos are set for either SLI or Crossfire, not both.
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Actually the mobo has nothing to do with it as the PCI-E slots on a "Crossfire" board & an "SLI" board are electrically & physically the same, it's all down to the gfx driver support (which is why the ULi chipset board could run either).

That's why you can run 2 nVidia cards (notice that abit don't mention SLI but dual gfx) in the AW9D to provide support for 4 monitors or you can SLI them with hacked drivers.

ABIT says the AW9D 'supports' Crossfire, and you're right in that they don't mention SLI, but then why put an SLI bridge in with the product if it doesn't support it natively?
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Well, as above the board does natively support it (alternatively you can take the view that no mobo natively supports either SLI or Crossfire as neither will work without a driver) but nVidia haven't enabled driver support.

or they should at least make it clear that the SLI bridge is for possible future expanability to nVidia gpu's but not currently. How many people (besides me) bought it because they already had two nVidia gpu's for SLI, only to find out that bridge is for show?
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1) you should have done better research

2) I don't think that abit advertise the fact that they include an SLI bridge (although reviews usually do).

I've also been told by some people that Asus include 1 with the P5WH.
 
Don't patronize me about the PCI-E slots, BUFF, I know they're the same physically & electrically, but you still don't explain why ABIT put an SLI connecter in with this mobo. Yes ABIT shows on their website a parts list with the bridge connecter shown... wouldn't you assume that it ran SLI out of the box without 'hacked' drivers?
 
Guys guys...c'mon.

Abit put the bridge in there to imply that the board is capable of SLI even tho they can't officially say it.

Now that Intel and Nvidia might be teaming up, we hopefully will start seeing some nvidia drivers that officially support SLI.

But the bridge is just an implication to make people thing "SLI bridge...but why???...lets look on google."
 
name='TJS' said:
Don't patronize me about the PCI-E slots, BUFF, I know they're the same physically & electrically, but you still don't explain why ABIT put an SLI connecter in with this mobo. Yes ABIT shows on their website a parts list with the bridge connecter shown... wouldn't you assume that it ran SLI out of the box without 'hacked' drivers?
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OK, you know that the PCI-E is all the same then presumably you should also know that it's the graphics drivers that enable/disable Crossfire or SLI, nothing to do with the mobo at all except that the Forceware driver checks for an nVidia chipset.

As Abit don't advertise SLI anywhere for the board, no I wouldn't assume it but I would expect people doing self builds at that level/expense to have some knowledge/do some research.

In which case there is loads of info. out there on running Crossfire/SLI on other chipsets than one might expect & certainly plenty on running SLI on 975.

Why are Asus apparently doing the same with the P5WH DeLuxe?
 
Look XMS said enough, so enough it is. If you want to discuss the various merits and pitfalls of motherboard companies advertising for SLI and Crossfire then make another thread.

This is for review commentary only.
 
Best ever - mobo arrived today, as did my dominator ram courtesy of Frag (who is a legend)

Anyways i'll post my oc'in efforts soon...
 
MrSmith said:
Best ever - mobo arrived today, as did my dominator ram courtesy of Frag (who is a legend)

Anyways i'll post my oc'in efforts soon...
Click to expand...

w00t w00t, glad to see the RAM arrived in a speedy arse manner, now get to clockin' mate! My mobo should be here tomorrow mefinks :)
 
I am loving this mobo - have my e6600 clocked at 3.2 stable 24/7 usage.

Few issues with ram, doesnt seem to want to run at 800mhz settings - as soon as i started clocking it would die and require me to switch off and unplug power. Booting back in to the bios I set ram at 500 1:1 ratio clocked up nice and high. Then I tried the 667 at 2:3 or 4:5 which is what I have had to keep it on.

The ram is rated at 1066 - when it was on 800mhz with the oc the ram got to 1050 effective but after posting and loading for a while windows would not start...

Apologies for vagueness/rushed style of reply - at work. Will post something more accurate at home... I'm interested how to get the most out of my ram
 
I got my e6600 running at 3.82 this morning with some heavy voltages and not 100% stable, currently have it clocked @ 3.7 and doing some testing (well, really just letting F@H run all day while I'm at work) and hopefully it will still be running when I get home. These chips require some serious volts to unleash themselves. I'm running between 1.575-1.6vcore to keep it stable above 3.6ghz.
 
Kemp, is 1.6 about the top limit for vcore on air-cooling with a good cooler? Still running the Infinity which seems to work a treat. Core temp reports both cores in the low 60's @ full load.
 
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