Closer Look:

Abit's new packaging has made quite the presentation and impression around the local stores. Resellers have been happy in that they can leave the motherboard in the box and the consumers can still peer through the box or glass shelving to see what's on display. For the local INTEL sponsored LAN parties, it's been much easier on me mentally as all the people stroll by the table peaking at what's the new and latest motherboards around the Virtual-Hideout. Everyone wants to handle the new-hotness while dreaming about how it would look in their new system.

Front

Back

Features

Bundle

The Abit AB9 Quad GT P965 Crossfire Motherboard comes with a deep blue PCB with a safe coordinated black and blue color theme with the slots and sockets. The blue PCB is always appreciated as well as any other color than green these days. Nothing about the board is out of place or appears thrown together with whatever might have been lying around the factory. The motherboard's layout is very clean and balanced in that there are no connectors or ports that could interfere with a good clean installation of your favorite components.

Front

Back

Bottom

Top

What really stands out is the anodized copper colored aluminum Silent OTES heat pipe sinks. These are very similar to those found on the IN9 32X-MAX, but in a lesser amount and lengthy design. None the less, it does a very nice job of keeping the chipset and PWM much cooler. The NVidia 680 chipset gets considerably warmer than the INTEL 965 chipsets which means less heat sink is needed to cool properly. Of course, extra cooling never hurts. So, if you have a large CPU cooler that directs air against the motherboard, the heat sinks will do an even better job.

Silent OTES

Top View

Stylish

If you think that the 965X chipset motherboard may be lacking in any features, think again. You have the option of up to 8 SATA devices, six on the motherboard and two eSATA at the back. External SATA connecting is fast becoming the big thing especially with all the 'one touch' external storage drives on the market. There are plenty of USB ports thanks to the many onboard and rear mounted ports as well as an included USB Bracket. Since these latest chipsets are created for performance, there is only one ATA and FDD port. It's amazing that we still have floppy disk drives as some what a necessity, not to mention the countless IDE drives still packing the shelves. Just how many of these are left in the warehouses?

PCI Slots

Panel, Ports, SATA

7.1 HD Audio

ATA, CMOS

In case you haven't already noticed, these new 965 and 975 chipset motherboards all have a pretty low profile thanks to the solid state capacitors. If you think back to the previous motherboards, there were some very tall capacitors surrounding the most power hungry areas of the motherboard which included the CPU socket. You can probably recall how many times you had to make sure a certain CPU cooler couldn't be used because of the capacitors crowding and preventing proper installation. I can recall the countless times something had to be double checked or modified because of that kind of interference. It's really awesome having a more reliable component finally being used in this capacity since they have been around for some time. And now motherboard manufacturers don't really have to worry so much about these factors. That leaves more time to focus on other things.

The layout of the board is actually pretty clean. Presentation and location of typically used components seem to get the foremost pick of the real estate which is another benefit of Solid State Caps. The motherboard can be worked on with very minimal confusion. Most users are getting more and more computer savvy with each upgrade they perform. Because of this gained skill, onboard ports and panel connectors, such as the USB, 1394, and Audio, don't really bring cause to worry being at the bottom of the motherboard. I've made a habit of connecting these ports on the motherboard before screwing it in place inside the chassis.

PS2, CMOS, Optical, eSATA, Audio, USB, Firewire, LAN

And alas, Abit included one of my latest and great current features found at the back of the motherboard just in case you configure your BIOS with a setting that causes the system to not boot: a CMOS Reset Switch. This is a very handy feature that should be adopted by every manufacturer out there. Many a forum posts explained how someone entered their chassis for the first or one time too many and cleared or moved the incorrect jumper. There have been many posts left by experienced and inexperienced users alike trying to return life to their unresponsive system after working on the system in this respect. This switch simply needs only to be slid in to the C.C. (CMOS Clear) position and then returned back to its default position. Your BIOS should now be cleared and the system ready. And, you didn't have to open up the case to do it.
 

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