Abit wastes no time introducing their latest motherboard using Nvidia's nForce 680i SLI chipset with support for 1333Mhz FSB

INTRODUCTION

At the recent CeBit exhibition, Abit really turned up the gear in terms of making a strong comeback within enthusiast's market. You can the read more on this article here. Their stand displayed lots of new motherboards with features that were hard to resist if you're an enthusiast.

In our previous review of the AW9D-Max, which incidently is also a very good motherboard. It was based on Intel's 975X chipset and supports 1066Mhz FSB and ATI's Crossfire configuration. However this time round, the IN9 32X-Max uses the Nvidia nForce 680i chipset and supports 1333Mhz FSB and Nvidia's SLI configuration. As well as the above, this motherboard also supports Intel's latest Quad Core and dual core 1333FSB processors coming soon around 2Q-3Q.

Over the past six months, AMD-ATI have been busy trying to come up with something new, to slow down Intels' ever growing share in the PC market. Unfortunately, time is very precious, and right now, Intel is clearly winning this battle. By the time AMD sort out their differences within, there's going to be a flood of motherboards designed for Intel processors. With more and more manufacturers pumping out boards using Nvidia's nForce 680 and 650 chipsets, not to mention Intel's own P35 and G33 chipsets. So you can see why many consumers and enthusaists are going for Intel instead of AMD. 

Intel's latest chipset hasn't quite arrived yet, it'll be another 2-3 months before we see motherboards with the P35 chipset starting to appear. For now Nvidia is really taking advantage of the situation with it's nForce 680i. The Abit IN9 32X-Max no less, uses the Nvidia's nForce 680i SLI chipset. It is one of the first chipsets to support 1333Mhz FSB and Quad core processors from Intel.

Being Abit's next-in-line "Flagship" motherboard, we expect it to be better or, at least the same as its predecessor... the AW9D-Max. Expect many extra features such as the rear clear CMOS switch and eSATA connections, 3 PCIe x16 slots and 54g wireless LAN card.

OK, let's not waste anymore time and take a closer look at the Abit IN9 32X-Max motherboard ...