Installation, Setup and BIOS

The AW9D-Max has plenty of room around the processor socket, making it easy to install a large CPU cooler. The same can be said for the space around the DDR2 DIMM slots ... for easy access to your memory. The Abit OTES Max heatpipe cooling for the chipset is a great bonus and does a great job cooling both the northbridge and southbridge.

{imggallery 71}

       

Installation was fairly straight forward. What I didn't like was the location of the floppy and the 4-pin ATX power connectors. Again, they're located right at the bottom, which can be arkward for your cabling. However, what I did like about the board is that fit features a handy Reset and Power On switches located near the diagnosted LEDs (see above).

The back ATX panel includes an external SATA connector 4 USB ports and aslo dual gigabit ethernet connectors.

The BIOS for the AW9D-Max is the fun and easy to use. It's what all you enthusiasts want. Using their awarding winning uGuru Overclocking feature, it offers a wealth of BIOS options which can be used to overclock your system to the max, or use it to adjust system performance.

{imggallery 70}

Here, you can adjust various options including CPU multipliers, FSB, and of course voltages for memory, chipset and processor itself. Memory timings can also be adjusted as well as onboard LED sequences.