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Abit's New Motherboard Lays On The Ports
An enthusiastic reader submits: "Possibly the most innovative motherboard to be released in years, Abit's MAX series intends to dive headfirst into the next generation of computing, leaving legacy ports behind in their dust.
Hardcoreware.net has the first full review of this board, which has support for 10 USB devices and 12 (YES, 12) IDE devices." I wish it had even more built-in USB ports, but six is a good start.
Never has the announcement of a motherboard created as much buzz around the PC hardware enthusiast community as the Abit "MAX" series of motherboards (something tells me they really wanted to call it "Matrix" instead). This line of boards, available on both Athlon and Pentium 4 platforms, is Abit's attempt at taking motherboards one step into the next generation, leaving things like legacy ports in its dust.
Windows 2000/XP/ME only. Win98 users need not apply.
How significant is this step though? If you've been paying attention to the hype surrounding these boards, you might think that it is a giant leap for motherboard kind. We're going to find out if this is the case, or if the MAX series is rather a baby step.
Giant leap or baby step, one thing is for certain, the AT7, Abit's first board in the MAX lineup, is definitely one of the most unique boards you'll see today. The AT7 uses the newest, fastest chipset for the Athlon platform, VIA's KT333. KT333 supports most of the newest features you'll need, such as native ATA/133 hard drives, onboard 5.1 audio with digital output, support for DDR333 SDRAM, and more. Abit takes that one step further, and adds a ton of integrated components intended for the next generation of computing. This includes both FireWire AND USB2.0 controller, a 4 channel ATA/133 RAID adapter (making for an unprecedented support of 10 ATA drives onboard), onboard 10/100 LAN, and MediaXP support. These would all be excellent useful addons for most boards, but that's where the MAX series is different - these aren't just addons for the motherboard, they actually replace all legacy parts on the board. Have a look!
This is definitely the most unique ATX rear panel I've ever seen on a consumer board. Notice the complete lack of legacy ports - this includes PS/2, ATA, serial, parallel, the whole shebang! Instead, we get 4 USB 1.1 ports, 2 USB 2.0 ports, a pair of IEEE1394 FireWire ports, full analog 5.1 audio out, digital audio out, and a LAN connector. This is what really sets the MAX boards apart. It is FINALLY time to get rid of that old Dexxa ball mouse that came with your first SVGA card. While you're at it, toss out that old Dot Matrix printer, and even the $13 keyboard with the ASDFJKL: keys completely rubbed off! Abit steps into a new era of computing with the MAX boards
There are some other noticeable differences in the board layout. First off, you are only going to get 3 PCI slots. This is because most of the peripherals that would use a PCI slot, such as the Ethernet adapter and sound card, are already onboard. Personally I've never used more than 3 PCI slots, and with this board, not a single slot it used. Yep, 3 should definitely be enough.
Despite having all the next-gen high performance capabilities, SCSI is still absent. This proves that while the AT7 is a very high end board, it is still targeted to the consumer market. Thanks, Abit!
Video Game cheats, hints a
For those who are unaware, the Abit website is NOT www.abit.com; that reroutes you to motherboards.com. The site you want is www.abit-usa.com or www.abit.com.twinstead.
Got Wisdom?
[Page 2 is also pretty interesting ... then it delves into BIOS screen shots and benchmarks]
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Got Storage?
Have a look at the vast number of ATA connectors - 6 channels! The yellow connectors are for the Highpoint ATA/133 RAID controller (which works perfectly fine in non-RAID mode). The two higher up on the board are the natively controlled IDE channels, also supporting ATA/133. This makes for an amazing 12 possible drives without the use of a single PCI slot!
Below the RAID channels you'll see a floppy adapter, one of the lingering legacy ports still found on this generation of MAX boards... I personally don't use a floppy drive anymore, but it will be necessary to use a floppy if you plan on installing Windows XP on a drive controlled by the Highpoint IDE. How ironic!
Besides what I've mentioned, and the fact that there are 4 RAM slots (up to three 1GB sticks may be used at a time with non-registered RAM, four if you are using registered), the layout is pretty much standard ATX fare. There are a couple nasty layout problems though, which I'll get to later in the review.
In addition to the 6 USB ports on the ATX rear panel (4 USB1.1 and 2 USB2.0), there are onboard connectors for 4 more USB 2.0 connectors, for a total of 10 devices! There is also an extra output for one more IEEE1394 port. The IEEE1394 controller used by the AT7 is capable of full speed 400mb/sec. So no matter what interface your advanced external peripherals are going to use, Abit definitely has you covered with the AT7.
Once again, Abit gets unique with the AT7, this time with the bundle. Included are a set of nifty black IDE cables (3 IDE cables, 1 floppy cable). This is a great way to have some nice looking custom IDE cables without worrying about using rounded cables (IDE cables are flat for a reason you know!). Also included are a set of cable tie-downs, to aide in keeping your PC nice and tidy inside. This is a great little bundle for a motherboard! A custom ATX rear panel plate is also included of course; the one that came with your case is now officially outdated. You also get one PCI plate USB adapter, to be used on one of the USB2.0 outputs on the motherboard. I would have liked to see a pair of these, in addition to another firewire adapter, since the board supports it. Unfortunately, you're going to have to get your own this time.
MediaXP
One significant absence in our package (I believe Abit is going to make it an option for some retail packages) is a MediaXP panel! MediaXP is one of the great steps forward with the MAX series. Basically, it adds integrated support for various portable media, including Smart Media, Compact Flash, and even Sony's Memory Stick. MediaXP also includes headphone and microphone jacks, SPDIF ports, and 2 USB ports! It is expected that most cases will start using MediaXP panels, rather than their own Mickey Mouse panels you see now. It is already beginning to look like the MAX is taking the PC a step in the right direction...
Here's a link to ABIT's media sheet on the motherboard, which gives a good rundown of the new features of the board, as well as what they were thinking when designing it.
ABIT MAX Media Sheet
It also has 2 usb2.0 ports, which are 480 mbps, faster than firewire.
Actually with certain drive kits, IDE can be made to be hot swappable. Do a google search of hot swap and ide and check it out.
Given that the argument has played out "dozens" (as you put it) of times, why do you think real computing shops use SCSI, and idiots raised on the IBM PC as the brilliance of design think that IDE can't be surpassed.
There ARE NOT 12 IDE CONNECTORS.
It supports 12 IDE devices. That means 6 channels, two devices per channel.
Sure, there's not much difference in price.. really..
Check out pricewatch, here's a sample:
~40 gig
Scsi: $124
IDE: $54
~80 gig
scsi: $443
IDE: $90
160 gig IDE: $197
$180 gig SCSI: $999
Nope, not much price difference there.
I want a lot of storage space, so I bought a mobo with onboard raid. This is not so that I can quickly access a large amount of information, but so that I have somewhere to store all kinds of crap (MP3's, etc).
I also use the extra IDE slots so that I can have more stuff in there (DVD rom, cd-jutebox, CD-RW, windows drive, BSD drive, etc).
I'm not going for speed, I'm going for bulk. So yeah, I could upgrade to SCSI. I'd spend a crap-load of money and not really gain anything, since I don't do anything that is IO heavy. Everything I do is CPU/Memory heavy. SCSI doesn't help me there.
SCSI has its place, but I don't need it. I'm happy with my ability to stick a bunch of IDE drives into my computer and play with it like that. I have a board with 4 IDE channels, 2 1/2 of which I use. I don't need SCSI.
"All the things I really like to do are either immoral, illegal, or fattening."
- Alexandar Woolcot
Most BIOSes (excluding recent AMD motherboards using the 760MP chipset, as their southbridge's USB 1.1 is broken) implement a USB software stack providing 'legacy' support (read: makes software think it's the old keyboard controller at the usual IO addresses/interrupt) until the OS boots loads its own USB 1.1/2.0 stack and enumerates the devices. It's one reason why the flash chips housing the "CMOS" programming keeps getting bigger: 4MB, then 8MB, ...
I don't know where you're getting your information, but all 3 common USB host controllers (UHCI, OHCI and EHCI) use bus mastering DMA to transfer the data from the device to main memory.
Go check the USB host controller specs for yourself.
Why not just get a "USB TO SERIAL CONVERTER DB25M", its even supported under linux. I wanted to do this for a bbs, but the price per unit 45 bux was a little expensive.
Actually you can hot swap any drive. You must disconnect the signal before the power, though. That is why hot swappable drives have a special interface with the signal pins shorter than the power pins. Doing this properly does NOT void warranty!
C'mon, if you are going to geek out and trump the performance of SCSI, get the facts straight!
I agree with the original poster. That is not to say SCSI can't outperform IDE. But where is the pricepoint? IDE is catching up, and for the cost, I would say is already there. You need the best of the best, go with SCSI. You need a fast drive at a decent price, look IDE.
It also helps that today's PC's have oodles of processor left over to help out w/IDE bus transfers. Obviously that influences my statements above too. If that wern't the case, the I/O handling that SCSI does would be invaluable, as it once was. I remember how many coasters I made on my first IDE burner...
127 devices per USB bus. This thing has atleast 3 busses.
The USB 1.1 bus is 11Mbps (per bus), whereas the USB 2.0 bus is 480Mbps.
Not that you were going to rush out and set up your terabyte array, but here's a word of caution anyway. Terabyte filesystems aren't that common among Linux and FreeBSD users (which I know for sure; I'll bet NetBSD users aren't real interested, either...;-) That means they aren't well tested. Furthermore, there are limits to what is supported. For instance, the 160MB drives aren't supported in linux 2.4 yet, and filesystems have maximum sizes.
Before anyone decides to invest heavily in a terabyte+ array thinking they'll access it as a single logical device, I recommend investing some time reading the linux kernel mailing list, or do similar reading for the OS of choice. Along with some friends, I've spent a lot of time looking at these issues lately, and there are a lot of "gotchas" for unwary users (which almost included us).
-Paul Komarek
While I agree that SCSI is better for servers, I can satisfy this request:
Western Digital Caviar Special Edition 7200 Hard Drive WD1000JB
IDE
160GB x 12 = 1920GB (1.920TB) (Due to HD reporting, it'll actually be about 1.788TB for real.)
Disk System Price: $2400
Options?
SCSI
181.6 x 30 = 5448GB (5.448 TB) (Due to HD reporting, it'll actually be about 5.073TB for real.)
Disk System Price: $30,230 (With DC controller.)
Options?
Basically, it all REALLY depends on what you want to do with the system. That and take a look at any of the recent comparisons between SCSI and IDE drives (especially the aforementioned 120GB WesDig JB drives).
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
The parent post deserves a reply - not because I disagree (Paul is right to offer caution) but because I can add something here. Feel free to mod me offtopic.
I can confirm that linux handles TB filesystems reliably in my limited experience
Where I work (Imperial College, London) we have an online backup system consisting of 16 disks on a Chaparral RAID controller hanging off a cheap 1U Intel box. Using some perl I wrote in conbination with rsync, we pull copies of most data (shared group, sysadmin stuff, home dirs) onto this array - keeping a full copy and a week's worth of "reverse diffs" (files which have been updated, but I got rsync to kick them sideways rather than deleting them).
Whole lot is NFS and samba exported so short term file recovery is DIY for the users (saves a *lot* of time).
Anyway - here's the df -lk listing:
Filesystem 1k-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/vg00/lvexport1 1050132564 822295616 227836948 79% /export/recover
You'll notice that I'm using LVM - which in itself has a 1TB limit on the size of a single logical volume (well right now it does on the version I'm using).
Next version of my code will deal with pools of disk so I don't have to use LVM anymore. The filesystem is ext3 running on SuSE 7.2 with a locally patched build of 2.4.17.
Approximately 3-5GB of files are moved every night and it has (fingers crossed) been very reliable. /, we have found that odd system crashes *can* sometimes result in null data or even randon data (extents from other files or off the free list) have ended up inside live files, like /etc/passwd, which isn't very convenient ;-)
My advice would be to stick to ext3. Reiserfs I used at home and it was very reliable. But on 180 odd lab PCs we have, where Reiserfs is used on
I've seem XFS leave files full of null data under similar circumstances. So I actually think, for the hack that it is, ext3 gives a certain warm feeling on those sorts of filesystems. Ext3 even on a system which was crashing due to a mixture of (older) kernel problems and flaky firmware on the RAID never lost anything (at least as far as we've noticed).
So far so good. Your milage may vary of course. And do as Paul says - check the limits of the drives and the filesystems you are thinking of using.
Why can't women be like Hedy Lamarr - beautiful, talented and inventors of frequency-hopping spread-spectrum techn