Abit AW9D-MAX: When "Beta" MAX is a good thing
by Gary Key on September 8, 2006 3:10 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Standard Gaming Performance
Due to the preview nature of the article our gaming performance was tested with three current games. This should give a good indication of the performance potential of the Abit board considering Quake 4 and Half Life 2: Lost Coast are memory sensitive while Serious Sam II is generally GPU limited (although the CPU can make a difference in heavy action sequences). We ran benchmarks with our standard 1280x1024 resolution without anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering enabled. Given the number of users that run 19 inch LCDs these days, 1280x1024 represents one of the most commonly used resolutions. We could certainly increase the amount of eye candy being displayed in most of the games, but as this is a motherboard benchmark we aren't particularly interested in maxing out the graphics cards for all tests.
As we commented in our previous Conroe Buyers Guide, gaming benchmarks at these settings are generally very close together, and few people would notice a difference between the motherboards. No real surprises here based on our earlier test results as the Abit board finished first in all of the results; however, the performance spread between these motherboards is only 1%-2%. Basically, your purchase decision should be based on price, features, availability, warranty, stability, and manufacturer more than gaming performance.
Due to the preview nature of the article our gaming performance was tested with three current games. This should give a good indication of the performance potential of the Abit board considering Quake 4 and Half Life 2: Lost Coast are memory sensitive while Serious Sam II is generally GPU limited (although the CPU can make a difference in heavy action sequences). We ran benchmarks with our standard 1280x1024 resolution without anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering enabled. Given the number of users that run 19 inch LCDs these days, 1280x1024 represents one of the most commonly used resolutions. We could certainly increase the amount of eye candy being displayed in most of the games, but as this is a motherboard benchmark we aren't particularly interested in maxing out the graphics cards for all tests.
As we commented in our previous Conroe Buyers Guide, gaming benchmarks at these settings are generally very close together, and few people would notice a difference between the motherboards. No real surprises here based on our earlier test results as the Abit board finished first in all of the results; however, the performance spread between these motherboards is only 1%-2%. Basically, your purchase decision should be based on price, features, availability, warranty, stability, and manufacturer more than gaming performance.
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Gary Key - Friday, September 8, 2006 - link
It should work but I will test it once we have the final bios. The SiL bios on the Abit board is updated from the last 3132 we tested (Asus M2N32) which worked fine with a SATA port multiplier on the external port.yyrkoon - Friday, September 8, 2006 - link
Thanks Gary, sounds great.yyrkoon - Friday, September 8, 2006 - link
Ok Jarred, great article, now WHEN CAN I BUY ONE ?! Seriously, I was considering a ABIT AB9 Pro, but it looks as though I may be geting one of these instead, provided, they keep the good work up, when releasing production BIOSes. This is very good news for me (and ABIT I'm sure), as I've been an ABIT fan, since the mid 90's, and Until recently, only deviated to buy a budget Asrock board, even though, Asrock is in league with ASUS. Its bee my opinion for a long time that Asus, and DFI DO NOT deserve thier titles as 'head manufactuers', Asus boards are quirky, assuming they're not dead out of the box, and I find it very hard to believe, that DFI stability issues have been fixed in the last couple of years, but you know what ? I wont find out, because I'm a tried and true loyal ABIT fan :)yyrkoon - Friday, September 8, 2006 - link
err, Gary :/JarredWalton - Saturday, September 9, 2006 - link
A couple weeks at most I think Gary said. Or maybe not - from the intro, they go into production next week. I don't know if that means they become available or not. :)rqle - Friday, September 8, 2006 - link
always been a fan of abit and it max series back then. didnt really like it when the replace it flagship "max series" with "fata1ty" or something like that. hope this board bring it back on top or at least fight the raising cost of "lan party" board =(.Anyways, nice conroe chip you guys got there.