abit AW9D-MAX

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FrgMstr

Just Plain Mean
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abit AW9D-MAX - The abit AW9D-MAX motherboard is abit’s premier offering for the Core 2 Duo line. With abit’s stellar reputation and the overclocking potential of the Core 2 Duo, this could be the match to beat...but it ain't.
 
Well Kyle what about 680i based IN9-32X MAX Are you going to be reviewing that anytime soon? Supposed to be available here mid-January.
 
Hmm interesting. Not trying to be mean or anything but I have seen people take this board much higher. I hear its tricky though and some boards simply cant do it. Guess its the luck of the draw.
 
Well if its just tricky to overclock, then thats just dumb. B/c every newbie & their grandma are taking DS3's & P5B's and getting 400-500FSB overclocks with practically zero effort.

Its ashame to see Abit suck lately. :(

I really liked my last Abit boards. (an IC-7, BE6-II)
They have nice looking boards with great layouts usually.
And the in the past they had the easiest to use overclocking
boards. (menus/BIOS's)
 
Hey Kyle,

Did the USB port problem only arise when overclocking or did it happen at stock speed too?
 
chrisf6969 said:
Well if its just tricky to overclock, then thats just dumb. B/c every newbie & their grandma are taking DS3's & P5B's and getting 400-500FSB overclocks with practically zero effort.

Its ashame to see Abit suck lately. :(

I really liked my last Abit boards. (an IC-7, BE6-II)
They have nice looking boards with great layouts usually.
And the in the past they had the easiest to use overclocking
boards. (menus/BIOS's)
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Yeah I hear you. Still using my AW8 and when the AW9 came out and saw it didnt live up to Abit's past boards it was a dissappointment. I seen some people in these forums and some people in the abit forums of them taking the board past 450. But like I said, they all said it was tricky and you basically need to tweak every setting to get it that high.
 
Lazy_Moron said:
Yeah I hear you. Still using my AW8 and when the AW9 came out and saw it didnt live up to Abit's past boards it was a dissappointment. I seen some people in these forums and some people in the abit forums of them taking the board past 450. But like I said, they all said it was tricky and you basically need to tweak every setting to get it that high.
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There's always the freak in the group. Just b/c a few people have Core2's that hit 4Ghz on air with out a lot of extra voltage doesn't mean they all do it, or that the person with only a 3Ghz OC is doing something wrong.

Then to be fair, [H] only tested one board MAYBE they got a dud.

But with the current crop of motherboards out there, I would expect a "DUD" to "only" do 400Mhz, and the average to do 450, and the highest to do 500+.
 
Couple of things, on the last page "a major faux-pox" - you mean "faux pas" right, or were you referring to something that looks like chicken pox? ;)

Also the photos seem a bit dark and slightly blurry, not up to the usual [H] standard. Did the board color make it hard to get good shots?
 
Yet another great example of a current generation of Abit boards without enough available PCI slots (considering that if you run dual-slot dual vid-cards, none will be available at all). I can see Abit has really been listening to their customer base.

Despite what Abit/USI may think, most enthusiasts still need PCI cards. Most of us don't want onboard sound. That's one slot right there. Currently, I have a sound card and a PCI TV tuner card in my rig, and need at least two. I just don't get where Abit is coming from on this one.
 
Abit (or abit) has gone down the hill soon after their last great mobo (IC, IS 7 series). I've always had Abit mobos, but lately they just have sucked way too much in general for me to even consider them. Their first Conroe mobo was a "dud" straigt out of a box with a terrible layout, numerous BIOS issues, etc... Even after several BIOS revisions, people today are still having all kinds of problems with it... I think it's time for them so quietly pull out of enthusiast market, and just become another cheap OEM mobo maker.... :(
 
I setup my buddy's pc last month and had this board running 380FSB on a E6600 in like 30 min. Would of went higher, but didnt want to sit there any longer.

Its not the best board out there, but it has no problem going over 330FSB without breaking a sweat.
 
i have this board and didnt' have a problem going over 330fsb...and this is my first build :O
very easy install, booted right up the first time....although i might consider a diff case for my next build...wire management is not possible w/ the p180....
 
Guys, I have the board running with a E6600 at 400x9 for quite a while now, and I haven't even began to pushing it. Could it be that you somehow got a bad board or something?
 
Kombatant said:
Guys, I have the board running with a E6600 at 400x9 for quite a while now, and I haven't even began to pushing it. Could it be that you somehow got a bad board or something?
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I didn't work on this board so I have no experiences to add concerning it. With that said, there is a point to make. If a board works at stock speeds with perfect stability, it is NOT a bad board. Remember that all of the motherboard manufacturers only guarantee stability and performance at stock settings.

People in the forums and on the internet in general need to quit thinking of overclocking as a sure thing. They need to quit expecting to hit 500MHz FSB just because Joe Blow did. The fact is that some boards simply suck. These boards are guaranteed to do 266MHz and that is all. Anything you get beyond that is purely a bonus.

In some situations it is the combination of hardware that is to blame, even environmental issues can also come into play. Since semi-conductor manufacturing isn't 100% perfect and there is still quite a bit of variance to be had with different boards and chips, it comes down to luck of the draw. Take three ASUS Striker Extreme's and you will not get the exact same overclocks using the same settings and identical hardware. It will not happen.
 
Dan_D said:
I didn't work on this board so I have no experiences to add concerning it. With that said, there is a point to make. If a board works at stock speeds with perfect stability, it is NOT a bad board. Remember that all of the motherboard manufacturers only guarantee stability and performance at stock settings.
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Won't argue there, but it's different to say "hey, our board had such and such problems when overclocked, we contacted the manufacturer and he said yada yada" than saying "we cannot recommend this board because we experienced all that stuff". With the latter you are generalising, and you lead your audience to believe that this board you reviewed is a typical example of boards they will find in retail, when they go out and buy.

People in the forums and on the internet in general need to quit thinking of overclocking as a sure thing. They need to quit expecting to hit 500MHz FSB just because Joe Blow did. The fact is that some boards simply suck. These boards are guaranteed to do 266MHz and that is all. Anything you get beyond that is purely a bonus.
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Actually I will semi-disagree with you. Some boards are made with overclockers in mind. And companies sell them for that specific reason. So calling >266MHz FSB speeds a "bonus" in these boards is not right imo.

In some situations it is the combination of hardware that is to blame, even environmental issues can also come into play. Since semi-conductor manufacturing isn't 100% perfect and there is still quite a bit of variance to be had with different boards and chips, it comes down to luck of the draw. Take three ASUS Striker Extreme's and you will not get the exact same overclocks using the same settings and identical hardware. It will not happen.
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All I am saying is that honestly yours is the first review I read about this said board that has such problems with overclocking. Hence this point I am trying to make :)
 
To echo the others that's the lowest overclock that I've seen on an AW9D.
& now that abit is testing BIOS with 1333 strap (a rarity on 975) fsbs are going higher.

Perhaps you had a "poor" rather than "bad" mobo?
 
There’s something about a black PCB and the blue colored LEDs sprinkled around the board that scream power
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Got any pics of this?
 
I have two of these motherboards(I'm building It now, It should be running in a few days or so), The one I'm building is equipped with a quad core cpu(QX6700), I'm not really too worried about overclocking the fsb, The ram I have in It is OCZ Gold PC2-8000(5-6-6-16), On My first motherboard the QX6700 is running at 3.19GHz, I've had It up to 3.50GHz in the Bios and even ran It at 3.25GHz, the psu was a weak Tt Toughpower 750w psu, Which wouldn't run two sata hdds(150Gb raptor and a 250Gb Seagate @ 7200rpm), Dell 7800GTX video card, two Tt 120mm case fans @ 1400rpm in a Thermaltake Mambo case w/Akasa foam insulation, a DVD burner and a Vigor Monsoon II TEC CPU Cooler(Right now the cpu temp is 32C @ 100% load while crunching for Seti). Now I have an 850w OCZ GameXtream psu installed instead of the 750w psu and I can run everything. I'm more into outright speed, Oh and the 13 Bios is out now, I downloaded It from Abits USA ftp website.
 
two things I would like to add, one is you talk about the cool black PCB and the Blue LEDs sprinkled about, and you show the board but not powered up at all or in a case powered up, so we cant tell what one of the talked about features look like, unless we buy it for ourselves or look at some other website that might have had the kindness to show the LEDs on it, it kind of peeved me on that for the [H] review of the Striker Extreme be cause the Asus website only has a few small and cropped shots of it lit up. and the second thing is does it have onboard video? no? then when you say and I quote "requiring only an Intel LGA 775 style processor, DDR2 memory, drives, and a PSU for a fully operational system." you make it look like it has onboard video. unless I'm wrong you would need a video output of some type for a fully operational system. and don't tell me its a given a PSU and a CPU is a given and you list them.

sorry for the rant but I have seen more and more reviews lacking what I have mentioned and I just had to get it off my chest.
 
Judd Sandage said:
two things I would like to add, one is you talk about the cool black PCB and the Blue LEDs sprinkled about, and you show the board but not powered up at all or in a case powered up, so we cant tell what one of the talked about features look like, unless we buy it for ourselves or look at some other website that might have had the kindness to show the LEDs on it, it kind of peeved me on that for the [H] review of the Striker Extreme be cause the Asus website only has a few small and cropped shots of it lit up.
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We've actually done other boards in the past, such as the Fatal1ty AN8 SLI, and NI8 SLI with LEDs and no pictures of those boards showed the LEDs being active. No complaints were lodged concerning this at the time. I have seen plenty of motherboards with LED lights on them and I've even reviewed boards before that had them. No one seemed to notice this oversight before. Frankly, I didn't think about it for that reason. No one ever seemed to care about this in the past. Granted I can't speak for Morry who authored the review for this particular motherboard, but I would imagine that the reason no such images appear in the AW9D-MAX review are for similar reasons.

On the Striker, I didn't consider the lights to be a big deal, because I've seen plenty of motherboards with lights on them, and as I already stated, other boards have been reviewed and the lack of images of these lights went un-noticed. On another note, I tend to look at motherboards from a functional standpoint and evaluate the boards on their technical merrits. Very rarely do I comment on the asthetic qualities of a motherboard.
 
The title should about sum it up... Tricky!!! to who? This is my first aftermarket mobo, never OC'd in my life and got this thing to get my e6600 2.4GHz CPU to 3.267GHz with stock voltage. The only reason I don't take it further is I am waiting to get a new PSU to give the mobo some more voltage. As a matter of fact even though it is a modded board and some serious cooling this article here http://www.driverheaven.net/articles/abitoverclock/ got a Quad-Core over 5GHz with ease. There is forum at Extreme Sytems I have been folloing for some time here http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=115839&highlight=aw9d+max that has just about anything you need to ever want to know about this board, including new bios, even one that has a 1333 strap, (I do find this strap useless with Core 2 processors with 1066 FSB because the CPU doesn't read it right. It won't do a proper 1:1 so I noticed a performance loss with the 4:5 that shows up in CPUZ even though the BIOS says 1:1 because the CPU thinks it's still 4x266. I do expect that when Intel releases the 1333 FSB CPU's soon that you will see a lot better increase in performance with the 1333 strap 1:1 with DRAM at 667 and CPU knows it is running 4x333.) Conroe processors don't like going to a certain FSB at 1:1 ratio on this board though. I'm not going to look up exactly how much it was, because the point I'm trying to make is, it is not all AW9D-MAX boards that don't overclock well. Just yours and I'm sure that is not the only dud. I wouldn't have posted a bad review about a board unless I tested a second board to see if it was consistant.

I may be new at this but, I do know that this is a great overclocking motherboard. No offense, just please get another AW9D-MAX and overclock it and re-write your review. I am a little offended by your accusations when I was excited to see a new review of this board.
 
The review outside the overclocking portion having a dud, awesome and very informative!
 
rjblanke said:
Thats what I want to know, Abit is making some pretty big claims about that board (557 FSB).
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Just as a note, most manufacturers claim that their boards will do insane FSB overclocks. The fact is that most of the time, we only get within about 80-90% of their claims. The results of most overclocks are consistent with what people generally see and with what other review sites get. There are occasions where we've had better overclocks than other sites, and times were we did worse.

Kombatant said:
Actually I will semi-disagree with you. Some boards are made with overclockers in mind. And companies sell them for that specific reason. So calling >266MHz FSB speeds a "bonus" in these boards is not right imo.

All I am saying is that honestly yours is the first review I read about this said board that has such problems with overclocking. Hence this point I am trying to make :)
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Really, even though manufacturers market their boards to overclockers, they never really gaurantee anything but successful stock operations, and the reason is because there is quite a lot of variance from one board to the next. Fact is it is still very much luck of the draw. Even though the overclock here is lower than the average, it still performed correctly at stock speeds, which is all it's gauranteed to do anyway. A board that works right and has no stability issues is not a "bad board" just for that reason. Another thing to note is that you could go to a store yourself, buy an AW9D-MAX and take it home only to find out it does no better than the board the [H] reviewed. There are no guarantees when it comes to overclocking.
 
The only thing that would keep me from considering this board is the reported loss of USB refrence. I can forgive not being to OC to the max but normal standard stuff like connecting to your USB devices should be six sigma.
 
Baer said:
The only thing that would keep me from considering this board is the reported loss of USB refrence. I can forgive not being to OC to the max but normal standard stuff like connecting to your USB devices should be six sigma.
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Chances are based on the great results most people get, that you would get a better overclocker than the one in the review. Chances are also that you wouldn't have the USB issue. If that was a problem across all of the AW9D-MAXs you can bet that there would be tons of information on that subject, and lots of BIOS updates as well all over the net.
 
Dan_D said:
Really, even though manufacturers market their boards to overclockers, they never really gaurantee anything but successful stock operations, and the reason is because there is quite a lot of variance from one board to the next. Fact is it is still very much luck of the draw. Even though the overclock here is lower than the average, it still performed correctly at stock speeds, which is all it's gauranteed to do anyway. A board that works right and has no stability issues is not a "bad board" just for that reason. Another thing to note is that you could go to a store yourself, buy an AW9D-MAX and take it home only to find out it does no better than the board the [H] reviewed. There are no guarantees when it comes to overclocking.
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In my eyes at least you're side-stepping the issue. Yes, there is no guarantee that you'll have a good overclock, but that's mostly because of the processor you'll choose, not the motherboard - you're mixing up the two. A motherboard that has certain specifications and is designed in a certain way WILL allow you to overclock your processor, if your processor is a good sample. So by discouraging your readers to buy the said motherboard because (and I quote): "At this time, I cannot recommend this board with a clear conscience. Given the plethora of other highly overclockable boards available, the AW9D-MAX just doesn’t cut the mustard at this time", just because your said sample for some reason didn't behave like the rest of the boards that exist out there, is a bit off in my eyes. Don't forget, this is the Internet, if the board was a hit and miss situation when it comes to overclocking (due to the board, not due to some bad overclocking CPU), it would have been already well-known by now.

Anyway, we can agree to disagree I guess :)
 
Kombatant said:
In my eyes at least you're side-stepping the issue. Yes, there is no guarantee that you'll have a good overclock, but that's mostly because of the processor you'll choose, not the motherboard - you're mixing up the two. A motherboard that has certain specifications and is designed in a certain way WILL allow you to overclock your processor, if your processor is a good sample. So by discouraging your readers to buy the said motherboard because (and I quote): "At this time, I cannot recommend this board with a clear conscience. Given the plethora of other highly overclockable boards available, the AW9D-MAX just doesn’t cut the mustard at this time", just because your said sample for some reason didn't behave like the rest of the boards that exist out there, is a bit off in my eyes. Don't forget, this is the Internet, if the board was a hit and miss situation when it comes to overclocking (due to the board, not due to some bad overclocking CPU), it would have been already well-known by now.

Anyway, we can agree to disagree I guess :)
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This is very true as well.


ABIT does brag about overclocking on this board. I wouldn't try to say that this board wasn't intended for overclocking, did you see the features in the BIOS... If it wasn't intended for OCing you might just see features for voltage settings for stabilty and no settings for FSB, CPU, or DRAM. I would say that there is a guarantee for OCing, just no guarantee your going to hit 3,4,5,or 600 FSB or that you will get your 2.6 what ever to hit even 2.7 like mentioned in quote everything is dependent on your other hardware as well. I'm sure I don't have to get into wether or not if you raise FSB and computer is trying to run a 533MHz RAM module at 600MHz and your RAM causes your computer to not boot, or if you have enough power to support extra voltages.

There is an official 1.3 Final BIOS for the board you can browse the FTP on ABIT's official website under the BIOS update section. I have found that different versions of the BIOS work differently for different people, more than likely cause of different hardware configurations.

I am happy with this board, I just find it a really bold statement especially to have posted on HardOCP main page stating "The abit AW9D-MAX motherboard is abit’s premier offering for the Core 2 Duo line. With abit’s stellar reputation and the overclocking potential of the Core 2 Duo, this could be the match to beat...but it is not.", and "The Bottom Line" stating "The abit AW9D-MAX will prove to be a great motherboard for many folks. When it comes to overclocking, we highly suggest you spend you money elsewhere."

Very bold statement to make about ABIT's AW9D-MAX, yes there are other boards out there that may clock better, at the same time with different hardware they may do worse.

I have had issues with hardware before and made my statements in forums, not in a review. I feel this is very missleading to people who may be looking to buy this board who are looking for a good overclocking board.
 
Kombatant said:
In my eyes at least you're side-stepping the issue. Yes, there is no guarantee that you'll have a good overclock, but that's mostly because of the processor you'll choose, not the motherboard - you're mixing up the two. A motherboard that has certain specifications and is designed in a certain way WILL allow you to overclock your processor, if your processor is a good sample.
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You are incorrect. The CPU has less to do with overclocking potential than the motherboard does. Usually you will run into the motherboards limits before the CPUs limitations come into play. At least with Intel CPUs. The AMD's have less overclocking margin, so they are a bit different.

This is my favorite part of your post, "A motherboard that has certain specifications and is designed in a certain way WILL allow you to overclock your processor, if your processor is a good sample." Just how exactly do you think processors are made? They are built to certain specifications as well. No two semi-conductors are created exactly equal. Just what the hell do you think is on the motherboard? What is the chipset? A semi-conductor. You have to consider that not all chipsets will come out with the same potential, and neither will any other chip or component on the motherboard. Quite frankly there are many more individual IC's and components on a motherboard that can hinder your overclock than on the CPU.

The CPUs used in our tests have all proven to be solid overclockers. The one I used for the Striker review for example has been proven to hit 3.51GHz with relative ease. Initially I couldn't break 387.5MHz FSB. With a BIOS update, I was able to reach 437.5MHz stable on the same board. Therefore it obviously looks like motherboard limitations to me. The CPUs are probably closer to each other in overclocking potential than the motherboards are. Motherboards are still largely assembled by hand, and there are too many failure points on the motherboard itself when you are talking about overclocking potential.
 
Dan_D said:
You are incorrect. The CPU has less to do with overclocking potential than the motherboard does. Usually you will run into the motherboards limits before the CPUs limitations come into play. At least with Intel CPUs. The AMD's have less overclocking margin, so they are a bit different.

This is my favorite part of your post, "A motherboard that has certain specifications and is designed in a certain way WILL allow you to overclock your processor, if your processor is a good sample." Just how exactly do you think processors are made? They are built to certain specifications as well. No two semi-conductors are created exactly equal. Just what the hell do you think is on the motherboard? What is the chipset? A semi-conductor. You have to consider that not all chipsets will come out with the same potential, and neither will any other chip or component on the motherboard. Quite frankly there are many more individual IC's and components on a motherboard that can hinder your overclock than on the CPU.

The CPUs used in our tests have all proven to be solid overclockers. The one I used for the Striker review for example has been proven to hit 3.51GHz with relative ease. Initially I couldn't break 387.5MHz FSB. With a BIOS update, I was able to reach 437.5MHz stable on the same board. Therefore it obviously looks like motherboard limitations to me. The CPUs are probably closer to each other in overclocking potential than the motherboards are. Motherboards are still largely assembled by hand, and there are too many failure points on the motherboard itself when you are talking about overclocking potential.
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Makes sense too... So they got a dud... Doesn't mean people should avoid this motherboard for overclocking.
 
xX326Xx said:
Makes sense too... So they got a dud... Doesn't mean people should avoid this motherboard for overclocking.
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Bear in mind I never said they should. I didn't write the article in question. I am not the only person who writes motherboard reviews for HardOCP. I have no experience with the AW9D-MAX and therefore can't accurately comment on the board itself.

Additionally, we can't sample three or four boards every review to average them out. Generally you have to grab a board, and work with it unless something really seems wrong with it. If you purchased a board at a store or online, and your experience with it was the worst experience you have ever had with a motherboard, would your opinion of the board in general be that good? Probably not. Granted it would depend on the problems you had, but still.

It's easy to say you'd remain objective about the board and not trash it verbally, but in reality most people wouldn't. People base their opinions on the sum of their experiences. If their one and only experience with a product is bad, then they will be pre-disposed to judging that product harshly.

The same is true of us. We use retail samples of boards. What we get is very likely going to be what you get. We have to draw our conclusions on a given board based on the board we tested with. That's all we can really do. As accurate as we try to be, motherboard reviews are not huge scientific studies involving 10 identical copies of the same board and a slew of indivuduals evaluating each one.

Most of the time, we'll evaluate a board, and if it sucked in our opinion, most people accept that we didn't like the board and move on. If they are interested in that board for some reason they check more than one review site, and read all they can, and then make a decision on whether or not to buy a given motherboard. That's reasonable and makes sense. What I have noticed is that with boards that are higher profile and come from companies with a large fan base, we will sometimes get lambasted if the review didn't match the expectation of the reader. That is to say that Joe Blow is looking forward to getting a AW9D-MAX before the thing comes out because he read an announcement about it. Then without trying the board himself, complaining, and sending us hate mail because the conclusion reached by the author of the review doesn't match the conclusion the reader was looking or hoping for.

The [H] is one site, and each review contains TWO opinions on a given board. They usually echo the same basic feelings on the board but in some cases Kyle's opinion of a board differs greatly from the authors. I suggest reading all the information you can on as many sites as you like and making your decisions on purchasing the board or not. Then if you do purchase the board, then you'll know for certain how good or bad the product is.
 
i believe rebels haven ran the abit overclocked for a while --as i recall it never did over 380fsb.

i have heard of these mb's doing a little over 400fsb but i haven't personally seen one .

i figure this mb is sort of like the msi-975p . some of them can do 425-450fsb if everything is absolutely perfect-- however most can only do around 350+-or so and there are likely a few that can't even do 350fsb .--maybe % wise-- 10 % could do over 400fsb. 50% can do 350+ the last and least 40% do 350 and under--?(just a WAG)

for a overclocking mb i look for a mb that most of them hit the high fsb--not allways the highest--but the one where most of the mb's of that make can go 450+ fsb .

like the gigabyte s-3/ds-3 --if i gave odds it would be like 75% can do 450+fsb , and 25% do under 450fsb . the good thing is that the low side is still high .

the problem with the abit is the low side of the fsb is very low--down in the via 880pro fsb speeds. the low side should be more like 400fsb with a 975 chipset.

i figure the H does pretty good work in testing MB's for an overclock --they use several cpu's,and generally have the best parts to work with .if anything the H usually gets a little more out of a system than the avg-over clocker .:cool: :eek:
 
JSF35rhino said:
i have heard of these mb's doing a little over 400fsb but i haven't personally seen one .
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in volt modded form they've been known to do over 500, unmodded tops is usually ~440 or so.

Tony from OCZ has said that in his opinion the 3 best 975X mobos are abit AW9D, DFI Infinity & Intel Badaxe2
 
BUFF said:
in volt modded form they've been known to do over 500, unmodded tops is usually ~440 or so.

Tony from OCZ has said that in his opinion the 3 best 975X mobos are abit AW9D, DFI Infinity & Intel Badaxe2
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Well in the context of a motherboard review, we only evaluate the boards in stock form. In this case (pertaining to the review in question) the board's volt modded performance is not of any concern when evaluating the board.

I've no experience with the DFI or the abit boards so I'd pick the ASUS P5W DH, P5W64-WS and Intel D975XBX2.
 
Hi guys
I followed a link to get here, as I had heard there was a little bit of a fuss about this review.

And to be fair if I had received a board that wouldnt run stable over 330fsb and the USB would stop working, I for one wouldnt be giving it a glowing reference.

I do have this board in my main rig and must say its been fantistic so far.
I run it 24/7 with an E6600 @ 400X9 1:1 (3.6Ghz for anyone playing at home) and thats 100% stable
In Mhz Ive been as high as 4016.2 with a 9X multiplier (446fsb).
Talking about fsb, with multiplier down to 6 I can go all the way up to 470fsb.

This is what you would expect or more (imho) from any good 975 chipset board, you only see higher with 965.

All of the above is based on a total stock board and on good air, like mine (not modded in any way)

If I was to be critical of your review, it would be on how you overclocked it. the review tell's you very little about that. ie: did you add volts to the cpu or the chipset if so how much. did you use a stock hsf, what were the temps if high did you reseat the hs, etc etc etc.

As a reader and an owner of one of these boards I'd have to put it down to one of two things.
1: You received a bad board (most likely, then Abit should look into there quality control)
Or
2: The reviewers may not be as good as they think at overclocking (could well be this one, as above not alot of info given)
 
Deanzo said:
As a reader and an owner of one of these boards I'd have to put it down to one of two things.
1: You received a bad board (most likely, then Abit should look into there quality control)
Or
2: The reviewers may not be as good as they think at overclocking (could well be this one, as above not alot of info given)
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I'd like to address these last two points. I didn't write the particular review in question so I can't speak for the author of the editor of the article. I can say the following:

1.) Other than the USB issue, if a board works at stock speeds, it is NOT defective.

2.) The reason you don't see any information about temps or the CPU is because in the context of a motherboard review, we (at least I) reduce the CPUs multiplier and try to eliminate it from the equation. We are shooting for high FSB and therefore we don't want to run into the limitations of the CPU. All we are concerned about is getting a stable overclock. So we try to keep the FSB high and the CPU clock low. I don't monitor my temperatures super closely when I'm oc'ing a review board. I look at them, make sure that they don't exceed about 55-60c and let it run. Then I make adjustments if the overclock proves unstable or stable. I either go up or down and look for a new result.

As to the overclocking prowess of the staff at the [H]. we've all managed to get overclocks out of motherboards that were higher than those of most forum member reports and higher than those of some review sites. Sometimes we fall short of those numbers too. The simple fact is overclocking is NOT an exact science. Environment, test hardware and a number of other variables come into play that affect the results. Additionally sometimes you get a great overclocker and sometimes you get a board that doesn't want to go past stock speeds (at least not very far.) That doesn't necessarily mean that the motherboard is defective, but many times we've run into boards that don't have working integrated components (or at least they don't work correctly.) and we will contact the vendor and see what they have to say. Sometimes the manufacturer responds and sometimes they don't. If they don't want to address the issues then we proceed as best we can.
 
Dan_D said:
It's easy to say you'd remain objective about the board and not trash it verbally, but in reality most people wouldn't. People base their opinions on the sum of their experiences. If their one and only experience with a product is bad, then they will be pre-disposed to judging that product harshly.

The same is true of us. We use retail samples of boards. What we get is very likely going to be what you get. We have to draw our conclusions on a given board based on the board we tested with. That's all we can really do. As accurate as we try to be, motherboard reviews are not huge scientific studies involving 10 identical copies of the same board and a slew of indivuduals evaluating each one.
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I understand what you say, but the point is, you're *not* just some ordinary buyer off the street, you're a hardware review site, a well respected one at that, and many people are likely to make buying decisions on the grounds of your findings. You wouldn't make a statement like "Don't buy a Maxtor, I had a Maxtor once, it died, Maxtors are crap".... would you?

Since your results are so completely at odds with virtually every other review out there (at least every one that I've read, and that's quite a few), didn't that fact at least ring a few alarm bells with you? If it were me as an average enthusiast, based on what I'd read elsewhere I'd think it was at least possible that either I'd got a dud or I was doing something wrong. Obviously I wouldn't buy 10 identical samples, but to continue your analogy I'd simply RMA it and see if I had better luck with a different sample. Under the circumstances it seems a little presumptious to publish a blanket conclusion "when it comes to overclocking, we highly suggest you spend you money elsewhere" based on your sample size of one.

I'm not an Abit owner, nor do I have any axe to grind, but I am in the market for a new board and the AW9D was certainly the main option I was swinging towards. This review has left me a bit confused and disappointed - as you say, it's just one review among many, but it's one to which I would normally attach a lot of weight... :(
 
nick8571 said:
I understand what you say, but the point is, you're *not* just some ordinary buyer off the street, you're a hardware review site, a well respected one at that, and many people are likely to make buying decisions on the grounds of your findings. You wouldn't make a statement like "Don't buy a Maxtor, I had a Maxtor once, it died, Maxtors are crap".... would you?

Since your results are so completely at odds with virtually every other review out there (at least every one that I've read, and that's quite a few), didn't that fact at least ring a few alarm bells with you? If it were me as an average enthusiast, based on what I'd read elsewhere I'd think it was at least possible that either I'd got a dud or I was doing something wrong. Obviously I wouldn't buy 10 identical samples, but to continue your analogy I'd simply RMA it and see if I had better luck with a different sample. Under the circumstances it seems a little presumptious to publish a blanket conclusion "when it comes to overclocking, we highly suggest you spend you money elsewhere" based on your sample size of one.

I'm not an Abit owner, nor do I have any axe to grind, but I am in the market for a new board and the AW9D was certainly the main option I was swinging towards. This review has left me a bit confused and disappointed - as you say, it's just one review among many, but it's one to which I would normally attach a lot of weight... :(
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Ill second that^^^^^

Given the history of Abit and quality of their previous boards Im really surprised that you guys just finished the review and left it @ that. With no comments about getting your hands on a different board. So far I have built 4 systems with that board and all ran over 360FSB easily with different chips. Thats a 30Mhz difference on the FSB. Just from all the forums and reviews and my own experience with this board I dont think your board represents what the end user will actually be buying.
 
I generally don't respond to review discussions, but I see two sides of the same argument here. I see a lot of people hanging on to the issue that this motherboard has done better and that [H] got a bum board or Morry and Kyle don't know what they're doing, but what I don't see is a lot acceptance for the fact that [H] doesn't have the time to be 100% correct all the time or that overclocking is sometimes a complete crap shoot.

I am a prime example of flying in the face of [H]ardOCP's reasoning. I have an abit AB9 Pro. I read the review and how disappointed Kyle and Dan were with overclocking and stability. I visited abit's forums and looked for user feedback. I got enough information to figure any issues I was concerned about were ironed out (two BIOS revisions came out between the [H] review and now). I bought one, overclocked it with fairly middle-of-the-road enthusiast components (the highest I've gone so far is FSB 420; my signature has full configuration info), and I'm running 100% stable. I have a great motherboard, despite a lackluster review.

What I recognize is that [H] has to get their reviews out in a timely fashion. Technology moves too fast for a review to sit on the shelf while someone tries to figure out why a motherboard overclocks with one component installed but not another. In fact, the last product I've seen [H] go back and review/update is the Asus Striker. Come to think of it, how many writers revisit their old reviews, online or otherwise? And who says [H] is the end-all be-all of reviewers? So one or two people had bad luck while everyone else has success; that's a reason not to try yourself? (No offense and with all due respect to [H])

If this board works for you, great. If it doesn't, that sucks; go get another one and try again. There are no guarantees. I have a great motherboard, no matter what anyone says. I'm sure everyone who has this board and likes it feels the same way.
 
Below is the best I could do with an AW9D Max on air:

CPU Type: E6600
Clock SPeed: 4005MHz
Stepping: 6 B2
Week: L629
Code: A438
Vcore Set in bios: 1.65v
Cooling: Air
Cooler brand/model: Scythe Ninja Plus

Motherboard: Abit AW9D-Max w/2.00 Mch
Bios Version: 12
Memory: Muskin
Rated speed: 6400
Timmings: 5-5-5-15

e66004ghziy4.jpg


Validate:
http://valid.x86-secret.com/show_oc?id=125924

superpi4ghzxj1.jpg



flat 3.9GHz

e660039qr3.jpg


superpi1m39fu4.jpg


Validate:
http://valid.x86-secret.com/show_oc?id=125747

It's 24/7 speed was the same as my BX2, 3.6GHz with air cooling. That's because this chip needs too much voltage for 3.7+ and air cooling isn't up to the task save for brief benches. 8+ hours of Orthos Blend @ 3.6 (400x9) on the AW9D-Max:

Click once to load and once to enlarge:


The thing I hated about the board was them not placing a usable PCI slot below the first PCI-e slot that could sport a sound card even with Crossfire, ala Asus boards. Using a sound card would limit you to a graphics card with a single slot cooling solution if you went Crossfire and even then the sound card would be right against it. You could use their sound card and for me its quality was too low.

Also I could not get this board to boot with my ram @ DDR2 1000. It is capable of DDR2 1000+ on the BX2 @ 3.6 GHz with a 266 ref freq.

DDR2 1000 @ 3.6GHz 4-4-4-4 going on the BX2:



Oh and I must say I hated those God aweful flashing LEDs all over the board. They could be defeated and they still had bright ones that were constant.
 
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