Final Words

Well, this has certianly for me been a fun review looking at a very interesting and forward thinking design. Although the board is marketed as a legacy free motherboard, we can see that it isn't totally the case. The majority of legacy options are however gone and replaced with updated and newer technologies such as USB 1 and 2, as well as Firewire. The 3 PCI slots will seem at first to many to be a very low number, but when you consider that there is onboard 5.1 sound as well as onboard LAN, Firewire and the USB, that's 2 or more cards you won't need. Having 6 IDE headers seems personally to me to be overkill for the home market, but it does offer cheap Raid without the use of a separate PCI card. Those who want to use Raid arrays and have the hard drives for it will love the extra headers, providing double the usual amount from onboard solutions. The lack of Serial and Parallel ports for those with LCD or VFD units is going to be a problem; guess it's about time someone invented a USB version. A lot of Keyboards and Mice use USB for connection either natively or through the use of an adaptor, and with more and more devices such as printers, joysticks and speakers using USB or Firewire, the time would certainly seem to be right for such a board as this.

The lack of legacy support makes it very important to note what you don't get with this board as much as what you do get. Those people using PS/2 Mice and Keyboards will have to either buy new devices or have such devices to use beforehand. If you need a printer, again make sure you have another way of connecting besides the Parallel port because there is none. Serial Modem? Forget it, not going to happen. You could I suppose get a PCI card to give you back these lost ports but that would seem to me to defeat the object of buying the motherboard in the first place, which is to remove the older technologies and make way for the new. The Abit AT7 MAX is also only for use with Windows ME/2000/XP, so those of you using 95/98/98SE will need to upgrade. Performance with PC2100 ram is good, but the biggest increase is only fully realized when using PC2700 Ram and having an FSB of 166mhz on the CPU. Overclocking the board is a peice of cake, with the myriad options in the bios and the general stability of the board aiding in this process. If you can get around the lack of legacy support using USB and Firewire devices in there place, this board would be a great addition to your system and is personally the best board I have ever had the pleasure of looking at. Once again, many thanks to our supplier of this review,

Personal Note - I know there is at least one person out there who would have been looking forward to seeing my Raid results. My apologies for not being able to provide any to you, as before I could even set up an array on this system, I lost a drive I was going to use in another. As soon as I can get another drive or 2, I will be able to update this review with results for the Raid.

Pro's
No legacy support!!
Boatload of USB and Firewire connections
6 ATA133 IDE headers for a total of 12 devices
4 ATA133 Raid headers onboard
Decent 5.1 surround sound onboard
LAN Onboard

Con's
No legacy support!!
WinME/2000/XP compatible only

Bottom Line
This motherboard performs very well and is a very interesting idea packed with features for expansion. Just make a note of what you DON'T get with this board as well as what you DO get before you buy.

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