Let’s take a visual tour around the board and check out some of the features and component placement.


Down in the bottom of the board we see the PCI-Express lanes and a few other features. There is a 4-pin molex connection for added stability, and just above that we have the AudioMax slot for the Abit onboard sound. The USB and FireWire connections are here along with the two 16x PCI-E lanes and the two 1x PCI-E lanes. Just below those is the one and only PCI slot. We also get a good view of the solid state capacitors here, which are one of the key features of this board and really promotes stability, though it does cost a bit more than your run of the mill capacitors. The USB and FireWire jack locations can create a bit of a cabling mess when using the rear dongle.


Here we see the RAM channels colored blue and black. To run dual channel, you must keep the RAM pairs in the same colors on each side which is pretty much standard with most board manufacturers. The IDE port is mounted sideways allowing for much easier cable management. I wish more boards were designed like this as it’s very intuitive and keeps those unattractive ribbon/rounded cables out of the way of the motherboard. The motherboard power connection makes its fairly standard appearance here on the edge of the board about midway up the side. Also here near the bottom we see SATA connections 1-4. This is a great placement of these though I wish Abit would have side-mounted these like they did the IDE connection. SATA ports 5-7 are another story and we will talk more about that later.


Sprawled across two-thirds of the board is the Silent OTES 2 passive cooling solution; one of Abit’s patented technologies is at its finest here. Two heat pipes -- one for the Northbridge and one for the Southbridge to maximize your cooling with no chipset. The use of thermal paste surrounding the heat pipe isn’t the most pleasant on the eyes but you can’t argue with the results: silence and great cooling.


On the bottom edge of the board we see one of the features that really gears this to the high-end enthusiasts: onboard power and reset buttons. You don’t see these often on most motherboards but Abit goes the extra step here and includes them on the AW9D-Max. These are very handy for component testing and when you are first building your system. It allows for resets and power downs without the board being plugged into the case. Also right next to these buttons is the onboard POST display which will help with startup troubleshooting. A CMOS reset button would have been nice but Abit did include a extended length jumper for clearing the CMOS, making it easier to grab and reset.