It still remains uncertain whether we ever experienced a more “hyped” product launch, by producers and media, than that of the ABIT IC7-MAX3. We are not innocent when it comes to this hype, and like all others, we hope that the board can fulfil all of our expectations.
ABIT has always been a manufacturer prioritizing enthusiasts and overclockers above all others. A fact that has remained solid through this whole process is the fact that IC7-MAX3 would be the enthusiast mainboard personified. We have aquired bits of information for some time now, and now its time for the official announcement.
In a press release from ABIT we have received several documents trying to describe what we will have to expect once the first test examples start showing up. The board will support all current Socket 478 CPU’s but also the future Prescott line from Intel. In addition to this there are quite a few interesting specifications to look into as we have earlier reported here.
Among the specified features, ABIT’s Secure IDE is interesting news. Secure IDE is a hardware based security system protecting your harddrives data from unathorized access. A quote from ABIT’s press release says it all:
“ABIT’s SecureIDE will keep government supercomputers busy for weeks and will keep the RIAA away from your Kazaa files”.
In the end, it’s enthusiasts and overclockers that ABIT turn to with their new OTES cooling for mosfets and solid overclocking potential. One of the IC7/G boards weaknesses regarding overclocking were the memory voltages. And now it seems as if ABIT has finally listened to its users.
“Not content to rest in their laurels, the ABIT Engineers have designed the MAX3 to help the tweaking-addicted reach new performance highs with higher memory voltages and ABIT Engineered Overclocking Features”.
If things turn out the way they are supposed to, we’ll receive a test example in the middle of August and then we’ll give you some real tests. For the moment, we’ve gathered the information we’ve received from ABIT and you can find it here.
