Before we get into the board itself and testing we want to have a look at what ABIT includes inside the box - after all, if you’re going to pay big bucks for a high-end board from a company like ABIT, you want something for it. ABIT’s new box designs are quite attractive, not a huge array of colours, however, what they have put into it makes it quite attractive. The front of the board is pretty simple with the logo and model number along with some artistry.
The back of the box has a lot of info on the board, its individual features explained as well as a full colour photo showing off the features of the board itself. This helps the consumer decide if this really is the board for them. Nothing worse than getting a board you know nothing about.
ABIT has put a large array of documentation into the board with a total of four user manuals. The first and most colourful of the bunch is the quick install manual. If you’re planning to slap this board in without worrying about full explanation of the features and setting of the board, this will help you locate the headers and front panel connectors as well as detail the pin arrangements for the front panel led and switches.
The second is the actual full detail manual of the board which will get you setup but has far more info on the board’s layout, features and BIOS. The third is a user manual for the included Wireless Ethernet card that ABIT now also sells separate as the first Wireless PCI-E adapter out there; it’s about time we have more PCI-E devices on the market.
Last but not least on the documentation is a sticker that you can place on the inside of the removable case side panels that also details the layout and the headers on the board for quick summary for others who want to know where things are, like PC technicians at the local shop if you ever need to take it there.
ABIT provides a single driver CD that contains drivers for XP and XP64. Vista drivers haven’t shown up here yet, however, when this board was produced and sent to us, Vista wasn’t yet mainstream, we can hope that all new boards that come out have Vista drivers included.
ABIT have a fantastic cable bundle for the boards’ mass media setup. Out of the total 6 internal SATA ports the board offers there are 6 SATA data cables included, a single IDE cable for the single IDE channel and a FDD cable for the FDD port. Both the parallel cables are rounded so you don’t have to worry about air flow with these babies in your case.
The rear I/O shield for the ABIT board contains a Silent OTES cooling port that allows the board to vent hot air out the back of the case thought the slits you can see in the I/IO shield When using SLI, a PCI cover slot is available to hold the SLI bridge connector in place so it doesn’t fall off if you transport your case.
ABIT have included an SLI bridge connector for the SLI usage. The connector is quite large in length due to the spacing that ABIT uses for its PCI Express graphics slots to allow much better cooling than previous SLI layouts.
Finally we have PCI Express expansion cards coming. We did have one quite a while ago from Gigabyte using a wired LAN card, but this is the first PCI Express x1 Wireless card available from ABIT. This card uses a Marvell Wireless PCI Express chip and connects to any of the PCI Express x1 slots on the board. If you upgrade your board later on, you can use this card in your new board and it’s a nice inclusion as it feels like you’re getting something extra for your money.
