[H]ard|OCP reviews Abit AB9 QuadGT Intel P965 based motherboard
abit is remains one of the favored tier one component manufacturers, even after its acquisition and reformulation by USI. But let's face it, abit has been off the enthusiast map for some time now. abit has in no way been making "bad" motherboards, they have just not been up to the level of working enthusiast features of their competition. In fact, abit has lost some of our attention around here...until we started see some of our readers asking us about the QuadGT. It looks that abit is again beginning to push the technological performance trend we have seen in motherboards with a new product that is among the top performers in the field as well as one of the most advanced.
The abit AB9 QuadGT is the newest member of the abit Intel chipset based motherboard line. The board is designed around the Intel P965 Express chipset, which supports the following technologies: all LGA 775 type processors; DDR2 DRAM modules operating in Dual Channel mode up to 800MHz officially; and dual card ATI based CrossFire support for ATI based PCI Express based x16 graphics cards. As is common place in the current market, the AB9 QuadGT is feature complete, requiring only an Intel LGA 775 style processor, DDR2 memory, drives, and a PSU for a working system. The following components have been integrated in to the AB9 QuadGT’s design: 6 SATA II ports (RAID 0, 1, 0+1 and 5 capable) on the Intel ICH8R controller; 1 ATA-100 IDE port and 2 e-SATA ports (RAID 0 and 1 capable) on the JMicron controller; 10 USB 2.0 capable ports (4 in rear panel, and 3 onboard headers supporting 2 ports each); 2 IEEE 1394 capable ports (1 in rear panel, and 1 onboard header); a Realtek GigE Ethernet port in the rear panel; Realtek 8-channel HD audio codec featuring an S/PDIF optical input and output ports; and onboard power and reset buttons; a 2 digit diagnostic LED; and a CMOS clear switch integrated in to the rear panel of the board...
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