DailyTech - Universal Abit Unveils "Broadwater" P965 Motherboards

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Hardware Universal Abit Unveils "Broadwater" P965 Motherboards
Anh Tuan Huynh (Blog) - June 5, 2006 5:11 PM

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10 comment(s) - last by Trisped.. on Jun 6 at 2:11 PM

uGuru et al

Universal Abit has unveiled two new Broadwater P965 based motherboards. The new AB9 and AB9 Pro will cater towards mainstream and enthusiast users with desirable features such as uGuru and Silent O-TES technologies. Both boards have a couple differences, with the AB9 equipped with the ICH8 while the AB9 Pro has the ICH8R. There’s also the additional Silicon Image SiL3132 SATAII controller the AB9 Pro has for eSATA and dual Gigabit Ethernet too.

Other than those minor differences both boards will support Core 2 and previous LGA775 processors up to 1066 MHz front-side bus. A maximum of 8GB system memory is supported with DDR2-533/667/800 MHz modules. There’s plenty of room for expansion with one PCI Express x16, two PCI Express x1, and two PCI slots, which is plenty for those running single-graphics card systems. Those that wish to run SLI or CrossFire will have to look towards the 975X based AB8/AB8 Pro or upcoming nForce 590 SLI Intel Edition and RD600 based boards.

Universal Abit has equipped the AB9 and AB9 Pro with plenty of SATA II ports—8 on the AB9 and 10 on the AB9 Pro. Those looking for RAID support will have to opt for the AB9 Pro as it has the ICH8R with support for RAID levels 0, 1, 5 and 10. Both boards feature the Realtek ALC882D with support for Dolby Digital Live encoding.

Pricing and availability is unknown at the time but expect boards to show up in retail within a couple of weeks.

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the layout

By Mudvillager on 6/5/2006 5:33:47 PM , Rating: 2

Quite original board layout, wouldn't you say?

RE: the layout

By das mod on 6/5/2006 5:53:09 PM , Rating: 2

yeah, they finally dropped the serial and com ports ...
FINALLY some innovation

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RE: the layout

By Stele on 6/6/2006 3:52:17 AM , Rating: 2

Aren't serial and com ports the same? ;)

In any case there're many uses of the serial port, even today. While most users left the serial mouse and modem a long time ago, the port is still very much in demand in industry, programming (I still need one for my CPLDs and PIC microcontrollers, for example) and so on... it's simple and reliable. Of course, the regular "OMFG that board still has serial, that suxx0rs1111" user couldn't care less and just call it 'obsolete' because his MX5000 mouse doesn't need it. :)

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RE: the layout

By dice1111 on 6/6/2006 11:15:42 AM , Rating: 3

I have to agree with you Stele. Just because a Serial port isn't used much in the comsumer market does not mean it's not usefull. I use my ports everyday (I have 4 ports) and would never be able to buy a computer without one.

I work in industry programming industrial controlers/PLC's and HMI's and every one in this industry would say "OMFG that board DOESN'T have a serial, that suxx0rs1111"

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PATA port still there

By DesertCat on 6/5/2006 5:55:51 PM , Rating: 2

Interesting. Most of the early posts about ICH8 were that it was totally dropping PATA, much to the distress of many worried about optical drives. It looks like they have 1 PATA port on this still. Maybe that comes from an optional chipset from the manufacturer?

RE: PATA port still there

By MDE on 6/5/2006 5:59:01 PM , Rating: 2

I just happens to be in just about the worst location imaginable...

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RE: PATA port still there

By Anh Huynh on 6/5/2006 6:39:04 PM , Rating: 2

JMicron JSB363 is the controller used. Every manufacturer is using it now. ICH8 lacks PATA.

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RE: PATA port still there

By Chernobyl68 on 6/5/2006 7:18:14 PM , Rating: 2

it's Silent-OTES (tm) not O-TEST
Abit's MAX series boards made haven't had serial ports for a long while, I'm glad to see this feature (or lack thereof) migrating to other boards.

Any chance the CD/DVD drive manufacturers will follow suit and migrate to SATA rather than PATA?

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7950GX2

By joey2264 on 6/5/2006 8:41:21 PM , Rating: 2

I wonder if this will support the 7950GX2. Doesn't seem like there is any technical reason why it shouldn't. Really old (820 chipset) intel motherboards are supported on the nvidia website.

needs work

By Trisped on 6/6/2006 2:11:04 PM , Rating: 2

quote:
Those that wish to run SLI or CrossFire will have to look towards the 975X based AB8/AB8 Pro or upcoming nForce 590 SLI Intel Edition and RD600 based boards.

The way it is written it sounds like RD600 is an SLI board. If you wrote it ATI RD600 that would probably fix the situation. Or you could mention the Crossfire boards together, rather then sticking the SLI board in the middle.