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Abit IX38 Quad GT Motherboard
An Enthusiasts Board
The IX38 Quad GT is equipped with many features that will have enthusiasts cheering that may go overlooked by the casual consumer. These features include:
- Right Angle Onboard SATA Ports
- Right Angle Onboard IDE Port
- I/O Backplane CMOS Reset Button
- Onboard Power Button
- Onboard Reset Button
- HDMI Audio Header
- Copper Heatpipe and Heatsink Construction
- Support for up to 8GB of DDR2 1066MHz
- 2x e-SATA 3G Ports
A Quick Glance
As you can see the backplane of the board has all of your typical connections and a plethora of additional connectors. 4 USB 2.0 ports, your compliment of audio jacks, and the now useless PS2 ports can be found in addition to a 1394 (firewire), Gigabit LAN, 2x e-SATA, and optical audio out ports.
In our top down view of the board we see a clean layout with the 90 degree set of SATA ports at the bottom next to the other 90 degree IDE port for a total of 6 + 1 device connections if you don't count the useless floppy port. Really Abit, do we need PS2 and Floppy conections or is it time to ditch the legacy devices? Abit includes two additional PCI slots for those individuals who want to add sound, raid, or other device cards. The IX38 also includes 4 additional onboard USB 2.0 connectors however the USB bracket to take advantage of these ports is notably missing from the included accessories.
Continuing on you can see that Abit has chosen to color code the front port and I/O pin out connections on the board. This is tremendously helpful in wiring up the board. To the right of the floppy connector you can see the locations for the onboard power and reset switches. Many consumers will think these are superflous but the enthusiast will find them very useful in overclocking and testing new configurations. It will be a time saver to say the least. As you can see the 24 pin power connector is located mid-board making setup a bit easier for those with cases with power supply locations at either the top or the bottom of the case. We found it a bit confusing that Abit selected a mid-board mount for the 24 pin connector and a top mount for the EPS 12V connector. cable management would have been made simplier for these two connectors to have been closer or at least on the same side of the board.
Clearance around the CPU socket is very good and should allow for even the larger heatsinks or a massive waterblock which the true enthusiast may employ. We use the Thermalright Ultima 90 heatsink which we were able to use passively without a fan in our well ventillated case.
The all copper heatpipe design is for a lot more than looks. These heatsinks get quite toasty during heavy loads or after a few hours of intense gaming. They do serve their purpose well though as we never experienced a crash or stutter due to heat. In fact within a minute of ending 100% system load these heatsinks were cool to the touch, a testament to their ability to absorb and dissipate heat.
Lets dive a bit into the features and specifications of the IX38 Quad GT before we hit the performance analysis of this monster.
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