Specifications

abit KV8-MAX3
Written by Chris Emry
Friday, 04 September 2009 10:39
Within the expansion slot area, there are two red colored FireWire headers that have been
placed in-between the AGP slot and the first PCI slot. We think another location for these
headers would be more appropriate, so the required cables won't block airflow or get entangled
with the fan on your video card. Additionally, if you are using a video card that has one of those
massive GPU cooling solutions, you might not be able to use the FireWire headers at all. The
large rectangular chip that resides to the very left of the FireWire headers is the 3Com Gigabit
Ethernet Controller which provides up to a 1000Mbps connection for networking. The small
Realtek ALC658 audio chip is located to the left of the fourth and fifth PCI slots, and the
accompanying onboard audio connectors and header resides just above it. I would like to
mention, however, that the integrated audio on the KV8-MAX3 is the best onboard solution that
I have ever heard. Whether it was the legendary sound of Bob Marley or the harder sound of
Tool, the music that this integrated audio solution provided was simply put, crystal clear, only
coming in a close second to my Fortissimo III add-on sound card.
..:: ABIT KV8-MAX3 Layout Cont. ::..
Although we could not get a clear enough picture to show to you, we were unable to use some
of our PCI cards in the fourth PCI slot. With almost every PCI card we tried to install, the screw
that holds the bracket to the PCI device would always come in contact with the CD audio in
header, totally preventing the installation of a PCI card in this particular slot. This design isn't the
worst interference that we have seen before on a motherboard, but any type of interference that
could possibly prevent the installation of a device is unacceptable. This area also houses a
single, red, three-pin fan header under the last PCI slot, but I would have preferred to see this
located near the front panel header instead.
The Southbridge area on the KV8-MAX3 is littered with various chips and connectors, so let us
begin to work our way around this area of the motherboard by mentioning that the white colored
front panel header rests in the bottom right corner. To the left of the front panel header are four
SATA/150 connectors that will be used in conjunction with the Silicon Image Sil3114 SATA
RAID chip. This chip can provide a RAID 0, 1, or 0+1 array for the latest interface in hard drive
technology. Just above this chip, and to the right of the second and third PCI slots are two blue
USB 2.0 headers which will allow you to connect four additional USB 2.0 ports to your
computer.
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