Motherboard Review - ABIT IT5H

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Features And Specifications

Chipset

Intel 82430HX chipset, Revision 03, consisting of

82439HX System Controller
82371SB PCI I/O IDE Xcelerator

CPU

Socket: Socket 7

Supported CPUs:

Intel Pentium Classic, P54C, 75 - 200 MHz
Intel Pentium with MMX, P55C, 166 - 233 MHz
Cyrix/IBM 6x86 P120+ - P200+
Cyrix/IBM 6x86L, the new split voltage 6x86 CPUs
Cyrix/IBM M2, supports multiplier setting of 3.5 for M2
AMD K5 PR90 - PR166, according to the manual
AMD K6 PR2 166 - PR2 233

Automatic detection of CPU type, setup with CPU SoftMenuTM in BIOS setup.

Supported CPU Voltages:

single 3.60 V
single STD 3.38 V
single VRE 3.52 V
dual 3.3 / 2.50 V
dual 3.3 / 2.70 V
dual 3.3 / 2.80 V
dual 3.3 / 2.93 V
dua; 3.3 / 3.2 V (from rev. 1.5)

Automatic detection of single or split voltage, setup with CPU SoftMenuTM in BIOS setup.

Supported Multiplier Settings:

x1.5, x2, x2.5, x3 for Intel Pentium CPUs
x2, x3 for Cyrix/IBM 6x86 CPUs
x2, x2.5, x3, x3.5 for Cyrix/IBM M2 CPUs
x2.5, x3, x3.5 for AMD K6 CPUs

Setup with CPU SoftMenuTM in BIOS setup.

Supported Bus Speeds:

50 MHz
55 MHz
60 MHz
66 MHz
68 MHz ('turbo frequency' of 66 MHz)
75 MHz
83 MHz (from rev. 1.5)

Setup with CPU SoftMenuTM in BIOS setup.

Second Level Cache

Pipelined Burst Static RAM Cache

512 kB onboard

512 MB cacheable due to 2 onboard tag RAM chips (from rev. 1.2)

RAM

4 72 pin SIMM slots

supports ECC

RAM types supported:

FPM RAM with and without parity
EDO RAM with and without parity

RAM sizes supported:

4 MB SIMM
8 MB SIMM
16 MB SIMM
32 MB SIMM
64 MB SIMM

2 168 pin DIMM slots

3.3 V unbuffered RAM

supports FPM and EDO RAM

RAM sizes supported:

8 MB DIMM
16 MB DIMM
32 MB DIMM

Please note, that DIMM does not say SDRAM!! You can get DIMMs with FPM and EDO as well, and only these types are supported by the 430HX chipset!

Maximum RAM supported 512 MB

PCI Bus

4 PCI slots, 3 full length

running at busclck/2

PCI specification 2.1

ISA Bus

4 ISA Slots, 2 full length, 2 2/3 length, one of the 2/3 length shared with PCI slot 4

Board Size

33 cm x 22 cm size AT. This means it's longer than the majority of the AT boards, which has the advantage that the CPU is quite far from the expansion slots. This enables you to use 2/3 length cards in each slot which isn't full length.

Super I/O

1 Floppy Port (up to 2.88 MB, Japan 3 Mode Floppy Supported)
2 Serial Ports (16550 Fast UART Compatible)
1 Parallel Port (ECP, EPP Port)
IrDA TX/RX Header (= infra red port support)
PS/2 Mouse connector
USB port

IDE Controller

2 x PCI Bus Master IDE ports (up to 4 IDE devices)

Support:

PIO Mode 3 & 4
DMA Mode 2

BIOS

Award Plug&Play BIOS, tested with latest and so far only revision, flashable

supports CPU SoftMenuTM which makes the board almost jumperless. All CPU settings are adjusted in the BIOS setup! Only one jumper for L2 cache size on board.

supports bootable CDROM and bootable SCSI HDD, additionally you can boot from the first partition of any EIDE HDD connected, which means you can boot up to 4 different OSs via the BIOS setup.

Coming With

2 serial port ribbon cables, attached to a mounting bracket
1 parallel ribbon cable and PS/2 mouse cable, attached to a mounting bracket
1 IDE ribbon cable
1 floppy ribbon cable
floppy disk with
Bus Master IDE Driver for Windows95, OS/2, WindowsNTBIOS Flash programSoftMenu as program

Manual

Best manual I've ever seen, very coprehensive, BUT it's missing one thing! It doesn't tell you how you can mix SIMMs and DIMMs.

Quality