ABIT IT7 MAX2 V.2 (845PE)

ABIT IT7 MAX2 Version 2: Stress Testing

The ABIT IT7 MAX2 V.2 was tested in several different areas and configurations, including:

1. Chipset and motherboard stress testing was conducted by running the FSB at 164MHz.
   
   
2. Memory stress testing was conducted by running RAM at 333MHz with two of three memory banks filled and then with all memory banks filled at the most aggressive timings possible.
   

Front Side Bus Stress Test Results

The ABIT IT7 MAX2 V.2 was able to hit quite a high FSB speed (164MHz) with exceptional stability. Of course, this isn’t surprising considering the IT7 MAX2 V.2 is based on Intel’s 845PE chipset, which has proven to be an extraordinary overclocker compared to Pentium 4 solutions from Taiwanese manufacturers like VIA and SiS. We were able to spend a bit more time with the IT7 MAX2 V.2 with this review, so we ran Prime95 for a bit longer. In total, we ran Prime95 torture tests for 72 hours straight. As Prime95 was running in the background, we reran our gaming suite as well as everyday apps like Word and Excel in addition some data compression here and there. We also managed to rerun SPECviewperf, Sciencemark and XMPEG again. Throughout these numerous stress tests, the ABIT IT7 MAX2 V.2 was able to operate stabily at 164MHz FSB.

Memory Stress Test Results:

Lets see how well the ABIT IT7 MAX2 V.2 is able to handle two memory modules running at 333MHz DDR. Here were the tightest timings we were able to achieve in this configuration:

These are the max timings you can achieve with the IT7 MAX2 V.2 BIOS (11/28/02) and two Corsair XMS DDR400 modules. This type of memory performance shouldn’t be too difficult for most 845PE motherboards, as well as most Pentium 4 motherboards in general. Of course, these timings likely wouldn’t be possible with anything but Corsair XMS memory or some other type of high-quality high-speed memory.

This final memory test demonstrates the lowest timings we were able to achieve with three memory modules running at the motherboard’s officially supported speed of DDR333. Here were our results:

These timings are precisely what you should expect from any motherboard that claims official support for any type of DDR memory. From our extensive memory testing, it’s apparent that motherboards based on the same exact chipset won’t necessarily be able to perform exactly the same way as far as memory goes. Our 3-way 845PE shootout last October proved this, as did the other four 845PE reviews that followed that shootout.

Our memory overclocking tests proved to be very successful for the most part. Here was the highest memory overclock we were able to achieve at CAS2/2T/5T/2T memory timings:

We had to ensure the various memory timings and frequencies we were able to operate at were fully stable. Therefore, we ran 24 hours of Prime95 torture tests, various Super Pi stress tests and, finally, reran various benchmarks like SPECviewperf 7.0 and Sciencemark. In the end, we didn't encounter any noticeable issues with any of the listed memory timings and frequencies we reached during these stress tests.