Abit KN9 Ultra

During the Socket 462 (A) and 478 days Abit was flying high with their marvelous creations from the highly overclockable NF7-S to the feature-packed IC7-MAX3. Many of their motherboards during this era were incredibly well received by the PC gaming and enthusiast community due to their superb performance and excellent computing capabilities. However, since that point Abit has lost some of its glory due to their previous financial troubles as well as the fierce competition they have faced (and continue to face) from DFI, among other motherboard manufacturers. Luckily at the start of this year, Abit had announced a merger with USI (Universal Scientific Industrial) Corporation. Since that merger, Abit has been working hard at re-targeting their products to PC enthusiasts and gamers. This year Abit has unveiled a new logo as well as delivered on several new products and innovations. The Abit motherboard we will be looking at today is the KN9 Ultra.

The Abit KN9 Ultra is backed by the NVIDIA MCP55 Ultra and supports IEEE-1394a, Dual Gigabit LAN, and all of the other Abit extras we are delighted to see back. The KN9 Ultra certainly looks like it may stack up well on paper, but let us see if Abit has truly returned to their famed past.

Features:

Processor
· Supports Socket AM2 Processor with 2GHz system bus using Hyper Transport Technology
· Supports AMD CPU Cool 'n' Quiet Technology

Chipset
· NVIDIA MCP55-Ultra single chip
· NVIDIA Gigabit Ethernet

Memory
· Four 240-pin DIMM sockets
· Supports Dual channel DDR2-800 ECC/non-ECC, Un-buffered memory
· Supports maximum memory capacity up to 8GB

Graphics
· Use PCI-E Expansion slot

SATA 3Gb/s RAID
· Supports 6 ports NV SATA 3Gb/s RAID 0/1/0+1/5 JBOD

IEEE 1394
· Supports IEEE1394a at 400 Mb/s transfer rate

ABIT Engineered
· ABIT CPU ThermalGuard Technology
· ABIT SoftMenu Technology
· ABIT Silent OTES

Audio
· On board 7.1 CH HD Audio CODEC (ALC883)
· Supports auto jack sensing and optical S/PDIF Out

Dual GbE LAN
· Dual NVIDIA Gigabit Ethernet

Contents:

Abit's packaging has always been top-notch both when it comes to utilizing the available space and ensuring all of the components arrive in pristine condition. The Abit KN9 Ultra's packaging is green and the sides of the box advertised various features and specifications for this motherboard. Also advertised on the container was the "Strike it with Abit" program, for which a free mouse pad was included. The mouse pad is certainly no SteelPad, but it is relatively nice compared against other promotional mouse pads. Inside of the container the contents were separated accordingly and everything had arrived safely. The contents included six Serial ATA cables, I/O shield, ribbon IDE cable, ribbon FDD cable, USB and Firewire expansion bracket, two driver disks, user's manual, quick installation guide, driver CD, jumper settings sheet, and the KN9 Ultra motherboard itself. As has been the case for years, Abit's quick installation guide and user's manual thoroughly describes all relevant steps in the motherboard installation process as well as sharing other pertinent information. Other similar Abit motherboards to the KN9 Ultra include the KN9 SLI and KN9S.