Abit NF-M2 nView

Written by Michael Larabel in Motherboards on 13 January 2007 at 01:00 PM EST. Page 2 of 4. Add A Comment.

Board Layout:

Normally when receiving an Abit motherboard they are targeted at computer enthusiasts and gamers, but the Abit NF-M2 nView is primarily marketed for home theater PCs with its small form factor and dual integrated monitor support. In the upper right hand corner of the motherboard are dual IDE ATA-133 connectors, ATX 24-pin power connector, and four DDR2 slots. These DDR2 slots support a maximum memory capacity of 8GB and the maximum default frequency supported is DDR2-800 in dual channel. These four memory slots are positioned closely to the CPU socket area, which may cause some interference if using a wide heatsink.

In the lower right hand corner of the motherboard is the nForce 430 Chipset along with four Serial ATA 2.0 ports, BIOS chip, two USB 2.0 headers, one IEEE-1394a Firewire header, and front panel headers. Cooling the nForce 430 is a small passive heatsink, which is not connected to Silent OTES but still should have no problems cooling this chip. In the expansion slot area is the primary PCI Express x16 slot, one PCI Express x1, and two PCI slots.

Moving above the expansion slots we see the CPU socket area as well as Abit's Silent OTES. Over the years we have seen several revisions of OTES (Outside Thermal Exhaust System) and on the NF-M2 nView it is cooling the GeForce 6150 Chipset along with the four-phase power circuitry. The GeForce 6150 heatsink connects to a series of fins via a single heatpipe, which sits atop the MOSFETs near the I/O panel to provide for adequate cooling and exhaust. Near the CPU socket area is the 4-pin ATX power connector.

Around the CPU socket area on the front are the DDR2 system memory slots while behind the CPU socket is a series of capacitors. With the microATX form factor for this motherboard, care should be taken to ensure that the heatsink or waterblock you wish to use would avoid these obstructions. At the I/O panel we see two PS/2, six analog audio, two digital audio, VGA, DVI, one Firewire, four USB, and one Gigabit Ethernet interface.

Seeing both VGA and DVI onboard for an Abit board is a first, and it certainly is a nice addition for anyone planning to use this board for an HTPC. Unfortunately, the NF-M2 nView does not have any analog video out support. While this is a microATX motherboard, the NF-M2 nView offers three 3-pin fan headers on top of the CPU fan header, which is certainly nice to see. Two of the ASICs on this motherboard include the Realtek RTL8211BL and Texas Instruments TSB43AB22/A Firewire controller.


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