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Is IC7 and IC7-max the same board?

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acid135690

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May 11, 2005
I want to put a zalman 7700-cu on my new IC7,(when it gets here) but on the zalman website it states that the IC7-max is incompatible. I was wondering if this meant just the Max II and III, or what.

Any info is greatly appriciated.

Thanks,
Acid
 
The Max had some extra SATA features and had the OTES system. Other than really small differences they are essentially the same board.
 
Rumor has it that the IC7-G has larger mosfets than the IC7. Hence better board, as well as the extra features.
 
They are referring to the MAX-III because of the Otes. It site very close to the CPU and that heatsink/fan would not fit! On all the others I would think you would be ok, probably even fit ont he MAX-II.
 
I answered this in another thread. There are 3 types of the IC7 series board. There is the Max III which has been discontinued and had the OTES. It is the ONLY board to have the OTES. The IC7-G Max II and IC7 standard does NOT have the OTES. The G series boards have 4 SATA ports, and sport the gigabit LAN port. The IC7 only has 2 SATA port and does not sport the gigabit LAN. If you are buying a new board you will either be buying the IC7 v1.1 (latest revision) or the IC7-G v1.1. The 7700 will fit both of those boards. It will also fit the older Max III boarss by simply removing the OTES shroud which actually helps. The Zalman 7700 cover a large area and distributes air accross the PWM section very well. It does even better with a high CFM fan replacement.
 
I have heard the same rumor, but have not been able to confirm that. I suspect that the revision 1.1 boards probably had higher rated MOSFET's added because of the fact that the Prescott's have higher wattages and thus were heating them up. That is an educated guess though, and nothing more. It makes sense though.

I do know that sinking those MOSFET's and PLL's is a very smart thing to do if you are OC'ing. I ran my board without them first to see what the difference was, and it amounted to 10C difference. Prescott's will put a hurting on them if they're not sinked. I'm gonna start sinking those MOSFET's and PLL's on every board I own from now on. They run soooo much cooler. I've seen too many pictures of blown out, burned up MOSFET's and I know those guys almost wanted to cry after all that work and benchmarking.

I recommend that to everybody I talk to wanting to build a Prescott based system. It's an easy mod, and if you use just super glue in the corners to hold them on, you can remove them and and still RMA your board while still keeping with the intent of the RMA process. It hurts nothing, and doesn't damage the board in any way that way. Use epoxy, and the warranty is definitely void.
 
So you would think if a person was to buy a new IC7 or IC7-G maxII, they would get the same board in reguards to the mosfets around the cpu?

The IC7 is a much better deal if you don't need the faster LAN or extra raid chip.
 
I would think so. I not 100% certain though. To be sure, you might wanna ask a support rep from Abit. That way you can be certain. I got the G model myself as I needed the LAN port for my broadband service. I also like the extra SATA. The Intel RAID controller is a good one, and it's the one I use for my array. I also use the other SATA controller for my IDE via the Serilell adapator that comes with the board. The Serililell is basically an IDE to SATA converter. It doesn't increase speed, but it does keep wire routing a little neater and cleaner.

I wish we had a picture of standard IC7. I have a pic of my IC7-G, and we could compare them.
 
If the IC7 is called Max2, then it's the later 1.1 version.

Abit IC7:

IC7-lg.jpg


Abit IC7-G:

IC7G-lg.jpg


The images were borrowed from the Abit USA website. They look like the same photo to me.
 
I wouldn't trust the Abit images.

They are the exactly the same photo. They have used the IC7-G photo for the standard IC7.
Look at the position of the northbridge fan blade and its power wire, you will see they are the same.
Look way down next to the southbrigde, there is a chip with IC7-G printed on it, yet blurry, I can make out the it is IC7-G on both photos, hence the same photo.

If I had confirmation that the PWM was on the bigger brother IC7-G was exactly like the IC7, then I would surely go for the IC7.
The rumor remains. Its a hard task choosing a product when you cannot phyiscally look at what your buying.
 
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