PCB Design and Functionality

abit IN9 32X-MAX Wi-Fi mainboard boast a number of interesting peculiarities. Let’s dwell on each of them, and for your convenience we will start from the top of the PCB and go down to the bottom, according to the below provided layout scheme:

First thing worth pointing out is that they used only solid-state capacitors for this board. The board is equipped with five-phase digital processor voltage regulator circuitry and uses massive heatsinks for proper heat dissipation:

Noiseless Silent OTES cooling system is intended for passive work mode only. However, Nvidia chipsets are known to be pretty warm even when working in nominal mode, and especially during overclocking. You may need to install additional fans for chipset better cooling, so it was very nice to see that abit Company offered this possibility:

When I was checking out the mainboard’s accessories bundle I didn’t figure out at first what those two wire clips were intended for. The answer was in the mainboard user’s manual: the clips are intended to help you easily and quickly fasten a fan on top of the North Bridge heatsink without any additional tools.