Abit AN-M2HD mATX Motherboard

 

Here we see the I/O options mounted on the AN-M2HD. All the essential are included here: with 4 usb ports; ethernet; firewire; 2 PS2 ports; enough analogue plugs for a 7.1 speaker system + microphone, optical out, a D-Sub (VGA) connector and finally the ever important HDMI port. I would have liked to have seen an eSATA port on here, but it's understandable that its been left out due to the intended nature of the board.



Bios

The An-M2HD has been shipped with a pretty standard Pheonix award BIOS. Providing all the usual functionality of a BIOS menu with a few mild overclocking features and the options for the on-board GPU added in.

 

 

The very basic overclocking options the bios contains are stored under the softmenu heading, containing controls for the FSB & PCI-E clock speeds and the multiplier under the 'CPU operating speed'. The Vcore and DDR2 voltage controls are included under that heading.

 

The 'PC health status' menu allows you to control the shut down temperatures and fan speeds. I was quite impressed by the options available in this section as the board is geared towards HTPC solutions, and keeping the unit quiet is a major priority. Also found under this heading was the usual temperature readouts and fan speed reports.

 

The two shots above show an impressive, if not ambitious, voltage range for both RAM and the CPU; with a  maximum of 2.55v and 2.00v respectively. I felt these were rather high values for a board not aimed at the overclocking market.

Flip the page to take a look at ....

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