ABIT HAS CHANGED the tone of its MAX line of motherboards. The message behind the original MAX amounted to flag waving for a new legacy-free platform that brushed aside PS/2, serial, and parallel ports in favor of gobs of USB and Firewire ports. Now, with the MAX2 series, serial and parallel ports are still out, but PS/2 ports are back. Now, Abit is focusing on integrating loads of peripherals instead of pushing a legacy-free agenda.

Of course, a good motherboard also has to perform well and let users tweak every imaginable BIOS setting. Does the IT7 MAX2 V2.0 measure up? Read on to find out.