Interestingly, Abit's most famous boards have been for Intel processors. Classics like the BH6 and BP6 essentially defined the enthusiast-oriented motherboard genre, making us particularly eager to see how Abit can complement the Core 2 Duo.

The most intriguing members of Abit's Core 2-compatible motherboard lineup are the AB9 Pro and AW9D MAX. The former is the most affordable P965 board to feature the ICH8R south bridge, and it comes with all the hardware monitoring, fan speed control, and overclocking options you'd expect from an Abit board. For those looking for a little something extra, the AW9D adds CrossFire support and marks the resurgence of Abit's high-end MAX brand. Read on to see if either of these boards has the potential to become another classic.

Board specs
The AB9 Pro and AW9D MAX have remarkably similar capabilities, but the two differ when it comes to core logic chipsts; the AB9 Pro uses Intel's latest P965 north bridge and ICH8R south bridge, while the MAX kicks it old-school with a 975X/ICH7R combo. For an in-depth examination of how those core logic combos compare, check out our recent Core 2 chipset comparison..

Until recently, the most important difference between Intel's P965 and 975X chipsets was the latter's support for ATI's CrossFire multi-GPU rendering scheme. However, ATI has now announced its intent to bring full CrossFire functionality to the P965, effectively diminishing one of the 975X's major selling points. CrossFire support on the P965 isn't complete just yet, but it's already available for Direct3D applications with little more than a motherboard BIOS update and ATI's latest Catalyst graphics drivers.

Not that it matters for the AB9 Pro, though. The board's lack of a second PCI Express x16 slot prevents it from partaking in CrossFire configurations, preserving the AW9D MAX's multi-GPU graphics advantage.

Despite differing on chipsets and CrossFire support, the AB9 and AW9D share remarkably similar hardware specs. Both boards feature "Azalia" HD audio codecs and dual PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controllers from Realtek, loads of auxiliary Serial ATA ports, and Firewire support courtesy of Texas Instruments. They even have nearly identical BIOS features, although the similarities begin to fade when we take a closer look at the boards.