Its this one
http://www.abit.com.tw/page/en/motherboard...TYPE=Socket+AM2

A real wicked board from what I can tell, a quick look though the pdf manual reveals more overclock options than even my Tforce6100. There was a good review on it somewhere (forgot where), and its the best rated board on the link below

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=900405

Btw, if you can bring this board in I'll like to get one to upgrade, don't mind waiting since I already have my Tforce. Seems suppliers are having trouble bringing it in-shops in Penang told me the supplier is finding it near impossible to get it (a grand total on only TWO boards sold-demonsration models). About RM350+ here.

On stock voltages and settings I hit just over 250fsb on this board, only the board overclocked, processor, ram and hypertransport set on reduced multipliers. Haven't tried tweaking it to the max, having exams now.

Edit : Moved here from jy14's NF-M2 nview bulk page

This was the most eagerly anticipated parcel for me in months. And inside was this


And with anticipation I opened it up..


Features
The NF-M2 nview is easily the most feature packed matx board I've ever seen, for full specifications visit http://www.abit-usa.com/products/mb/techsp...ies=1&model=327


Abit has included a fairly standard package of cables and connectors
-1 PCI header with 2 UsB and 2 Firewire (which is odd, as there is only 1 firewire connection on the board)
-4 SATA cables
-1 ATA 133 cable
-1 floppy cable

Board layout


The nview is one slick looking board, even without any UV reactive components. With a theme of black components on a blue PCB, IMHO this board makes quite a statement-"I mean business, no play play"

The board layout is decent, with just a few gripes. The ram slots are quite close to the CPU socket, meaning that there may be clearance issues with some CPU coolers. I'm going to use a Thermalright XP-120, it fits on this board in both orientations but not without mild issues. With the curved part of the heatpipe facing the back it presses against the capacitors next to the CPU bracket, and in the opposite direction it makes the first 2 ram slots unusable.


Taking a peek under the Silent OTES reveals a typical 3 phase CPU power regulator and the Geforce 6150 integrated graphics. A minor issue here was the thermal pad under the MOSFET heatsink was not properly applied, and thermal transfer would be poor. Also, the heatpipe conducting heat from the NB only contacts the MOSFET heatsink by a rather small ammount of thermal paste. However, it does an adequete job of cooling the NB and MOSFETS silently, noticably better than the Biostar Tforce 6100 AM2 I was using previously. The board uses Rubycon capacitors typical of Abit after the mess over leaking/exploding capacitors during early socket A days; using electrolytic capacitors in the day of solid state capacitors is a bit strange though not much of an issue.

On the SB is a small but efficient heatsink, but the SB produces fairly little heat on this board. This turned out to be just as well, as when I looked under the heatsink I found (to my horror) that there was hardly any thermal paste under it-a single wipe with cotton and it was all gone. I quickly applied some thermal paste and there were no problems after that.

The board connectors are positioned at places familiar to most motherboards, including the floppy drive connector inconveniently placed at the bottom of the board-guess its because more and more systems are being set up without floppy drives. The power socket is a 24 pin one, and a bit of a gripe because it caters poorly to 20 pin ATX connectors-the hook catch is place only for 24 pin connectors.

On the back panel are the PS/2 keyboard & mouse sockets, the VGA & DVI connector, optical in & out, 7.1 audio, LAN, 1 firewire and 4 usb. A word of caution, the VGA connector is not as solid as one might expect, excessive force may break it off the board. The only thing missing to make it perfect are analog s-video/composite outputs and the legacy serial and parallel ports-but then again, how often do we use those these days?

BIOS

A quick peek in the BIOS shows a very well laid out and organised menu structure. Overclockers will no doubt be pleased, settings are easy to locate and options are abundant. Under Abit's famous Softmenu, there are

Multiplier options - from 4.0x to CPU maximum in steps of 0.5x (most AM2 motherboards give only 1.0x steps)
Clock frequency - 200 to 400 in single steps
PCIE clock - didn't check since normally just leave it at 100 for max overclock stability
Vcore - default to 2.0v in 0.025V steps
vDDR - 1.75v to 2.5V in 0.05 steps
NB voltage - 1.2 to 1.6v in 0.04 steps (bigger steps at higher voltages)
SB voltage - 1.5 to 1.74v in 0.03 steps (bigger steps at higher voltages)
HT voltage - 1.2 to 1.4v in 0.05 steps (bigger steps at higher voltages)

AM2 overclockers are no doubt drooling by now

The rest of the familiar BIOS options can be found in their usual menus, in Advanced Chipset settings HT multiplier and HT width settings can be found along with memory settings. Of note is that command rate is selectable and settings automatically reset to defaults if memory setting is set to auto (no fumbling to find a stable setting to start overclocking from-a major confusion on the Biostar Tforce 6100 AM2). Downside is that manual means you have to adjust everything yourself, no such thing as adjust some and leave the rest to auto. The only thing missing form here is a built in memtest found in DFI and Biostar boards.

The PC health is of worth noting, with speed sensing for ALL four of the onboard fan headers and temp sensors for the CPU, chassis and power regulator and all the typical voltage sensors. The BIOS also has speed control for the system fan and the CPU fan headers, though the CPU fan header speed control only works with 4 pin fans.

Overclocking

At the moment I am still in the midst of overclocking this board, currently I can boot up to 253HTT. Strange thing is that voltage adjustments would not allow me to even go 1HTT higher, however if I overclock from windows I can reach 300++HTT without any voltage adjustments. The board's overclockability is undoubtable as when I stress tested it with AtiTool, dual Prime95 and a video playback all simultaneously (man it was godamn slow with so many things running) there was no trouble until it crashed around 330HTT. HTT overclocking is particularly hard to check for stability as there are no proper programs to do it-Prime is not suitable because the chipset is not involved for A64s. I suspect the HTT limit at startup may be due to certain settings or restriction by the BIOS.

Overclockers (and underclockers) will be most pleased to note that the following software can be used to adjust overclock settings from windows

Clockgen (allows base and PCIE clock adjustment)
CrystalCPUID (allows multiplier and voltage adjustment, also allows lower voltages down to 0.8v)
nTune (allows base clock adjustments and some very limited memory timing adjustment)
AtiTool (allows overclocking & stress testing of the onboard Geforce 6150)
Speedfan (allows fan speed control of system and CPU fan; bios speed control should be turned off first)

(more coming after I've done more detailed testing)


Underclocking & undervolting

This is an unique section not found in many reviews, but as much as I'm a fan of overclocking, I can't stand my system being noisy and hot. The nview does not give any underclocking/undervolting in the BIOS, so all underclocking and undervolting has to be done by software. Sadly, the board does not seem to like being underclocked, though the system is stable lock ups were frequent during changes of frequency to below 200HTT. However, it undervolts well enough, and on 200x5@0.825vCore I was able to turn off the CPU fan while keeping the CPU below 45C.

(more coming after I've done more detailed testing)

Benchmarks
(after I've done some REAL overclocking I'll post)

Conclusion

Overall I must say this is one of the best boards for the money, a complete all-integrated matx board with the performance and tweakability of high end boards twice its price. Unless you're a sucker for SLI or large boards I'll say this board can meet anyone's requirements at a very reasonable price. As a last word I'll suggest that noobs stay out of meddling in the bios, this board is not meant for those who have no idea what they're doing .

This post has been edited by lohwenli: Apr 10 2007, 10:28 AM

Paitience, paitience..just finish exams only today..

Gonna backup my hdd then do some serious chipset OCing..must backup first..last attempt to do severe chipset OCing (not on this mobo) resulted in my HDD going nuts..

I'll try it after I backup my HDD, my current max is 253HTT with memory and processor running just below stock speed. Maybe I should go ask those who reviewed it how they did it; they managed 300++ without much trouble. If the Biostar Tforce 6100 AM2 is any indication, this board is supposed to be able to reach 400.

Correct, the other board is the NF-M2S, this is the NF-M2 nview. Not only the ram slots, its also missing a fair number of other features, if I'm not mistaken even the bios has minimal overclocking options.

Well bro, this board was built by Abit with overclocking in mind. Of course la ppl want to see how well it lives up to promises..

After having the nview for quite a while, finally I've had the time and matching hardware to over clock it. And guess what..

The nview screams!

So here we start at my miniature lab/workshop..


The PC is actually the family PC, which I'm setting up as a HTPC/home server. As its shared by my mom and sis, I can't take it offline too long or I'll have plenty of complaints to deal with. Here's a shot of the system in its present home, with some newcomers freshly added to the lotn


Taking it out, I can see the silent OTES has been well implemented. Look at the dust from the CPU fan.


The dream team, my new F3 and Crucial 10th Anniversary. Have another stick, but at the time it was temporarily sitting in a friend's PC.


OC set-up all laid out

I've mentioned once or twice before that I'm using an XP-120 to cool this system. And here's why.


As you can see, it covers everything, ram, voltage regulators, even the chipset gets a little bit of air. Only thing that sucks is that putting in and removing ram is a pain. Plus, its short enough for me to build a low profile case around it later.

For a start, here's OCers favourite page. Something you don't see on many matx mobos. Thanks to pmmonkey for letting me use her LCD while she's back in her hometown.


With the latest bios update, vDimm has been extended to 1.75-2.50v


Previously, I could not properly make it past 250HTT at boot, only from windows could I go higher. With some more experience now (thanks to dblooi, soulfly and a few others), I tried out 280HTT, setting Trc to 129ns while leaving everything else at stock..


IT BOOTS!


Even 300HTT and 320HTT was no sweat. Pushing to 330HTT however,


Ok, too bad, need a little more tweaking..even though this is on 1.400vcore and 2.20vdimm, still no luck..

While the board is just hanging there, I'll take a few voltage measurements..



What the hell..an overvolting mobo? This matx really has overclocking in its blood. PSU readings are normal though.




Even the stock vcore (1.2v) and vdimm (1.8v) are overvolted.



Now I'm gonna pull out all the stops and push the HTT as far as it will go, settings as below, 1.45vcore, 2.2vdimm, NB & SB ~+0.1v, HT voltage 1.25v. CPU multiplier down as far as it will go (5x).


And guess how far I managed to boot..


OMG! Flatten even soulfly's last record!

Gotta stop now. Dad's lappie running out off batt.