Abit AN-M2 Motherboard Review

Conclusions

It is always important to have in mind the audience a given product is targeted to. Abit AN-M2 and GeForce 7025 is clearly targeted to digital home PCs, where gaming isn’t the most important factor. For this PC class, video quality, connectivity options and size are more relevant.

Compared to competing chipsets from AMD, GeForce 7025 has some advantages and some disadvantages. As it doesn’t have HDMI support, it competes with AMD 690V and with motherboards based on AMD 690G that doesn’t bring a HDMI connector (not all AMD 690G motherboards come with HDMI connection). GeForce 7025 is better than AMD 690V because it has two video outputs, while AMD 690V only provides one. But both AMD 690G and AMD 690V have Avivo, AMD/ATI’s 2D enhancement tools, while GeForce 7025 does not provide PureVideo. That is probably the major flaw with this chipset, since it is targeted to digital entertainment PCs, where this feature is desirable. And AMD 690G provides a better DirectX 9 performance than GeForce 7025.

Abit AN-M2 has some strong features, especially its on-board audio, because it is based on Realtek ALC888 codec and not on ALC883 as other motherboards with on-board video we’ve seen around. Translation: you can use this motherboard to capture and edit your analog audio with a low noise level (90 dB signal-to-noise ratio). Of course users thinking of working professionally with analog audio capturing and editing should look for a sound card with at least 95 dB SNR on its inputs.

Another advantage of its on-board audio is its full support to 7.1 analog speakers, providing six independent audio jacks on its rear panel. Some motherboards around have only three jacks, making it impossible for you to hook up a 7.1 analog speaker system and also killing your mic in and line in inputs when using a 5.1 analog system.

It also provides an on-board optical SPDIF output, which is great, as it makes it easy for you to connect your PC to your home theater receiver with the best audio quality possible.

The overall construction quality of this motherboard is also worth mentioning, as it only uses Japanese capacitors and a passive heatsink on top of the voltage regulator transistors. It could use ferrite coils instead of iron coils on its voltage regulator circuit, though.

Another good thing about this board is the presence of four memory sockets. Several motherboards with on-board video have only two sockets, making it impossible to upgrade your memory keeping the old modules installed.

Since this motherboard has two video outputs, you can let its on-board video enabled in order to connect your PC to four independent displays, two connected on the motherboard and two on the add-on video card.

Even though it has a decent audio quality with an on-board optical SPDIF output and a good overall performance for regular applications, we think the absence of PureVideo and HDMI connection makes MSI K9AGM2-FIH (which is based on AMD 690G) a better pick for someone building a high-def digital entertainment PC today, plus it brings a higher DirectX 9 performance than Abit AN-M2.