Out of the box:

     The IL9-Pro is positioned to be part of ABIT's mid-range offerings and the included accessories bear that out.  Included with the motherboard are the users guide, software, a back plate, four SATA cables, an IDE cable and a floppy cable.  The decision to place a motherboard reference right on the cover is a refreshing and helpful decision.

     Our first look at the actual motherboard!  The attractive blue color scheme and highly visible labeling make the IL9-Pro an attractive product.

     Across the front we find the 24 pin power socket almost hiding the floppy controller.  Like most newer motherboards, there is only one IDE controller centrally located for access to your hard drive bays and/or your optical drives.  One of the two fan controllers is also located here for your side or front chassis fans.

     Coming around the bottom we find the three PCI slots, a single PCI-E 1x slot, and a set of PCI-E graphics slots.  The IL9-Pro does not support SLI or Crossfire setups, instead the first slot supports 16x for high speed graphics but the second slot is only 4x and can be used for a second graphics card or another PCI-E accessory.  We also have support for 4 x 3G/s SATA devices through a single controller.  Along the bottom are support for two USB controllers, a chassis speaker, a second fan controller, an audio input and front panel audio.  The location of the internal audio can prove frustrating in some installations due to the distance from the front and optical drives.

     The top is rather featureless when compared to some of the top ABIT motherboards.  With only simple heat sinks to cool the Northbridge and Southbridge chipsets you can bet this motherboard was not designed with overclocking in mind!

     ABIT has color coded the DIMM slots to match and provides support for dual channel DDR2 up to 4 GB of DDR2-667.  Notice also the location of the 4 pin motherboard sockets and the 12 V accessory socket located just above the primary PCI-E socket.  Planning to run these cables should be considered if distance is an option, or when planning a windowed case install!

     A closer look at the rear ports shows support for your standard array of devices.  1000 Mb Ethernet, 4 USB 2.0 ports and the 7.1 audio ports with a S/PDIF port are the highlights here.  The IL9-Pro also offers built in backward compatibility with your legacy hardware by featuring a serial port to help ease the transition for legacy users.