Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C., June 16th,
2003-With the migration to Canterwood chipsets from Intel, many
people are ready to put new Pentium 4 processors into the latest board. Which
board should you get? ViperLair helps answer the question.
"The Intel 875P/ICH5, aka the Canterwood, was the chipset combo Pentium 4
followers had been waiting for. It not only improved on previous Intel DDR
solutions, but its performance meant that enthusiasts no longer had to look at
the i850E RDRAM boards as the mecca of P4 performance. With support for advanced
features like Hyper-Threading, SATA, AGP8x, Dual Channel memory, and support for
800FSB P4s, the chipset is certainly built with performance and future-proofing
in mind.
If there is one knock against the Canterwood, it's the price. Performance
doesn't come cheap, and although many will pay for it, not everyone can. The
Intel 865 addresses the price issue, though the performance is a little lower
than the Intel 875. ABIT did come up with an answer though, and have released a
lower priced Canterwood (when compared to their flagship IC7-G Max2 Advance)
called the IC7, which is what we'll be reviewing today. It doesn't offer all the
hardware features of the more expensive "G", but it does match the performance
of its more expensive brother.
ABIT put a lot of thought into the layout of the IC7, and built it with
enthusiasts and case modders in mind.
It's obvious overclocking will net some serious performance gains. What's great
is that the IC7 and Pentium 4 2.4C handles it so well, and realistically, a
250FSB should be a slam dunk. Still, overclocking isn't everyone's bag (and why
is that?), and even at stock speeds, we got some of the best performance we've
seen out of an Intel platform around here at VL.
We've already discussed the speed and overclocking, but how about stability?
Like past ABIT boards we've worked with, this was a non-factor as the IC7 proved
to be very tough to lockup. Even when we did push too far, a simple CMOS reset
fixed things. What I did like was resetting the CMOS didn't mess with the system
clock, though I did have to reset other areas.
 Pros:
Excellent performance, overclocking and stability. Low price for a Canterwood.
Bottom Line: If you're planning on a P4 setup, a Canterwood is the way to go.
It's still a bit pricey, but the ABIT IC7 is one of the lower priced boards
available. If you can live with an add-on NIC, you should give this board
serious consideration."
For the full article go here:
http://www.viperlair.com/reviews/cpu_mobo/abit/ic7/ic7.shtml
For more on ABIT go here:
http://www.abit.com.tw |
