Taipei, Taiwan, June 27, 2003-OCAddiction
takes a look at ABIT's NF7-S line of motherboards.
"This is the fourth revision of arguably the fastest AMD platform motherboard
to date, and the revisions have come fast and furious...Never one to sit idly
by, ABIT has gone the extra mile to incorporate all the goodies an overclocker
could ask for in their latest rev of the NF7-S mobo. Let's take a look.
 With
the BIOS corruption issue finally under control, the NF7-S is a dream to
overclock. Gone are the days of nail biting while trying to tweak every last bit
of performance from the nForce2. While in the benchmarks we were shooting for
overall performance of the board/memory/cpu configuration, if you take the
memory and CPU out of the equation (relax the timings on the memory, and drop
the multiplier on the CPU), the FSB that the V2 NF7-S can achieve is astounding.
When the CPU and memory are taken out, we hit the magical 250 FSB.
ABIT has for years been known not only as an industry leader, but a technology
leader in the PC enthusiast market. The first to bring you a truly jumperless
AND configurable motherboard, ABIT has not slowed down since. Already known for
their stellar Pentium4 and Via based AMD motherboards, ABIT has again raised the
bar with their NF7 lineup.
It's not surprising considering features such as 5 Bit Frequency ID and 3 Phase
Power. With ABIT's 5-bit FID Override technology, users can get a variety of CPU
overclocking presets. For example, if you have an AMD Athlon XP 2400+ CPU by
133MHz (FSB)x15(Multiplier)= 2000MHz(CPU/DDR=133/166), you can only adjust the
FSB to overclock. But with the 5-bit FID override technology, you can adjust the
frequency to 166MHz x12=2000MHz (CPU/DDR=166/166) or 100MHz x20=2000MHz (CPU/DDR=100/100)
to get the best performance.
"This basically means that they've not only given the ability to have the CPU
for all intent and purpose "unlocked", but that they've given us a boat load of
multiplier settings to play with. We've messed with this quite a bit and sure
enough, the AthlonXP 2100+ that we've been testing with will run at any
multiplier x FSB setting we can throw at it. This feature absolutely rocks and
gives me a flat out warm and fuzzy about ABIT and their dominance of the
performance motherboard market."
What is the benefit of 3-Phase power? When using an AMD Athlon XP 2700+ on and
ABIT board you need 68.3W of power (Vcc voltage=1.65V, Processor Current=41.4A).
If you are a power user and you want to overclock, you need more Vcc voltage
(maybe 1.75V), that means you must raise the systems power up to 72.5W (1.75V x
41.4A=72.45W). This is more than 2-phase power which is under 50W. ABIT's
3-Phase power will apply more stable power for the CPU during overclocking.
"The bottom line here being cleaner, more stable, more efficient power to
your CPU when you need it most, and that's when you're overclocking your system
and pushing the envelope. Is this a mandatory feature? Not really. I can say
though that there are other manufacturers already following ABIT in their
footsteps and releasing similar technology, so you be the judge."
And for even more stability in the power system ABIT has taken it a step
further. "The first thing I noticed about the board was the inclusion again
(they do this in their KD7 and AT7 series boards as well) of the 4 pin,
traditionally P4, power connector. Straight from ABIT on why this is included.
The connector is actually called the "ATX2" connector, and it clearly states in
the manual that connecting to it is ‘not required', meaning that if you don't
have a newer style ATX power supply that you don't need to run out and buy one."
The current Power Supply Units apply to a P4 specification requirement. ABIT
constantly utilized this option on the AT7-MAX2 and KD7 boards providing stable
12V voltage.
"So basically their logic is that it can't hurt to have an additional source
for a clean 12v path to the power supply. In talking to several KD7 series users
I have run across some that claim it actually assisted them in stability to
utilize it...props to ABIT for utilizing every resource available."
"The
NF7-S V2 is an excellent board. Even with a 'normal' cooling solution, the
overclocking potential is phenomenal. With the hardware bugs all worked out with
the V2, and support for 400 MHZ FSB, this is one bad ass board. I have bought
almost every revision of the NF7-S (except for the 1.0), and each one has
performed substantially better than the prior revision. ABIT has top notch
customer service, and listens very carefully to its loyal followers. With all
the bells and whistles on board (Soundstorm™, USB2, FireWire, SATA, NIC) this
board is a great for for the casual user as well as the most extreme overclocker
as it performs very well running bone stock or maxxed out till she screams."
"I'm proud to stamp this board with The "OCA Essential Hardware" award"
For the full review please go here:
http://www.ocaddiction.com/reviews/mobos/abit_nf7_v2/
For more information on the ABIT NF7-S motherboard, please go here:
http://www.abit.com.tw
About ABIT
ABIT Computer Corporation designs and sells a complete family of award-winning
mainboards and multimedia products that support industry-leading technology and
provide leading quality and performance for system integration of computer
components supporting a broad range of PC applications, such as e-commerce,
e-business, entertainment and education. Corporate headquarters are located in
Taiwan. For more information, visit the Company's web site at
http://www.abit.com.tw. ABIT USA Corp. Web
Site: http://www.abit-usa.com |
