Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C., August 26th 2003
- TweakNews.net recently reviewed the award winning ABIT IC7-G and loved
it. Here are the highlights:
When you are shopping for a new performance overclocking motherboard,
there are only a handful of manufacturers that are by far the leaders
in quality, workmanship, features and reliability. One name that is always
mentioned is ABIT. With a fan base getting stronger and stronger by the
day and engineering that seems to just keep on improving their product,
ABIT is going stronger than ever and has wedged itself into a tight group
of the best tier 1 motherboard manufacturers in the world.
My prayers have been answered!! A canterwood with a decent active northbridge
cooler. Not only does it work extremely well, but you can also monitor
the fan's speed through the included Winbond Hardware Doctor software.
ABIT pretty well hit the nail on the head with their setup with having
both power and the floppy connectors at the top of the motherboard and
out of the way. The less crowded at the bottom of your case, the better
the airflow and case cooling. With 4 ATA-133/100/66/33 support, the IDE
connectors are oriented in a fashion that again helps rid the lower portion
of the motherboard from any airflow obstruction. This should definitely
be an industry standard.
The third difference between the IC7 and the IC7-G is the inclusion
of Intel's GigABIT LAN. With the faster LAN controller, you can take advantage
of the faster networking protocols...
ABIT took the smart road with the rear I/O connector orientation and
setup. Having every connector in one area will free up the need for a
separate add-on card. As you can very well see, the IC7-G lost a serial
connector in lieu of an optical input and output and crammed in all the
surround sound speaker connectors along with a firewire port. Keeping
it simple will make the installation even more of a snap.
ABIT's jumperless BIOS tweaking and overclocking is pretty well second
to none in the performance motherboard market. Not only is the settings
easy to configure, but they are accurate and stable. To back up this claim,
I have NEVER had to clear my CMOS during this review's testing and benchmarking.
If I got a little overzealous with an overclock, holding the insert key
while booting would allow me back into the BIOS and change the settings.
ABIT's answer to easy trouble-free overclocking and tweaking is their
SoftMenu Setup. Every conceivable voltage and bus option is available
along with the memory dividers and AGP/PCI frequency lock.
When it comes to temperature, voltage and fan monitoring, the IC7-G is
THE best I have seen out compared to other canterwoods I have tested and
reviewed. Not only does it monitor the usual CPU fan speed and temperature
along with the standard voltages, but it also monitors the active northbridge
fan speed and the motherboard voltage regulator.
If you are into a quieter setup, you can set the BIOS to slow down the
CPU fan when the CPU is at idle or low work load and is below a certain
temperature. Once you start to really work the CPU while gaming or benchmarking
and the BIOS senses that you are above the temperature threshold, it will
crank the CPU fan speed up to increase the cooling. This is a great option
that caters to both the performance enthusiast and the computer user that
like to have a quieter computer setup.
I'll tell you one thing, at these speeds, everything snaps open. No pause,
no sputter. Even the shutdown happens in a flash in under 2 seconds. Gotta
love it!
CONCLUSIONS & AFTERTHOUGHTS
I can sum up this product in one quote "Problem-free overclocker.".
The IC7-G has been nothing but an absolute delight to use, tweak and overclock.
With performance numbers that rank up in the top of the class, the IC7-G
contains a solution for every other problem I have faced on other manufacturer's
canterwoods. With quality and smart engineering built into every component,
the ABIT IC7-G Max II Advance is one of the best motherboards on the market
and would be a smart choice for any computer enthusiast.
Pro's:
- Outstanding Quality
- Great Overclocker
- Industry Leading BIOS
- Great Bundle
- Great Looks
- Dual SATA Controllers Onboard
- Active Northbridge Cooling
- Excellent Hardware Monitoring
For the full review including benchmarks go here: http://www.tweaknews.net/reviews/IC7/index.php
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