Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C. Tuesday, January 15th, 2002- The folks at Tech Report have done another in-depth review, this time on the BD7-RAID. With it's outstanding performance and ABIT Engineered features, they had no problem giving the BD7-RAID a 10 out of a possible 11!
Tech Report had this to say about the specs of the BD7-RAID: "Abit has packed the BD7-RAID with most of the goodies we've come to expect from enthusiasts' mobos. First and foremost, of course, is its support for DDR SDRAM for the Pentium 4. That dynamic duo gets a little help from Highpoint's new ATA/133 RAID controller. In the BD7, the Highpoint chip can support RAID levels 0, 1, and the sweet spot, 0+1. Throw in six PCI slots and on-board sound, and you've got a deluxe-style mobo."
ABIT Engineered features stood out immediately to Tech Report: "Naturally, the BD7-RAID packs ABIT's SoftMenu III, a BIOS-based set of overclocking options that offers fine-grain programmable front-side bus (FSB) speeds, voltages, and more. The most surprising of these options is the FSB to PCI ratio settings…no matter what the FSB speed, the PCI bus speed will stay locked where you set it….If that isn't enough to set your tweaker's heart aflutter, you might be moved by ABIT's inclusion of power and reset switches right on the motherboard… Not only that, but the BD7 series also includes a two-digit diagnostic LED readout…Both the power/reset buttons and the diagnostic LEDs are startlingly useful…"
The verdict? "…ABIT engineers must be magic. I ran the BD7-RAID for 48 hours straight between the Winstone tests and a marathon run of Serious Sam's looping demo mode. It didn't crash or hiccup-not even once…Given this motherboard's combination of features and performance, I expect the BD7-RAID will make a fine platform for those of you contemplating a run at 3GHz." |