ABIT KD7-RAID - ABIT KD7-RAID
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| Manufacturer: | ABIT |
| Product: | ABIT KD7-RAID Motherboard |
| Price: | USD$112.00 |
| Availability: | NOW |
| Reviewed By: | Jim "Justi" Miller |
| Review Date: | February 2003 |
ABIT KD7-RAID Motherboard Review
Features Break Down (Cont):
As ABIT has been doing for a while now, their RAID answer on the KD7 is the High Point HPT372 controller which also allows you to utilize the ATA133 drives on the market (currently by Maxtor only).
Also included on the board as extra's are the 6 channel audio via AC97. A quick note is that while AC97 codec is still not going to give you the high quality sound that for example an Audigy would, it's come a long way. Certainly I'd have to say it's a viable solution now for the majority of users out there.
The KT400 supports AGP 3.0 with 8X AGP speeds. With the Radeon 9700 and the newer revisions of the GeForce4 series offering 8X AGP, this is certainly a feature that makes the KD7-RAID attractive.
The built-in 100mbps LAN card is a nice feature. With a NIC card as long as it's stable and capable of decent transfer rates there isn't much more to it, and the included 10/100 foots the bill nicely.
One thing glaringly missing from this board is a 6x PCI divider. There's no way around it, that hampers the FSB overclockability. In ABIT's defense this is not their fault, the KT400 simply does not allow for the ability to go beyond a 5x divider. What saves us a bit on that topic is the KD7's ability to alter the CPU multiplier, effectively allowing you to take your AMD CPU as high as you want, but limiting your FSB manipulation as a tool. Anywhere between 185Mhz - 205Mhz or so is what we're seeing as the limit on front side bus, and that will vary depending on what peripherals you're running in your PCI, IDE, and AGP slots.
Bios:
The bios is where ABIT earned their reputation. Over the years they've lead the way on features in their famous "SoftMenu" bios'. The KD7 has all the bells and whistles we've come to expect, and most of them are fully functional to boot.
Softmenu:
Above you can see the options available in the softmenu. The break down is basically as follows:
Front Side Bus: 100 - 250Mhz (1Mhz increments)
CPU Multiplier: 5 - 22.5 (Generally in .5 increments)
CPU Core Voltage: 1.1v - 2.325v
DDR Voltage: 2.55v - 3.25v
Two things that scream out to us as GooSH!™ The first is the multiplier adjustments. We've generally over the years come to regard that as a set it and forget it setting because without pencils or trace pens modifying our CPU, this feature was worthless. Not so in the KD7 and it's ability to alter the AMD thoroughbred's multiplier. I've tried our 2600+ chip in no less than 8 multiplier setting, all of them fully functional and accurate.
The second thing worth noting is DAMN! did you see those voltage options? This is a good thing because it gives us the freedom to make our own decision on how hard and far we want to push without resorting to the soldering gun to allow for the possibilities. It's a bad thing because it requires us to use a bucket load of common sense. If you're running default cooling, or anything less than superb cooling really, it may better suit you to forget those 2+ voltage settings are even there!
Memory Settings:
The memory settings are pretty straight forward, and pretty all inclusive. For the most part if it's alterable, ABIT has given you the option to change it.
One thing of note, you'll see there is no option to change the memory clock speed above. When you are at 166Mhz FSB or above it is not an option. At speeds below 166 the bios for the KD7 gives you the choice to lock the memory core speed at 133, 166, or 200. We have several times attempted to select the 200Mhz option, and each time it accepts the setting but continues to boot the memory at whatever speed your FSB is at. Possibly on a future bios release this option will be effective, but on our current one (C8) we simply could not get it to function.
System Health:
Most motherboards offer this screen in their bios. It's basically just a one screen stop to check out the "important" stuff. It lists all of your current operating temperatures (core, CPU surface, and system), you're voltage settings, and a few safety options. It is ALWAYS a good idea to make a quick stop by this screen before leaving the bios. It's something that 99.9% of the time could be seen as a waste of time, but that .01% of the time it could save you the cost of a new CPU or motherboard. As we said in the Army "Check your presets!"...
The Rest of the Bios Options:
Outside of the screens I've highlighted above, the rest are pretty much your run of the mill bios settings. Boot sequence, features on/off, video cache, etc.. They're all there just like we'd expect them to be, hence the reason you don't see them here.
I'd have to say that barring that 200Mhz memory setting problem, ABIT has again delivered a bios we're proud to run. Jumpers suck, ABIT knows it, and they've proven it by once again delivering a jumperless motherboard bios.
Benchmarks, overclocking, and conclusion coming up.....
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