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
Benchmarks Continued...
Futuremarks PCMark 2002:
This is something you should take pretty much with a grain of salt. With so many system variables going into the final scores, it's hard to pinpoint any one thing as a pro or a con. The CPU scored excellent, the memory so-so, and the HDD absolutely pitiful. So here it is for those of you that like to see PCMark, but that's about all I have to say about that. :)
Overclocking:
This is the area that we really like to see what a motherboard can handle. Before we actually dig into what we could do, there's 2 things that I have to mention here. First and foremost is the lack of the 1/6 divider. Now I realize that this is not ABIT's fault and that the fault lies on the shoulders of Via for not including the support in their KT400 chipset, but it still sucks. In today's world where super high front side bus overclocks are reigning supreme, the option simply doesn't exist with this board.
With the unlocking of the CPU built in by ABIT we are still able to OC the hell out of our CPU's with this board by upping the multiplier, but that is not the 210 front side bus we were hoping to see! The bottom line is that PCI, AGP, and IDE devices simply can't handle whacked out bus speeds, and with the KD7 if you're looking for a high FSB they're gonna have to. I am hearing of more than one or two people corrupting hard drives and blaming it on the board. I have news for you, it's not the board, IT'S YOU! We know going in that anything above 180 FSB or so is pushing it. At 180 FSB our IDE's, and PCI's are sitting at 136. On our board we pushed it about as far as it would go and got to 192 front side bus, but it was not stable. At 189 we were stable, that put our PCI and IDE's at 37.8Mhz, and our AGP at 75Mhz.
Our maximum stable overclock with this board was 2361.7Mhz. (189x12.5). That isn't too bad, right around a 300Mhz overclock. Another thing to note is that we ran stock cooling to avoid any conflict. Once I get this chip benchmarked in my water cooled rig things may change. :) I will have a follow up article on the CPU to see how far we can push it with water.
The bottom line is that the max front side bus we could achieve with the KD7 was 189Mhz. The reason for that is simple, it just didn't have the 1/6 multiplier that we needed so badly. Mix that with the fact that the 200Mhz setting for the memory was ineffective and we're not dancing in the streets over the overclocking performance.
Final Thoughts:
I would have a hard time saying that overall we were anything less than pleased with the board. Was it without it's problems? Nope. The lack of the 1/6 divider is a definite thorn in my side, be it ABIT's fault or not, it doesn't change the fact that it is not present. The other thing that kinda irked me was the fact that the 200Mhz memory bus option was not functional on our board. This could very easily be a bios update away from repaired, but it warranted mentioning.
Now back to my original statement that I declared that we have to admit to being pleased. For whatever reason, this board was a pleasure to work with. It's layout was functional and easy to navigate around, it's stability was never once an issue, feature wise it's impressive no doubt, and last but not least, the price.
When you consider that you can go buy this board for under $110 to the door, and the non RAID version for under $80, it's hard to argue that its a great value.
If you're looking to go for the insane overclocks and push everything to it's limit, I'd have to suggest an nForce2 board for your AthlonXP. That said, if you want the convenience of onboard sound, LAN, USB 2.0, and Raid, all in a board that is far from what could be called a slouch, the KD7-RAID very well may be right up your alley.
PRO'S
CON'S
That about wraps it up from here. Thanks for stopping by and checking out our review of the KD7-RAID motherboard. A huge thanks to ABIT and PlainLabelPC for hooking us up with the parts to look at. PlainlabelPC has been working with us behind the scenes on a few projects and they're damn sure a good group over there, stop by and check 'em out.
Feel free to head to the forums to talk some smack, or back to the front page for more.
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