ABIT NF7-S V2.0
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We are going to look ABIT's newest revision of the NF7-S today, Version 2.0. This is the fourth revision of arguably the fastest AMD platform motherboard to date, and the revisions have come fast and furious. You may think that 4 revisions since the NF7 was unleashed in November 2002 may be a bit much, each revision has brought excellent features and significant features to the table. When version 1.0 (v1.0) was released, enthusiasts rejoiced over the wealth of features included, and at the time, the 237 FSB. Unfortunately there were some features missing that hard core enthusiast wanted.
ABIT NF7-S V2.0
Intro
We are going to look ABIT's newest revision of the NF7-S today, Version 2.0. This is the fourth revision of arguably the fastest AMD platform motherboard to date, and the revisions have come fast and furious. You may think that 4 revisions since the NF7 was unleashed in November 2002 may be a bit much, each revision has brought excellent features and significant features to the table. When version 1.0 (v1.0) was released, enthusiasts rejoiced over the wealth of features included, and at the time, the 237 FSB. Unfortunately there were some features missing that hard core enthusiast wanted. Most notably were the four mounting holes around the CPU socket to use beefier heatsinks, and watercooling, as well as audio and data corruption issues. To many enthusiasts surprise, v1.1 started showing up around January 2003 with the four mounting holes, and soon after that, v1.2 with better components, the audio issue resolved, and more voltage options. Then nVidia ceased making the original Crush18 chipset and unveiled the Crush18D will full support of 400MHz FSB for the new Barton's. In a nutshell, that's where we are at today. I'm sure there were other issues that the revisions fixed, but for the most part each revision was substantially better.
We are not going to be looking at the NF7-s v2.0 in depth today as the only major update from the v1.2 is the new Crush18D chipset with full support for the Barton 400MHz CPU. This article is basically going to cover overclocking the NF7-S with the new Crush18D chipset.
Packaging and Specs
Nothing has changed as far as what ABIT is shipping with the NF7-S. You still get the IDE, floppy cable, Serille adapter and power cable, SATA cable, additional USB and firewire ports, and the manual and driver disks.
Also the box gets a face lift. The backside proudly displays the available technologies, and the product label gives the revision number as well.
Here is a quick bit of info directly from the ABIT website. "The NF7-S, based on nForce2 chipset (MCP-T + SPP), supports the latest AMD Athlon XP processors with 200/266/333 FSB, and features new dual 400MHz DDR memory controllers that deliver up to a 50% increase in bandwidth. With the nForce2 MCP-T, the APU (Audio Processing Unit) delivers Dolby Digital 5.1 cinematic-quality sound and 3D positional audio to your home PC. By SoundstormTM technology, the NF7-S supports Real-time audio encoding delivering up to 256 simultaneous audio streams makes games and applications come to life. With cutting-edge features and ABIT Engineering, the NF7 series is the ultimate multimedia platform for the world."
| Processor |
- Supports AMD-K7 Duron™/Athlon™/Athlon™ XP Socket A with 200/266/333MHz FSB Processors
Chipset |
- NVIDIA nForce2 SPP chipset with MCP2-T
- Supports Advanced Configuration and Power Management Interface (ACPI)
- Accelerated Graphics Port connector supports AGP 8X/4X (0.8V/1.5V)
Memory |
- Three 184-pin DIMM sockets
- Supports 3 DIMM DDR 200/266/333 (Max. 3GB)
- Supports 2 DIMM DDR 400 (Max. 2GB)
Serial ATA (Optional) |
- On board Serial ATA PCI Controller
- Supports SATA data transfer rates 150MB/s (1.5G bps)
Audio |
- 6-Channel AC 97 CODEC on board
- Professional digital audio interface supports 24-bit S/PDIF Out
- Supports real time AC-3 Encode by Soundstorm™ Technology
System BIOS |
- SoftMenu™ Technology
- Award Plug and Play BIOS
LAN |
- On board 10/100Mb LAN Physical layer interface
- 10/100Mb Operation supports ACPI & Wake on LAN
IEEE 1394 |
- Supports IEEE 1394a at 100/200/400MB/s transfer rate
Internal I/O Connectors |
- 1 x AGP8X/4X slot, 5 x PCI slots
- 1 x Floppy Port supports up to 2.88MB
- 2 x Ultra DMA 33/66/100/133 Connectors
- 2 x Serial ATA 150 Connectors
- 2 x USB headers, 2 x IEEE1394a header
- 2 x CD-IN, 1 x IrDA
Back Panel I/O |
- 1 x PS/2 Keyboard, 1 x PS/2 mouse
- 2 x Serial, 1 x Parallel
- 1 x S/PDIF Out port
- Audio connectors (Front Speaker, Line-in, Mic-in, Center/Sub, Surround Speaker)
- 2 x USB, 1 x RJ-45 LAN Connector
Miscellaneous |
- ATX form factor
- Hardware monitoring - Including Fan speeds, Voltages, System environment temperature |
As far as the physical layout of the board, again nothing has changed.
Where we do see a change is the new Northbridge chip. On the left we see the Crush18 chip that was used in the v1.0, 1.1 and 1.2 boards. On the right the new Crush18D chip with full support for 200MHz FSB.
Left: v1.2, Right: v2.0
Here we see the newer stepping of the Southbridge, and the version # on the label.
Left: v1.2, Right: v2.0
OK, all the technicalities are out of the way, onto the good stuff...
Next: ABIT NF7-S V2.0 >>
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