As we all know about Abit’s reputation in the motherboard market. It is one of the best motherboard makers in the world. Abit fulfills everyone’s demand by providing each of their consumers with their level of requirement. Abit have answers for everything, from servers to workstations to hardcore overclocking. You name it and Abit’s got it. Their motherboards are loaded with features that most average users don’t need but if you are a hardcore tweaker or overclocker then you get quite a handful of features to work with. This time we got Abit’s NF7-M Motherboard in our hands to work with. We are pretty sure that Abit will not let us down this time but as everyone knows, you have to have a proof to prove it. We had the fortunate task to review this motherboard but this can also be considered as an unfortunate task since we have to question Abit’s reputation again:)

NF7-M is one of the fastest motherboards around. Its capabilities are beyond a normal PC user’s requirements. If you look at the hardcore side of this motherboard, it is even faster than some of the nForce2 chipset motherboards. Surely it is loaded with the famous Abit’s SoftMenu BIOS for ultimate tweaking. Not only that but Abit included an On-Board graphics card. It is a G4 MX series with 32MB.

{Features:}

Processor:

*AMD Athlon/XP, Duron Socket A Processors

*Supports up to 333 Front-Side Bus

Chipset:

Nvidia nForce2 IGP & MCP
Supports Advanced Configuration and Power Management Interface (ACPI)

Accelerated Graphics Port connector supports AGP 8X/4X (0.8V/1.5V

Memory:

Supports 3, 184 -pin DIMM sockets for DDR -SDRAM module

Support up to 3GB of Memory

Support up to 2 DIMM's DDR 400 memory

128 bit Dual DDR Memory Architecture

Integrated Video {VGA}:

Integrated GeForce4 MX AGP Graphics

Audio (APU):

6-Channel AC 97 Codec Onboard

Professional digital audio interface supports 24-bit S/PDIF Out

Onboard LAN:

Onboard 10/100MB LAN Physical Layer Interface

Back Panel I/O Connectors:

PS/2 Mini-Din Mouse & Keyboard Ports

RJ45 Connector

Two USB2.0 Ports (l header provided for extra 4 USB 2.0 port)

One 25-pin D-SUB Female Printer Port

One 9-pin D-SUB Male Serial Port

One VGA D-SUB Port

Game/Midi Port & Audio Jacks

Internal I/O Connectors:

1 x 32 bit 8X AGP slot

5 x 32 bit PCI slot

General: Let’s take a step-by-step look at this motherboard. We really appreciate the onboard fan that Abit put on this motherboard since it is better for overclockers. Abit also included the optional 12V line which helps stabilize the voltage. Abit provided 4 holes in this motherboard, which allows the users to put 4 hole heatsinks. Abit is using the newer versions of nForce2 chipsets, which is supposed to be faster and stable than the other revisions. This motherboard from Abit supports 6 Channel audio, which can be seen in the above picture. It comes with 2 On-Board USB ports for plug-n’-play devices. Obviously, with the new video cards coming out, you have to have AGP 8X to take the video cards’ full advantage. With high frequency memory coming out, you have to have support for the fastest and greatest DDR 400 so Abit didn’t left this behind. This motherboard is fully equipped with Dual Channel DDR400 for the ultimate performance that every ultimate user wants in their PC. Abit, being the best in motherboard world, made everything so easy to work with and easily accessible in the motherboard. We didn’t notice any heat issues with the motherboard so it is good in our books. As you can see that this motherboard comes with 4 PCI slots which is a little flaky since new video cards can take up 1 PCI slot easily which lefts you with 3 and after adding a network card, USB/Firewire card, etc. you don’t have very many PCI cards to add something worthwhile like a graphics accelerator card or anything like that.

By looking at the performance of this motherboard, we can say that this is one nice motherboard that you can have. The On-Board video card is not for the most hardcore gamers. It is designed for people who occasionally like to play light games. But if you add in a 9700 Pro video card on this puppy, you can be sure not to get disappointed since this can make your box an ultimate gaming machine. This motherboard was made for an average PC user but with all the ultimate things in it. All in all we are really impressed with this motherboard. It is true that Abit’s every motherboard is unique of its kind.

BIOS: Its BIOS is packed with features just like any other motherboard manufactured by Abit. For the NF7-M BIOS, Abit has opted to go with their well-loved SoftMenu III features. When you enter the BIOS, you’ll see the usual options such as SoftMenu III Setup, Standard CMOS Features, Advanced BIOS Features, Advanced Chipset Features, Integrated Peripherals, Power Management Setup, PnP/PCI Configurations, PC Health Status, and all of the Default Settings, etc. We’ll be primarily interested today in the Integrated Peripherals, PC Health Status, Advanced Chipset Features, and of course we can’t forget the SoftMenu III Setup.

The Advanced Chipset Features menu is where the memory timing settings. Within this window, the user has the ability to adjust the CAS Latency Time, Act to Precharge Delay, RAS to CAS Delay, and the RAS Precharge. The timings for all of these available selections are wide and varying from lightning fast to ultra conservative. You’ll easily be able find the right spot for your memory. You can also choose to enable or disable the option/s to make the System BIOS and Video RAM Cacheable, AGP Aperture Size, Transfer Rate, FSB and AGP Spread Spectrum, along with several other settings such as the option for the amount of throttling to be done on the CPU if ever necessary.

The integrated peripherals are pretty self-explanatory. This BIOS is just like any other BIOS. You can always check out the detailed book for the BIOS options include in the motherboard package. Abit is well known for their SoftMenu III Technology, although in some eyes it is growing old. Within this menu, you have the ability to custom both the processor and DRAM voltages, along with being able to select a preset processor speed grade, or manually entering in the speed you wish to run at. Many users were eagerly awaiting the revision 1.2 motherboards from Abit for their added support of increased voltages and from the listing we are seeing here, it was well worth the wait. Abit allows for an astonishing VCore of up to 2.30V! It is amazing to look at the board that allows the user to increase that much voltage. They also allow for setting the DRAM voltage all the way up to 2.9V, and the chipset voltage up to 1.7V. This motherboard is an overclocker’s ultimate motherboard.

Benchmarks:

**Note: We don’t have very many pictures for the benchmarks because we lost some of the pictures to a virus. We had to reformat the hard drive and we only had the following backed up copies of the pictures below.

In Conclusion, the stability was awesome in this motherboard. We overclocked our 2800+ @ 2.5Ghz without any problems and the motherboard was still running fine but since we didn’t wanted to damage the motherboard we had to stop right there. The design is one of the best designs in a motherboard. The only that concerned us was that the power supply connector was too close to the processor which might cause some heating issues due to the air-flow by the heat sink. Abit did a very nice thing by providing the users with 4 holes for heatsink mounting. This motherboard saves occasional gamers from going out and buying a video card right away even if they don’t need it. Even though this motherboard was manufactured as an average PC user, this motherboard also contains all the Abit’s famous BIOS options. This motherboard is not overkill even if you use it in an office machine. And surely the motherboard contains the newer version of nForce2 chipsets, which in fact does not cause any problems like other revisions of the same chipset. We are really glad that NVidia made the change but most of all we are really thankful to Abit for including the newer version of chipset.

Pros:
Nice Design
Great Stability
User Friendly
Overclockability
Attractive Color
Fan on the chipset
On-Board Video card for avg. user
Great price

Cons:
On-Board Video card for ultimate users
Little low on the performance
Didn’t come with a great software pack like usual Abit motherboards
Still with 32-bit PCI cards

CoolTechZone Ultimate Decision = 9.3

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