ABIT AI7 - motherboard - ATX - i865PE

The ABIT AI7 was introduced earlier this year as one of a raft of motherboards designed to cope with the newer socket 478 processors. ABit have a good reputation for innovation and since I was in the market for a new motherboard I was keen to check this one out for myself. It had a number of features I needed and it was on sale at an attractive price.

So let's have a look at the more important specifications. The AI7 is based on the ...
...You get the impression that ABit spent a bit of time on the design to accomplish a layout such as this and I for one appreciate the effort. The vast majority of the board is clear of clutter and air flow is almost unrestricted. Speaking of air flow - there is one fan supplied onboard - cooling the memory controller hub chip. Its quite in operation and is another safeguard against instability and failure.

The CPU socket is different ... more

The ABIT AI7 was introduced earlier this year as one of a raft of motherboards designed to cope with the newer socket 478 processors. ABit have a good reputation for innovation and since I was in the market for a new motherboard I was keen to check this one out for myself. It had a number of features I needed and it was on sale at an attractive price.

So let's have a look at the more important specifications. The AI7 is based on the Intel 82865PE and 82801ER chipsets and supports Pentium 4 CPU's using the 478 pin layout. It has 4 Dimm sockets allowing you to install a massive 4Gb of RAM, an AGP 8x socket, 8 USB 2.0 sockets, 6 channel AC97 Codec sound with a digital I/O interface, 2 SATA ports allowing you to install up to 4 SATA hard drives, 5 PCI slots, along with the usual IDE ATA 100 and FDC controllers - to name just a few of the goodies!

Along with the board you will find IDE and FDC cables, a SATA cable, two installation guides and a user's manual. The board itself looks well constructed, with no sign of poor soldering or inferior lacquering. All connectors and sockets seem to be of good quality and the plastics seem well up to the task. There are some good design features such as the IDE, FDC and ATX power supply sockets being located near the outer edge of the board, keeping the centre largely clear of cable clutter. Other sockets such as the SATA and USB connectors are also well placed and easy to get to when the board is installed. In fact the only awkward connector I found was the small 12v ATX connector which lands up behind my base unit power supply. You get the impression that ABit spent a bit of time on the design to accomplish a layout such as this and I for one appreciate the effort. The vast majority of the board is clear of clutter and air flow is almost unrestricted. Speaking of air flow - there is one fan supplied onboard - cooling the memory controller hub chip. Its quite in operation and is another safeguard against instability and failure.

The CPU socket is different from most others. It sits 45 degrees out from the alignment of the board and I'm not quite sure what the reasoning is behind that, perhaps it's easier for track layout. However the processor fitted perfectly and the heatsink fitted with absolutely no problems so I have no complaints.

Fitting the board into the base unit was straightforward and connecting the cables was easy, thanks to the peripheral locations already discussed. Having reset the Bios it was time for the nervous bit - switching on! The first thing you notice is the double digit LED display in the bottom corner of the board as it rapidly changes numbers. Very pretty. Of course its main purpose is to record POST initialisation sequences, especially handy for fault diagnosis and overclocking monitoring. The manual has 3 pages of the possible code numbers you may encounter. Aside from this the screen takes you through the usual boot-up procedure. However when you initiate the BIOS pages you will find that there are quite a few additions to the normal pages and adjustments. There are 7 setup menus on one side of the BIOS window, while the other half contains a PC Health Status menu, along with fail-safe and optimized default settings. In addition to the comprehensive features offered by the BIOS, ABit have also included a new microprocessor on this board called the uGuru which allows you to adjust and monitor processor characteristics to assist with overclock the PC. ABit boards are popular with overclockers and there's no doubt that this is just the kind of control that speedsters crave for. You need a good deal of confidence and knowledge if you're going to overclock a processor. Careful monitoring of clock speeds, voltages and temperatures is essential and this board gives you the opportunity to do that, all within the Windows environment.

For me, reliability was far more important than any desire to push the processor to its limit. I've used this board for the last four months, and during that time the computer has run on average 16 hours per day, seven days a week. I've changed processors in that time beginning with a P4, 3GHz, followed by a P4, 3GHz Prescott, both using an 800MHz side data bus. Now some of you will know that the Prescott is really power hungry and generates a lot of heat. So much heat in fact that I had to fit an extra cooling fan within the base unit to cool the processor as the CPU temp alarm was being triggered. Still, it did prove that the sensors and alarm systems on the board were working correctly. The Prescott has been troublesome in some mainboards as they are unable to cope with the increased power demands. However I can set your mind at rest with the AI7. There was no glitches at all, it has coped perfectly. Apart from the processor which was now equipped with an uprated cooling heatsink the rest of the board remained cool and not in the least ruffled by the power hungry Prescott.

While I cannot testify to the abilities of this board while overclocking I can tell you that the board is absolutely stable - at least up to a P4 3GHz Prescott. Just to reinforce this point I should also state that my computer presently uses three hard disk drives, (two of them IDE and the third a SATA, all 160Gb), along with a DVD player and a DVD re-writer. So the board has a lot to do, especially when the primary system is fully backed up from one drive to the other. Not once during the past four months has the board faultered.

If you're looking for a competitively priced motherboard from a well known manufacturer then you could do a lot worse than the ABit AI7. I've clocked up a lot of hours using it and I can tell you it has been rock steady. It works perfectly with Windows XP and installation is a breeze. ABit's website support is good and their manuals are well written and fairly comprehensive.

Recommended.
 

...less