Abit KT7-RAID Motherboard: A Must Buy For Any Computer User
Written: Apr 14 '01 (Updated Apr 14 '01)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Can overclock from the BIOS, can RAID multiple hard drives.
Cons: Quite expensive, the place for the processor is in a bad spot.
The Bottom Line: Not exactly cheap, but definitely worth the money.
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| pearman's Full Review: Abit KT7-RAID Motherboard |
When I recently decided to buy a new system, I knew that I wanted power at a low cost. The best processor for my money was AMD's Duron, which is a Socket-A processor. I had been a user of Intel before, and therefore had never used a Socket-A motherboard. After doing some research, I decided to get the ABIT KT7-RAID.
Background
ABIT has been known for producing motherboards for AMD processors, including Slot-A for the older Athlons, as well as Socket-A for the newer Durons and Thunderbirds. Previously to the KT7, ABIT was known to be lacking in quality and performance. However, the KT7 and its RAID counterpart have changed all that.
The board
The ABIT KT7-RAID motherboard has a nice setup. It includes a fan and lots of room to keep excess heat to a minimum. However, the processor is placed right at the edge of the board, and this can be a major problem when trying to remove a tight heatsink from the processor. There is no on board sound on the motherboard, but that is not really a problem because you can just pick up a cheap sound card and put it into one of the many expansion slots on the board. I will talk about those in more detail later.
Features
The ABIT KT7-RAID includes many features which I will list and explain in the following paragraphs:
Expansion Slots
One of the biggest advantages of the ABIT KT7-RAID is that it has 6 PCI slots. In other words, there are 6 places to put peripherals such as video and sound cards. Also, there is an AGP slot for newer, more powerful video cards, as well as an ISA slot for older components.
Memory
This motherboard is able to support a whopping 1536mb of memory! That is over a gig and a half! However, that much memory is highly unneeded, but in the future it might be a convenience. It is able to support sticks of up to 512mb of RAM, and since it holds 3 sticks, 512 x 3 = 1536.
BIOS
The KT7 motherboard uses what is called Award Modular BIOS 6.00PG ABIT SoftMenu III. This BIOS is able to change the multipliers on a processor and increase the FSB, without even opening up your case! As long as your processor is unlocked, all you need to do is press a couple buttons and your processor will be overclocked! The motherboard supports bus speeds of 100 - 183MHz, which increase in increments of 1. The KT7-RAID supports voltages of 1.30 - 2.05V in 0.05V increments to further increase overclockability.
RAID
The RAID part of the ABIT KT7-RAID means that the motherboard comes with an integrated RAID chip. RAID allows you to use more than one hard drive at once. You can combine the two hard drives together into one drive or mirror one drive with the other. This is very useful if it is important to you to back up your work or if you want faster hard drive access.
Performance
In benchmark tests the ABIT KT7-RAID performs about average. In fact, most of the motherboard in the test were about the same, with there being very little difference between the best and the worst motherboard. However, due to the easy overclockability, the KT7-RAID definitely surpasses most other motherboards.
In Conclusion. . .
The ABIT KT7-RAID is an extremely good motherboard with very few problems. However, it is quite expensive, and is not really an "economic" solution to a tight budget. However, I firmly believe that it is worth its cost, so look around for a good deal on it and I am sure you will be happy.
Also, check out my article on the AMD Duron, a good companion to the ABIT KT7-RAID:
The Duron: My zippy (and inexpensive) little friend
http://www.epinions.com/content_17348529796
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 125 or so
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Epinions.com ID:
pearman
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Location: Maryland
Reviews written: 15
Trusted by: 24 members
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