After building my dream system for the Pentium 4, I wanted to branch out and try my hand at an AMD system. Up until this time, every computer I had built had the Intel processor in it, and I figured it was time to try the AMD. I knew I wanted a 2500 processor to overclock, so the motherboard had to support this processor and have a good OC system in the BIOS. I also wanted something that would be fairly inexpensive, as I was not building a primary system, but rather one to play around with and eventually sell. I had good experience with ABIT boards, and therefore preferentially researched the ABIT NF7 series. I ended up purchasing the NF7-M.

Why the NF7-M?

The NF7 series of motherboards is built for the AMD socket A processors and are based on the NVIDIA NForce2 chipset. The NF7-M has onboard graphics driven by the GeForce4 MX440 (Surprise, not an ATI chip!) while the other two boards require an add-on AGP graphics card. I also thought it was detuned somewhat in comparison to the NF7-S and NF7 as the website shows it only supports DDR 200/266/333 while the other two show support for DDR 266/333/400. I would find this to be false in the setup, as you will see. In any case, I wanted to save on expenditures, and one way to do this was to utilize an onboard graphics engine as opposed to buying a top of the line graphics card at a high cost.

The NF7-M can hold up to 3 GB of memory utilizing three memory slots. According to the ABIT website, the board only supported 200/266/333 MHz speed memory. I bought DDR 400, as I wanted to overclock my AMD 2500 to 200MHz FSB and therefore be at a 3200 speed. Did it work? First some specifications, then we will get to the answer…




Specifications of the NF7-M

Specifications:
Supported CPU: Supports AMD-K7 Duron/Athlon/Athlon XP Socket A
Chipset: NVIDIA nForce2 IGP chipset with MCP2 southbridge
FSB: 333/266/200MHz
RAM: 3x DIMM support Single Channel 200/266/333MHz DDR: Max 3 GB
IDE: 2x UltraDMA 33/66/100/133 connectors
Slots: 1x 8X/4X AGP slot, 5x PCI
Ports: 2xPS2,1xLPT,1xCOM,1xLAN,SPDIF In/Out,2x USB2.0 headers 2 USB on board, Audio Ports
Onboard Audio: 6-Channel AC97 Codec, 24bit S/P DIF OUT
Onboard LAN: 10/100Mbps Fast Ethernet with Wake On LAN
Form Factor: ATX



Purchase

I now knew exactly what I wanted, so I immediately went to my new best friend, Newegg.com. I found the board there for $99.99 with free FedEx super saver shipping. I checked around at Pricewatch.com and Pricegrabber.com and others, and found that this was the best price. I ordered it along with some other parts for my new system. It arrived two days later, and I was building my new system with the NF7-M!

Out of the box

Upon arrival I found the box to contain the motherboard, IDE cable, floppy cable, driver disk, manual and USB bracket that fits in a PCI/AGP slot with two USB connectors. The motherboard is obviously in a static proof bag, and the remainder is underneath a cardboard tray below the motherboard. Also along for the ride is an abundance of screws, studs, and cable ties to assist you in installing your motherboard. You will not be left short of screws to install this board.

I was happy to see that ABIT had included the cabling and USB Header with the board, as cheaper boards I had purchased in the past did not come with any of this. If this is the first board you have bought from a top of the line manufacturer, you will also be surprised to learn that the included documentation is well written, in English. The manual is easy to follow through the installation and setup, and overall took me less than 1 hour.

Installation

I opened up my brand new case and installed the studs into the predrilled holes for the ATX form factor. I then installed the new motherboard utilizing 9 included screws. Next I put in the ANTEC 450W power supply, the AMD 2500 with stock HSF and two sticks of Corsair PC3200C2 from a TWINX512 kit, each 256MB of DDR. The floppy drive, LiteOn 52X32X52 CD burner, and Western Digital 160GB Special Edition Hard Drive put the icing on the cake. I enclosed the case to take in to my computer area to run a maiden voyage...

Layout

The board is setup rather well, with plenty of space for cabling and cards. The AGP slot did not interfere with the memory slots as with the other ABIT board I use, the IS7-E. One nice feature is the fact that the floppy drive connector has moved further up and to the right on the board, in closer proximity to the floppy drive AND further away from the IDE cables, allowing for less cable congestion. One minor complaint is that the board does not have the perpendicular IDE cable connectors similar to the IS7-E, as this made for the cleanest cabling job I have had the pleasure of performing.

One final note on layout is the Northbridge processor, which is set in the board offset 45 degrees. It comes with an active fan cooler, and this cooler is attached to the processor rather cheaply. I would order some thermal grease for the install, and if your fan is loose, do the following. Take the fan off of the board, clean off the thermal paste, apply your own and firmly reinstall. This will guarantee that the northbridge will not heat up. If you have not messed around with this type of stuff before, find someone who has and enlist their help!

Setup

I booted my computer and it automatically POSTed. I loaded a fresh copy of Windows XP Home. I then had to insert the driver disc and load all of the drivers associated with the new board. This includes the ATA drivers, USB drivers, video driver and AC '97 onboard sound. Once I had this completed, I checked for newer versions of the BIOS to flash and upgraded to version 23 using the Windows program accompanying the board. This does not require flashing from DOS and makes it extremely easy to upgrade the BIOS.

As soon as I had the drivers loaded, I cycled the computer down and started it back up. During the POST screen, I hit delete (which brings up the BIOS) and started to overclock, which is why I bought this board in the first place.

Softmenu and Overclocking

The proprietary Softmenu III allows you to set the FSB frequency, the processor multiplier(if enabled), the memory multiplier, the AGP/PCI multiplier and the power supply to the components. Leave the AGP/PCI multiplier fixed and raise the voltage if needed. There are several documents out there that will help you walk though the overclocking process. A small sample of what I went through is below.

To overclock an AMD 2500 after week 42 or 43 of 2003, you can only modify the FSB. They have locked the multiplier, and mine is locked. I am used to modifying the FSB, however, as I started this process with Pentiums. Currently I was running 166FSB X 11 multiplier, or 1.826 GHz. This is the equivalent of a Pentium 2.5GHz, thus the 2500 designation. The softmenu allows for either 2500 settings, 3200 settings, or user defined settings when a 2500 is detected. I had my PC3200 memory in, so why not try for the 3200 right away?

I entered in the 3200 performance rating, which changed the FSB to 200 internal clock speed, once again multiplied by 11 to get 2.2GHz. Due to the shorter integer pipeline of the AMD processors, this processor is the equivalent to the 3.2GHz P4, and thus the 3200 designation.

The board posted, loaded windows and has had no problems whatsoever since. I believe the system is very stable, and have proven it using programs such as SisSoft Sandra Burn In Wizard and Prime95.

Performance

The most notable issue in performance is how well the processor and board run together. Obviously from the above numbers I am extremely with my purchase.

I also have noticed that the computer takes much less time to load windows when it is booted up than my P4 system. This could be due to the architecture of the processor or the motherboard, I am not sure. It is noticeably faster, though.

The specification above states that the board can support only 200/266/333MHz memory, but that is not true. The board will support up to 3GB of these speeds in single channel mode, or 2 GB of Dual Channel DDR 400. If you buy two PC3200 (DDR 400) sticks, make sure and place them in DIMM slots 2 and 3, as this will enable the Dual Channel mode. This gives you a theoretical bandwidth of 6.4GB/s, which is amazingly speedy for today’s computers. Theoretical is the key word here, however, as the memory has to run asynchronously from the FSB of 333 to do this. I only achieved 2.666 GB/s bandwidth with dual channel, PC3200 enabled memory! Granted, some of that memory is being appropriated by the onboard video and these are still good scores, but it still is not great bandwidth compared to my overclocked P4.

Onboard video

I bought this card to get away from having to buy an add-on AGP video card. The GeForce4 MX 440 is a good solid graphics driver, and I received good scores on several benchmarks. Considering the video uses system RAM, having Dual Channel DDR at 400MHz will definitely help this puppy out! You have 800MHz effective video RAM, which is amazing. I was able to score over 5000 with this setup on 3dMark2001SE, which is great for this system. This is a good solid video solution for the casual gamer.

For those that do not adhere to benchmarks, this does produce great video images. The board played Diablo II, The Matrix, and Half Life relatively well, with good graphics rendering. The colors were vivid, and the movement was not noticeably choppy. It did perform much better with the memory in the dual channel mode, as this gives higher bandwidth to the video card, so this is the setup to use for maximum onboard video performance.

I did take my eVGA.com 5900SE out of the P4 system and install it in this one, just to see how it would handle. The good news is that the board automatically recognizes the fact that the AGP slot is filled and switches over to utilizing this for video output. The bad news in that the scores with this board were so much higher, I didn’t want to go back to the onboard video solution. I have since bought a 9600XT by ATI and installed it, and this system can handle anything I throw at it now.

Overall

I hope I assisted you in your buying decision with this review of the NF7-M. It has a good layout with a lot of potential in performance. I bought this to avoid the additional expense of an aftermarket video card, but then ATI dropped its price on the 9600XT, so I just had to buy it!

This board gives you USB 2.0, AGP 4x and 8X support, and DDR400 dual channel memory support, although this is somewhat cheated in performance by the FSB. If you want a good solution for a 2500 with overclocking potential, this is a good board. Do not expect too much out of the onboard video, although it will suffice for the average gamer and consumer. If you need Serial ATA or Firewire, step up to the NF7-S, but realize you will now need an AGP video card.

I hope you enjoyed my review, and I would appreciate any feedback in the forms of comments or ratings. Thanks!

Other reviews of interest

The systems I currently run are as follows:

Pentium 4 system


Abit IS7-E motherboard
Pentium 2.6c processor
Corsair PC4000 TwinX XMS 1024MB DDR memory
eVGA.com 5900SE
Western Digital 80GB SE Harddrive
Seagate 120GB Harddrive

AMD System

Abit NF7-M motherboard
AMD 2500 processor
Corsair PC3200 TwinX 512MB DDR memory
ATI Radeon 9600XT video card
Western Digital 160GB harddrive


You can find reviews by clicking on the components above, and watch for the reviews of the other parts in the near future.




Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 99.99