by Keith Schleicher

October 17, 2003

      The computer community was wowed by the original nForce chipset when it was first introduced, it seemed far and away more advanced than any other chipset the market had to offer.  NVIDIA was ready to take the Athlon chipset market by storm!  Then silence.  Several months passed, and questions surfaced where the nForce chipset was.  Finally, a trickle of nForce boards started coming out.  However the delays and scarcity of the motherboards, added to the prohibitive cost, caused these motherboards to be a very niche market. 

     NVIDIA was determined not to let this happen with the nForce2 chipsets.  The introduction of the nForce 2 was handled quite a bit better, and actual products made it out of the factory in a timely, and cost effective, manner.  Motherboard manufacturers have responded very positively to the nForce 2 architecture, producing many different motherboards based on this chipset.

The contents of the box are spartan to say the least.  Still, everything a user really needs to get a basic system up and running are included.

     It is fairly obvious that NVIDIA hit a homerun with the nForce 2, and many numbers show that NVIDIA is the top Athlon based chipset company in the world.  Now that the Athlon 64 has been released, the nForce 2 and Athlon XP has been firmly pushed down into the midrange/low end market.  This is not to say that the nForce 2/Athlon XP combo is no longer a viable product.  The nFoce 2/Athlon XP are in fact a very robust and high performing combination, and the price to performance ratio makes it a contender.  Let’s see how Abit does with its mainstream NF7-M motherboard. 

Enter the Abit NF7-M

Here are some of the features of the Abit NF7-M: 

• Support for all the Socket A processors with 200/266/333/400 MHz FSB
• NVidia nForce2 IGP chipset with MCP
• Integrated 128-bit memory controller
• AGP 8X/4X
• Dual DDR architecture
• Three DIMM slots supporting DDR 333, or two DDR 400 DIMMs
• Integrated 6-Channel sound
• Built-in 10/100 Ethernet LAN port
• Built-in NVidia GeForce4 MX class graphics processor

Let’s take a look at the layout of the board.

  Layout

     The design of the NF7-M looks nice, but some slight flaws keep it from reaching near perfection.  The NF7-M has the spacing holes around the processor socket for use with larger heatsinks.  Although some motherboard manufacturers abandoned these spacing holes when AMD took them out of the socket specifications, overclocking enthusiasts should be pleased with Abit’s decision to include these.

     The three DIMM slots are spaced out nicely.  Spacing between the memory slots allows the use of heatspreaders on the DIMMS.  However, the DIMM slots are positioned so that the connectors almost hit the AGP card, and make it difficult to switch out DIMMs once a video card is installed.

Plenty of space between the DIMMS, but the edges of the DIMM slots may impede larger video cards with rear mounted heatsinks.

     The placement of the power connections and the IDE connections can ruin the entire layout of the motherboard.  In my opinion Abit has this half right with the NF7-M.  They have placed the power connector right behind the audio ports.  This gives the power cords enough room to stretch without getting in the way of the CPU fan.  The IDE connections are another matter.  The IDE connections are located right next to the DIMM slots, and lined up almost exactly with the AGP slot.  This placement can make connections to the hard drives incredibly difficult with the insertion of a large AGP card, especially with round cables. The floppy disk drive connector is located fairly close to the DIMM slots, but not so much that it gets in the way.

Abit has adopted the ATX+12V power supply, which should be more than adequate for running even the Athlon XP 3200+ and a full complement of drives and add-in cards.  Note also the 6 phase power array for providing power to the CPU.  This has been a hallmark for Abit boards support Athlon processors.

     The AGP slot has a hook to hold the video card in snuggly, and makes it easy to pop out when you need to remove the video card.  It’s much better than some of the other AGP retention mechanisms out there.

     The front-panel USB port connections are located close to the IDE connections, but far enough away that they don’t get in the way of the IDE cables.

The optical SPDIF is a welcome addition for those using digital passthrough for DVD playback.  In regular use though, it is limited to a stereo PCM signal.  To get full 5.1 sound in games, then the analog outputs need to be used.

     The rear panel contains a PS/2 Mouse and Keyboard port, parallel and serial port, VGA output, audio outputs, Ethernet port, and two USB 2.0 ports.  These are located similarly to other boards, but I wished that the VGA output was where the serial port is and vice versa.  It would have given a little space between the video outputs and the mouse and keyboard ports.  However, this is very minor point.

Next: Troubled Beginnings

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