ABIT IC7-G 875P (Canterwood) Motherboard

Company: ABIT
Product: IC7-G
Street Price: ~$215 USD
Date Reviewed: May 14, 2003
Reviewed By: Joey Chao
Overall Rating: (10/10)

Conclusions and Final Thoughts:

Price and Features - 10

The ABIT IC7-G has loads of features. Dolby 5.1 support, IEEE 1394 FireWire, and S/PDIF in and out connections makes this board good for multimedia use. The Gigabit LAN, Serial ATA, along with the performance makes it worthy for workstations and servers. We also like that there are not many extra peripheral cards, since the connections are provided on the rear I/O ports. This way all the PCI slots on the case are not going to be crowded by accessories. The price tag on the board is competitive with other 875P motherboards with the same common features. Also ABIT has the IC7 (not G), which is much cheaper than the IC7-G. The IC7 does not have Gigabit LAN or the extra two SATA ports and costs around $150 USD.

Performance - 10

In a majority of the tests, the IC7-G scored higher than the Chaintech 9CJS. The performance of the 875P chipset is still amazing even though we have had weeks to play with it. The ABIT board performs very well at stock speeds but the 875P gets most of the credit for the performance. ABIT has done a nice job with the Canterwood chipset and the IC7-G will perform on par with any of the other boards based on the same chipset.

Stability - 10

This motherboard is rock solid in terms of stability. We did not have any problems with the board at stock speeds even at over 1 GHz FSB. This shows that the IC7-G is a high quality motherboard built with quality components. The drivers are all on the CD and help to make sure that we had all the proper tools the run the system stable. We did not have many complaints at all when talking about stability.

Support - 10

ABIT's support is fantastic. Users can go directly to ABIT's support page for help or question on products. All of the drivers, BIOS, and manuals are downloadable at the their site. Also they have one only direct manufacturer to end-user RMA services. Consumers may fill out an E-RMA form here. Overall, there is nothing that cannot be found on the ABIT website. Buyers do not have to worry about lack of support on ABIT products.

Overclocking - 10

Two words, Soft Menu. The Soft Menu in the ABIT is one of the most overclocking friendly menus that can be found on current motherboards. Overclocking the IC7-G was easy and achieving 1 GHz overclock is amazing. Our CPU was holding us back from going further but there is definitely more left in the board since we were just at the beginning of the voltage options. The memory voltages could have been a tad bit higher but 2.8V seems to be the max on most of the Canterwood boards. Imagine what results a Prometeia on our P4 2.4C might bring.

Overall - 10/10

ABIT has once again done another great job. The IC7-G is a well rounded motherboard that can easily satisfy all enthusiasts. Overclockers, gamers, average users, servers, etc. all will not be disappointed with the IC7-G. The price is very good compared to the other Canterwood boards and there is also the IC7 for people on a tighter budget. We are pleased with how easy the IC7 was to work with and cannot wait to see what else ABIT has in the future.