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)

Board Layout:

The ABIT IC7-G is designed very well. The 20-pin ATX power connector is located on the far right side of the motherboard. This placement makes sure that the power cable does not interfere with the heat sink or any other major components, which is a mistake commonly found in motherboard designs. There is a decent amount of space between the socket and other surrounding components. A large heat sink could be used to cool the CPU. Connections for the IDE devices are positioned the same way as we saw them on the BH7. They are vertical and positioned off of the far right edge of the motherboard. This provides a little more room to add components to the motherboard without crowding. A total of four fan headers are provided. Most users will not need many more headers than this.

There is a good amount of space between the AGP slot and the DIMM slots. Regardless of how long the video card is, the memory can be removed without having to remove the AGP card as well. As most enthusiasts know, having to remove the video card every time to change out the memory is a hassle and can be very agitating. This is also another mistake that is common on motherboards but ABIT did not make the same error with the IC7-G.

ABIT decided to use an active cooling solution on the IC7-G. It has very good looks and should aid in overclocking and prolonging the life of the Northbridge. The fan is quiet but during our testing it was rotating at over 7,000 RPM. We are not sure exactly how many CFM it moves but it should be plenty if its does 7K RPM. We like the fact that ABIT has provided the high quality Northbridge cooler because it shows their love for the overclocking community.

One last thing about the board's design is that it only uses Rubycon capacitors. These are some of the highest quality capacitors available and the whole board only uses them. Every single capacitor is a Rubycon. Again, we expect some nice overclocking with good quality components like these.