ABIT IS7 865PE Motherboard

Company: ABIT
Product: IS7
Street Price: ~$120 USD
Date Reviewed: May 22, 2003
Reviewed By: Joey Chao
Overall Rating: (90%)

BIOS Configuration:

As always, the Soft Menu is present for the IS7 BIOS. Using this menu makes overclocking much easier since all the options are found in this one menu. The FSB can be changed up to 300. A later BIOS update might give higher options up to 400+ like we saw with the IC7-G. AGP/PCI ratios are also provided as well as FSB/DRAM ratios. The Vcore can be adjusted up to 1.925V. DRAM options go up to 2.8V. We really like the Vcore options, which is much higher than other motherboards. The DRAM voltages could have gone higher. 2.8V may not be enough for the hardcore overclockers. 3V+ would have been much better and would totally eliminate excuses for poor overclocking.

The Advanced Chipset Features is the menu where the memory timings can be changed. This feature is common to most enthusiast boards. All the timings like CAS Latency, Active to Precharge Delay, etc. can all be found here. We have heard of issues that some people are having with the timings not working properly. It is hard to describe the issue because we did not experience it during the course of this review.

The PC Health Status menu may not ever be looked at by some consumers but the enthusiast will be more interested. This menu shows all of the system vitals like fan speeds, voltages, and temperatures. In addition, there are options to set up safety settings so that the computer will shut down when certain functions stop working properly.