ABIT NF7-S v2.0

Company: ABIT
Product: NF7-S v2.0
Street Price: ~$125 USD
Date Reviewed: April 18, 2003
Reviewed By: Joey C. aka Chong345
Overall Rating: (9.8/10)

Introduction:

ABIT has released a couple of revisions of their NF7-S. The prominent motherboard manufacturer has listened to the demands of its consumers and has answered with a few revisions. The first revision of the NF7-S added four mounting holes around the socket so people could use their larger heat sinks and water blocks. The next revision to v1.2 gave higher voltage options with the added four holes.

The NF7-S v2.0 is the latest revision of the motherboard. The latest revision has all of the features of the v1.2 but added Barton 400 MHz FSB support by using the Crush 18D chip. Also with the stock BIOS of this motherboard, there are no issues with Corsair XMS memory and no BIOS corruption problems. It is what might be called, the perfected revision.

Many other motherboard manufacturers such as ASUS and MSI have released revisions as well. Change is good though. Most people welcome the changes while a few others do not. The truth is that these companies work hard to make sure their boards are the best that they can be and releasing new revisions shows their dedication to the community.

Specifications:

Processor:
  - Supports AMD-K7 Duron™/Athlon™/Athlon™ XP Socket A with 200/266/333MHz FSB Processors

Chipset:
  - NVIDIA nForce2 SPP chipset with MCP2-T
  - Supports Advanced Configuration and Power Management Interface (ACPI)
  - Accelerated Graphics Port connector supports AGP 8X/4X (0.8V/1.5V)

Memory:
  - Three 184-pin DIMM sockets
  - Supports 3 DIMM DDR 200/266/333 (Max. 3GB)
  - Supports 2 DIMM DDR 400 (Max. 2GB)

Serial ATA (Optional):
  - On board Serial ATA PCI Controller
  - Supports SATA data transfer rates 150MB/s (1.5G bps)

Audio:
  - 6-Channel AC 97 CODEC on board
  - Professional digital audio interface supports 24-bit S/PDIF Out
  - Supports real time AC-3 Encode by Soundstorm™ Technology

System BIOS:
  - SoftMenu™ Technology
  - Award Plug and Play BIOS

LAN:
  - On board 10/100Mb LAN Physical layer interface
  - 10/100Mb Operation supports ACPI & Wake on LAN

IEEE 1394:
  - Supports IEEE 1394a at 100/200/400MB/s transfer rate

Internal I/O Connectors:
  - 1 x AGP8X/4X slot, 5 x PCI slots
  - 1 x Floppy Port supports up to 2.88MB
  - 2 x Ultra DMA 33/66/100/133 Connectors
  - 2 x Serial ATA 150 Connectors
  - 2 x USB headers, 2 x IEEE1394a header
  - 1 x CD-IN, 1 x IrDA

Back Panel I/O:
  - 1 x PS/2 Keyboard, 1 x PS/2 mouse
  - 2 x Serial, 1 x Parallel
  - 1 x S/PDIF Out port
  - Audio connectors (Front Speaker, Line-in, Mic-in, Center/Sub, Surround Speaker)
  - 2 x USB, 1 x RJ-45 LAN Connector

Miscellaneous:
  - ATX form factor
  - Hardware monitoring - Including Fan speeds, Voltages, System environment temperature

*Courtesy of ABIT