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We'll wrap it up with a
benchmark round from Unreal Tournament 2003. We
utilized a simple benchmark script that does "Fly By" demos
on the Antalus, Asbestos and Citadel levels. We set
the resolution to 640X480, so as to take as much of the
workload off the GeForce4 as possible, and place it on CPU
and System Bandwidth.
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Unreal
Tournament 2003 |
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DirectX 8 Gaming
Performance |
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Again here we
see some pretty impressive numbers. The Abit NF7S
manages to outperform its competitors at the overclocked
settings and its easy to see the potential of this board.
The bottom line is that we are seeing great performance
throughout all of our tests from the Abit NF7S. To
date, this would be my motherboard choice for the nForce2
chipset.
Now that the
nForce2 is starting to establish itself as the chipset of
choice for the Athlon processor, we are seeing the major
mainboard manufacturers put out some great products.
From what I have seen so far, I would place the Abit NF7S
second to none. The great feature set, along with its
excellent performance is what helps set it apart from the
competition. The overclocker in us was pleased when we
entered the BIOS and found so many options to choose from.
Since overclocking results can differ so much from board to
board it's nice to see Abit give us the tools for getting
consistent results.
Abit NF7-S
Analysis:
The Abit NF7-S has been a joy to test. From its rich
feature set, to its exceptional performance, it's hard to
find fault with this board. Although this may seem
petty to most, one of my major complaints with all nForce2
boards is the fact they are still only offering one RJ-45
Ethernet port, when the MCP-T Southbridge supports two,
making it very easy to share an internet connection amongst
multiple PCs. It would be nice to see a board take
advantage of this handy feature. One more gripe about
this board would be that it doesn't offer RAID support for
ATA drives. RAID is only attained when using the SATA
interface. Although we may never see a feature set and
bundle as nice as the Chaintech's, Abit has provided us with
an all around winner. We have all most sought after
features the nForce2 chipset offers, from AGP 8X to Dual
DDR400 support and USB 2.0, there isn't much missing from
this board. And if you're in the market for a great
overclocker, look no further than the Abit NF7-S. The
BIOS allows for changes to pretty much every setting from
the FSB to the multiplier and all the voltages. To
even supply a chipset voltage change is amazing detail.
When you think of a way to spend your hard earned
greenbacks, you want a product that is quality, provides
good value, and will take you well into the future.
The Abit NF7-S does it all.
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-
Great
overclocker
-
Fast and
stable
-
Good
value
-
SATA
support and SERILLELTM adapter
-
AGP 8X
-
Supports
333MHz FSB Athlons
-
Onboard
audio is excellent
-
Dual
DDR400 support
-
USB 2.0
and IEEE 1394
- No RAID support for
ATA devices
- Second RJ-45 jack
missing
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| We're giving the
Abit NF7-S a HotHardware Heat Meter rating of...
** Update
1/8/2003 **
We're also
giving the NF7-S from Abit, our highly coveted Editor's
Choice Award, based on it's more competitive price, versus
our next favorite board the Asus A7N8X, it's active chipset
cooling and slightly more tweakable BIOS voltage settings.
True, the Asus board has Dual Ethernet connectivity but at
roughly a $30 price premium for the Deluxe model, that's
hard to justify. Congrats Abit!
Discuss this
or any other Hot Hardware Review in the PC Hardware Forum!
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