Layout and Features

     The first thing you will notice, is that the CPU socket is sitting at a 45deg angle to the heatsink. After examining the board, we came to the conclusion that most of the board traces are running at the same angle. This appears to be an engineering decision. As the manufacturers push for that last bit of stability and overclockability, we are seeing more unusual layouts that make sense from an electrical engineering standpoint. The board layout is very well done. The only small complaint we had was that he floppy disk connector is on the lower edge of the board, making the cable run quite long.

     Some of the noticeable features are the large active North Bridge cooler, the "uGURU" chip, and the dual digit LED diagnostic readout. The memory slots are color coded for dual channel operation. You will find 2 SATA connectors which can be used for a 2 drive RAID array and for standard single drive use.

     I was quite impressed by the use of Rubicon capacitors throughout the board. There should be no erupting capacitors taking your board out of commission a year or two from now with these high quality parts.

     On the back panel we have a generous assortment of connectors. ABIT wisely chose to eliminate one of the legacy serial ports to make way for 2 optical SPDIF connectors. The 5 audio connectors are auto-sensing and support the 6 channel (5.1) audio.  We also have a Realtek 10/100 LAN port, 1 Firewire and 4 USB ports.

     The uGuru chip is the heart of the "on the fly" overclocking and system monitoring tool. With the OC Guru you can change your FSB speed, CPU, AGP and DDR voltage from within Windows. The LCD displays boot time diagnostics. The AI7 uses a standard Phoenix socket style bios. The yellow CMOS jumper is easily accessed and can be seen above the bios socket.

     The AC 97 sound codec provided by the ICH5R South Bridge and  a Realtek ALC658 chip. This is an upscale part in Realtek's lineup. The sound was surprisingly good. More on that later.

The ICH5R South Bridge provides  2 channels of  Serial ATA @ 150MB/s data transfer rate with the option of RAID 0 / 1.