Review: ABIT AN7 - Mainboard - HEXUS.net

System Setup

Hardware

ABIT AN7, NVIDIA nForce2 Ultra 400, Socket A (11/11/03 BIOS)
ASUS K8V Deluxe, Socket 754, VIA K8T800, Athlon 64, 1002.007 BIOS
ABIT IC7, Socket 478, Intel i875, Pentium 4, A18 BIOS
Intel Pentium 4 3.2GHz, 512KB L2, 16 x 200MHz
AMD Athlon XP3200+, 512KB L2, 11 x 200MHz
AMD Athlon 64 Model 3200+, 1MB L2, 11 x 200MHz
NVIDIA GeForceFX 5900 Ultra
ATI Radeon 9800XT (412/730)
Corsair XMS3200LLPT, 2 x 256MB, 2-2-2-6

Software

Windows XP Professional w/SP1 and current Windows Update patches (as of 17/11/03)
NVIDIA Detonator FX 52.16 WHQL (ABIT AN7)
ATI CATALYST 3.9 (ASUS K8V, ABIT IC7)
VIA Hyperion 4.48v chipset drivers (ASUS K8V)
NVIDIA nForce2 3.13 Platform Driver (ABIT AN7)
Intel 5.02.1002 chipset drivers (ABIT IC7)
DirectX 9.0a Runtime
HEXUS Pifast v41
Simplisoft HDTach 2.61
Kribi Bench 1.19
Sciencemark 2.0
3DMark 2001SE v330
Quake3 v1.30 HQ (four demo)
Serious Sam 2 (OpenGL HQ, SDC demo)
LAME 3.92MMX MP3 Encoding (192CBR, U2's Pop album)
Realstorm Ray Tracing
Comanche 4 Demo
X2: The Threat - Rolling Demo

2-2-2-6 for the AN7 along with the latest nForce2 Platform driver (3.13). CPU-Z saw the CPU frequency as follows. Keep that information in mind when comparing results

Due to (slowly) migrating to Radeon 9800XT, the AN7 gets an NVIDIA GeForceFX 5900 Ultra in its AGP slot while a new Radeon 9800XT makes its way to me. The Intel and Athlon 64 comparison platforms get Radeon 9800XT however, a board being present throughout their testing. I'll comment on any difference as needed, but being a system review, the graphics card used has (usually) minimal impact on results.

No Socket A comparison systems, I instead decided to use a different angle with AN7. After benchmarking the board, it showed minimal performance difference to recent Socket A boards like ASUS A7N8X 2.0 Deluxe and the DFI LanParty NFII Ultra B I reviewed recently. So instead of graphs with no real discernable difference between the comparison systems, AN7 gets to fight Model 3200+ Athlon 64 and Pentium 4 3.2C instead. It's a fast nForce2 Ultra 400 board as far as they go, so it'll be nice to see if AN7 can uphold 32-bit Athlon XP performance against its other platform rivals, as we evaluate performance.

So, a mix of comparison systems but something that's still easy to follow, I'll keep you informed throughout. As always, tests were run three times and the median result used for reporting.