Second Time’s The Charm:  The ABIT NF7-S (Revision 1.2)

 Those of you who’ve read our nForce2 round-up know that we had quite a bit of trouble with our initial (1.1) revision of the board.  The system was very unstable (though a BIOS update resolved some of our problems) and ABIT technical support wasn’t very responsive.  After the review ABIT got in touch with us (it turned out our tech support emails hadn’t gotten responded to because of a glitch) and offered to let us take a look at the 1.2 revision of the NF7-S. 

 The 1.2 revision of the board is nearly identical to the 1.1 with only a few cosmetic differences (such as some slightly different component placements) and with a few additional onboard LED’s.  Voltage ranges have been slightly tweaked, with memory voltages now available from 2.6-2.9 volts (original was 2.4 to 2.7) and chipset voltages from 1.4 to 1.7v).  The 1.2 NF7-S does offer the four mounting holes for super-strength heatsinks that the original 1.1 lacked, so those of you looking to do some heavy overclocking with the NF7-S may find it more to your liking. 

 The next section is a reprint from our original NF7-S review?none of these options / features has changed in any way.

Physical Layout:

 The ABIT NF7-S uses a standard layout with the socket oriented vertically towards the power supply and board components in relatively-expected positions.  The area around the socket is very clear compared to some of the other boards we’ll examine later, and the hinge for the ZIF socket is the far-easier to use plastic variety rather than the extremely stiff metal one.  The ATX power connector is placed just behind the sound ports and this board also carries an (AthlonXP-optional) four-pin plug for additional voltage.  At the moment only P4 motherboards specify this standard, but its conceivable AMD will ad it at some point.  The placement of the primary ATX power connector is inconvenient?while easy to access, it forces one to route the large bundle of power cable directly over the heatsink, impeding primary airflow.  ABIT has included a greater-than-average amount of room between the AGP port and the first PCI port?but this comes at the expense of clearance between the video card and the DIMM sockets.  Those of you who find this situation aggravating will be doubly annoyed by the pinched quarters of the NF7-S in this particular area.

 The board’s IDE ports sit just below its DIMM sockets and the Serial ATA ports are just beside the BIOS battery and a total of 5 PCI slots are included.  The backplane of the board is standard, if a bit sparse compared to some others we’ll see in this round-up?only 2 USB ports are back-mounted.  ABIT has included the usual 3-port sound hookup in the rear along with two additional ports for a subwoofer and rear channel and a single optical port.  Two serial ports, a NIC port, and the regular printer / PS/2 offerings round-out the board. 

Distinguishing Features:

Serillel Adapter Support:  ABIT ships this board with their Serillel adapter technology, designed to allow anyone using a PATA (Parallel ATA) drive to adapt it for function in a SATA (Serial ATA) port.  This does potentially allow for a fifth IDE device to be used (up from the 4 supported by our two standard IDE ports.)

Soft Menu III:  ABIT’s Soft Menu III is one of the best BIOS-level system tuning designs available and has long been a favorite of enthusiasts.  The NF7-S has a wide variety of tweaking options, including core, DRAM, chipset, and AGP voltages, memory timings, an AGP speed lock, and, of course, FSB and multiplier controls. 

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