Well said about Dolby Digital and EAX, Odeen.
I was a little surprised by the final verdict of the review. I expected the Abit board to win at least in one of the two categories, and it did not even get a mention as a runner-up. Was I the only person most impressed by the NF7-S?
It basically includes all the same features as the ASUS board except for the second LAN (which 99.999% of users will not utilize anyway). Even though the FSB of the NF7-S is clocked the lowest it still comes out on top in a large number of the benchmarks and stays near the top in the rest (the difference is negligible anyway so I personally do not care about it, but others might). It runs rock-solid even at high FSB and memory speeds. Plus Abit lets you to use the standard nVidia drivers. Both the Asus and the Chaintech boards will give you trouble with that. Plus you get a serial-parallel converter so you can have 5 IDE devices to boot.
How about Abit's fabulous three-phase power circuitry and the AT12V connector? This is most certainly a future-proof motherboard. I might be wrong, but from the pictures it seems the Asus board only has a two-phase circuit. While I do not doubt Asus quality, I do also know that Abit makes excellent quality boards and arguably the best quality power solutions as well.
As for the positioning of the ATX power connector, everybody keeps complaining (reviewers included) when they see it right below the CPU, but most forget to mention what Lost Circuits (or some other site, not sure) pointed out some time ago - that is, if the goal is to create a board with clear signals and as little interference as possible, right below the CPU power circuitry is EXACTLY where the power connector should be. I might not remember correctly, but I think the reason is that if the ATX connector is placed way off on the right (on the edge across the DIMM slots) the board makers have to run power to the CPU through long, wide traces on the PCB. Considering the amount of power sucked up by today's CPU's, these traces generate pretty powerful EM fields, therefore a lot of interference as well, and we all know that interference is synonymous with instability and possible system failures. In the end I think Abit has picked the ideal spot for the ATX connector. So you have to put a little effort into routing the wires in a way that does not restrict airflow - big deal! If you own a decent PSU, you will have a long enough cable to play around with, so routing should not be a problem anyway.
Not to mention the fact that right now the Abit board can be had for 25 dollars less than the Deluxe Asus board. <EDIT>In Japan, that is.</EDIT>
I will be getting myself another Abit board, I guess.
My KT7-RAID will retire in honour.
I was a little surprised by the final verdict of the review. I expected the Abit board to win at least in one of the two categories, and it did not even get a mention as a runner-up. Was I the only person most impressed by the NF7-S?
It basically includes all the same features as the ASUS board except for the second LAN (which 99.999% of users will not utilize anyway). Even though the FSB of the NF7-S is clocked the lowest it still comes out on top in a large number of the benchmarks and stays near the top in the rest (the difference is negligible anyway so I personally do not care about it, but others might). It runs rock-solid even at high FSB and memory speeds. Plus Abit lets you to use the standard nVidia drivers. Both the Asus and the Chaintech boards will give you trouble with that. Plus you get a serial-parallel converter so you can have 5 IDE devices to boot.
How about Abit's fabulous three-phase power circuitry and the AT12V connector? This is most certainly a future-proof motherboard. I might be wrong, but from the pictures it seems the Asus board only has a two-phase circuit. While I do not doubt Asus quality, I do also know that Abit makes excellent quality boards and arguably the best quality power solutions as well.
As for the positioning of the ATX power connector, everybody keeps complaining (reviewers included) when they see it right below the CPU, but most forget to mention what Lost Circuits (or some other site, not sure) pointed out some time ago - that is, if the goal is to create a board with clear signals and as little interference as possible, right below the CPU power circuitry is EXACTLY where the power connector should be. I might not remember correctly, but I think the reason is that if the ATX connector is placed way off on the right (on the edge across the DIMM slots) the board makers have to run power to the CPU through long, wide traces on the PCB. Considering the amount of power sucked up by today's CPU's, these traces generate pretty powerful EM fields, therefore a lot of interference as well, and we all know that interference is synonymous with instability and possible system failures. In the end I think Abit has picked the ideal spot for the ATX connector. So you have to put a little effort into routing the wires in a way that does not restrict airflow - big deal! If you own a decent PSU, you will have a long enough cable to play around with, so routing should not be a problem anyway.
Not to mention the fact that right now the Abit board can be had for 25 dollars less than the Deluxe Asus board. <EDIT>In Japan, that is.</EDIT>
I will be getting myself another Abit board, I guess.
My KT7-RAID will retire in honour.
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