what does everybody thinks about the abit KT7?

[Zedfu]

if you have an input on te KT7, then let's hear it. you can include both positives and negatives about the mobo.

 

[Braxus]

The software multiplier settings are really nice. Active cooling and the 3 phase power solution is a plus. Things that suck about it I guess are the Highpoint ATA/100 RAID controller as it sucks compared to a Promise. Also that the capacitors are located so close to the socket which disallows one to use larger heatsinks.

 

[Dravic]

Love softmenu III

Seems to overclock well. I have my FSB at 111 which puts my memory(mushkin inf pc133) at 144 cas 2. So if you have good memory the board seems to allow a nice fsb overclock as well as softmenu muliplier overclock.

I'm not using the raid as of yet, and if i do i will probably buy the promise card.

SLIGHTLY bending the capacitors(sp) out the way to fit the large heatsink was NOT fun.

I posted this in another thread, but here's my specs and info


*******************

These scores def tell me that he whole Athlon line is memory starved, check out my Sandra ALU/FPU... The upcoming ddr boards should be a treat

Duron 650@888(8x111) MEM at 144mhz cas 2
actually 8x100/33 with CPU FSB Plus : 11
Ait kt7 raid(drive on ata66 controller not raid controller)
1.825 volts

Bios setup
These are some of the options that made the difference

****soft menu options*****
Fast Cpu Command : Fast
Enhance Chip : enabled
Force 4-way interleaving : enabled
Enable Dram 4K-page mode : enabled
Dram clock : HCLK+PCICLK (144mhz)

****Advanced Chipset Menu*******

All Banks on turbo
Bank Inter : 4way
SDRAM cycle : 2
Fast R-W turn around : enabled
System Bios Cacheacle: enabled
Fast Write: supported
Everything below that enabled


temp 44c/111f(after quake 3 benches, 42c normally)

Sandra 2000
ALU/FPU 522/626
Dhry/Whet 2533/1238

Quake3(geforce2 mx 200core/210mem)
den3 6.26 beta drivers
Normal High
640x480 117.7
800x600 103.4 99.1 (1.5 x 1.5 FSAA drops me like a stone down to 45fps)
1024x768 70.9 67.3
1240x1024 44.0 42.6


3dmark2000
default benchmark
5404
************************

 

[Sandan]

I have one and my buddy does as well. Both of us love the Board. It is simple to overclock my Duron 650. The bios handles everything. Also the board is very stable and have had no crashes since installation (4 weeks ago)

 

[jonnyGURU]

Friday is coming up so I figure it's safe to post this week's failure rate on the board.

This week it's a whopping 9%!!!!

Take a look at my post here: http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=29&threadid=242214

 

[broadwayblue]

Is that 9% failure on the raid or non-raid version or both? I was thinking about buying a non raid kt7 but this is the first system I'm putting together by myself so I'm not sure if I want to deal with buying a product that has a 1 in 10 failure rate.

 

[jonnyGURU]

Honestly, a mix. Only 1 had a problem that had anything to do with the RAID. The boards are identical in every other way otherwise. You can even use the BIOS from the RAID board on the non-RAID board with no ill effect (I've done it!).

If you look at the other thread, you'll see the problems are a bunch of stupid stuff like dead PS/2s and lock ups (which actually could be RAID related, but is still a problem that needs to be addressed and was eliminated by switching the board).

It's no big secret here that I'm not the biggest Abit fan.

 

[Imported]

Love mine. Rock solid and not one single problem yet.

 

[John]

Looking at the message boards, I find the A7V to be plagued with issues. I have one and it is a headache....time for the KT7 !

 

[Kill_Phil]

oh, wait a sec.. is the kt7 supposted to be better than the av7?
if so, ill erase any thoughts of getting an asus instead of the kt7-raid

 

[broadwayblue]

What are the advantages of going with the raid version as opposed to the standard kt7?

 

[Technonut]

Mine is stable and fast. (KT7 non-RAID) Works well with my GeForce GTS and all other components that I have. The Quake3 timedemo came in at 93.2 FPS in 1280x1024 high detail, with a 3DMark2000 benchmark of 7198 in default. The KT7 runs so well for me, I would not trade it for another type of board at this time.

Sandra Memory Benchmark

Sandra CPU Benchmark

Sandra Multimedia Benchmark

Sandra Hard Drive Benchmark

Quake3 FPS 1280x1024

 

[Lunchboxah]

broadwayblue, the KT7 RAID support is for the IDE channels. There are 2 ATA/66 and 2 ATA/100 I believe.

RAID-0 is striping, which lets you "stripe" drives 1 and 2 of size A and B to have them act as one drive, of size A + B.

RAID-1 is mirroring, which "mirrors" drive 1 to drive 2. Anything written to drive 1 is written to drive 2. This is typically used for servers for obvious fail-safe reasons. Reads tend to be quicker, writes tend to be slower.

www.tomshardware.com has an excellent article on an old Promise RAID ATA/66 controller that explains the different levels more in depth. It also describes RAID 0+1, or RAID 0,1, and anything I may have forgotten. Just search for "RAID" on that site.

As far as advantages, that depends on your setup.

 

[DaddyG]

JonnyG,
Don't see Wetwilly in this thread so here's a little anti ABIT Fodder hehe,

So many KT7 mobos have the thermistor sticking up so far that the cpu will not seat properly, fact not opinion.

Question:

How does ABIT test these boards. ??

Answer 1. They have special CPU's with extra long pinns.

Answer 2, They don't test 'em AT ALL !!


WetWilly... where are you ??

 

[jonnyGURU]

Hmm... True. I'm always having to push down that thermistor. I suppose the correct answer is.....


..... #2! They don't test them AT ALL!

 

[kayel]

Hi there. I have a big problem with my Abit KT7-RAID
The system locked up after 30 seconds. I can't setup anything in the bios and time doesn't allow. I tried using different RAM, VGA(TNT2) and unplugged both IDE 3 and 4, and p/s2 connector. No different. Please help....Should i exchange the board???

 

[DaddyG]

Yes, return the board.

 

[springdale]

The Abit KT7 rocks!

 

[jonnyGURU]

Well; it's now Monday and I'm unhappy to report that of those 65 units we shipped last week, two more have come back for bad IDE controllers. That makes a total of 8:65. That's a whopping 12%. Keep it up Abit!

<edit> Just got another pallet of 100 in and the first two boards from out of there were PERFECT! The third one was dead as a door nail. I won't start tallying yet because if I did, the RMA rate would be 33% and that's just not fair :Q </edit>

 

[zzzz]

KT7 rocks! running duron 600@1000 at 1.625 v.
sometimes the MX300 sound card stops working(but never crashes the OS).
tried raid with quaantum drives. It was great under windows but linux doesn't yet have support for ide-raid so went back to single drive..

 

[NMTinHK]

I have the ABIT KT7 with Raid (not using RAID yet)

Ive overclocked my Duron 600mhz@ 900 at 1.500 v. so ive still got the possibilty of tweaking the voltage to go even higher. (Cheers zzzz !!) Plus there is very little difference in heat running at 600 or 900 maybe 2 degress celcius max.

I have had one problem with my SB live card, but i think thats sorted now, other than that, a wonderful board.

 

[billyjak]

KT7 Raid and one happy camper, no problems yet. It rocks with my new Thunderbird 1 giger, sent back a problematic KT7 as I need the extra IDE ports on the Raid

 

[jonnyGURU]

Hey zzzz: &quot;Linux doesn't yet have support for ide-raid so went back to single drive.&quot;

I did a RAID0 stripe with 4 15GB drives an Linux just handled it like it was one big 60 GB drive. Then again, it was Mandrake's Win Lin install so that might have helped. What kind of problems did YOU encounter running the RAID in Linux? What distro?

I want to know because today or tomorrow I'm going to completely wipe that install in favor of a true two partition system and wonder if I'll run into a problem.