WOOT! Abit's KR7A-Raid is a reality!

[MichaelD]

Link to AT Article Ah, the answers to my prayers! KT266A, ATA133 support (yes, I know no HD's are even at 100mb/s yet, but it's future proof!), will support 3 Gigs! of UNregistered DDR, or 4 Gigs of Registered, HPT372 Raid controller, up to 200MHz FSB. Yahoo! Lessee; in my estimate, it'll debut at around $180, then quickly drop to $150 and by January should be about $140. Pair this bad boy up with an XP1800, 512mb of Micron, GF3, Raid 0 and I'm in Heaven! Yah!!!!!!!

ps
Hopefully, they've sorted out that nasty AGP overvolt problem they had with the KG7......can't wait for the Official AT Test!

 

[Athlon4all]

Hey. I too am excited that it's finally here. It should be the King of KT266A (and Socket A for that matter) for enthusaists just like KG7 was for a time. I'll be getting nForce Like I've said before, but for most, KR7A will be the board to have!

 

[AGodspeed]

Let's hope Abit does a good job with this chipset. My friend has been looking forward to this board for quite a while.

He also just change from the 1800+ to the 1900+ on his list of things to get.

 

[MicroEngineer]

Man, when will I be able to buy it!!!! I'm gonna build my new system in little less than 2 weeks. If I can get this board that'd be the sh!t, otherwise my have to go MSI K7T266 Pro2 RU or even Epox 8kHa+?? Geez, decisions, decisions.

 

[ukDave]

oh yes, oh yes!

the time has finally come. I'm sure it wll take a while to filter in shops though...

 

[MichaelD]

Well, Comdex is next week (or the week after) and the board will be displayed there. Then, I assume, Abit will send boards to the online reviewers (If Anand gets one, I hope he does a quick review, real quick, at least) I'd say it'll be at places like Newegg/MWave by the end of the month/early December. This is just speculation on my part...but it does sound reasonable.

 

[Soccerman]

meh..

is nothing without dividers..

I'm guessing this board has 4 DIMMS? all of which can be occupied with unregistered, so long as it doesn't go above 3 gigs? now if only I could find some 1 gig sticks..

seriously, I'd probably go with the first board to offer 1/5th and 1/6th dividers, because I'll be putting probably 1.5 gigs of RAM on it (temporarily, I only have that amount of RAM so I can sell it later if/when prices go up, or put it in other computers if/when I need to). I don't need 3 gig support..

I don't care for Raid either..

 

[MichaelD]

Hmm....I read something last night in one of the threads saying that most new KT266A mobos are coming with those 1/5 1/6 dividers already built in. I wonder...I guess we'll have to wait and see. Wow. Imagine a 160FSB, with all PCI/AGP cards in-spec. Woooow.

 

[jimmygates]

Yummy....



I only have two complaints with the board.

1) Floppy header is in weird position.

2) Abit should of used VT8233A so the board has native ATA133 support also.



Overall the board looks spectacular. I can't wait to get it.

 

[ukDave]

<< Yummy....



I only have two complaints with the board.

1) Floppy header is in weird position.

2) Abit should of used VT8233A so the board has native ATA133 support also.



Overall the board looks spectacular. I can't wait to get it. >>



i second the floppy position. my floppy cable will never reach from the top of my case.

 

[MichaelD]

The Highpoint 372 controller features ATA133 support.

 

[Bovinicus]

The board sounds very promising to me. There are a few things I am hoping for with this board that would make it better:
- Actual on-die temparature monitoring support.
- The 1/5 and 1/6 dividers as others have mentioned
- A version without RAID

If this board includes those things it will be the next board overclockers will jump all over. I can't wait to see some reviews of this board even if these things aren't part of the package. I want to see some on ASUS' new KT266A board too.

 

[SgtZulu]

Yes it definately sounds like we have a winner
<------ already has started collecting aluminum cans in the neighborhood

 

[MichaelD]

As much as I'm drooling over this (wipes chin), I am worried about the Quality Control. I love Abit, but I'm a realist; the RMA rates (at least from what I read on AT) for the KG7 were pretty bad. Abit never did formally address (admit?) the Flaming AGP Slot problem. I know that all manufacturers go thru some "shoddy times". So, I'm hoping that my darling Abit can put this past them and get on with the business of producing a quality board. My KT7R has taken everything I can dish out and it's still happily humming along.

 

[zippy]

Cool. I have been looking for a good KT266a solution with very low CPU voltage options (which Abit has always included) without some of the annoyances of the Award BIOS (or was it AMI BIOS? I forget - I always mix those two up) and quirks of the MSI K7T266 Pro2 (i plan to underclock/undervolt and use no CPU fan, so the inability to turn off the fan warning and whatnot is not cool).

 

[Sugadaddy]

I don't need RAID (especially not IDE RAID 0), and it'll cost more than other boards since it has Abit written on it... And 3GB of ram? Who's gonna use that anyways?


Doesn't sound like a winner to me, not to mention it's an Abit so get your RMA forms ready...