Friday, May 12, 2000

Introduction

For a long time, anyone who has known Abit, has known to expect motherboards based around Intel CPUs. Now though, we're greeted with the surprise of an Abit board that uses AMD processors - the KA7. That little change, though, hasn't stopped Abit from providing us with another long-standing expectation - Soft Menu III. Indeed, you can expect to find alot of things about the KA7 that you've come to expect from all Abit boards. For example, the KA7 has 6 memory data buffers - much like other Abit boards, such as the BX6, rev.2. It also supports 4X AGP, and ATA66. Indeed, by using the Via KX-133 chipset, the KA7 also has the ability to oscillate its memory bus at an independent 133MHz setting. All that said, though, let's say we get down to the business of reviewing this, our third KX-133-equipped board - the Abit KA7.

The features

The KA7 is expandable via its 6 PCI slots, 1 ISA slot, and single AGP port. It also sports 4 168-pin DIMM slots that can support up to 2GB of memory. As mentioned above, the KA7 also possess 6 memory buffers that serve to enhance the system's stability & integrity when all 4 DIMM slots are occupied.

Configuration of the KA7 is accomplished within the BIOS, as there are no DIP switches or jumpers on board that relate to configuring the processor. Adjustment of the processor's clock frequency is achieved from within the 'Soft Menu III' BIOS menu, and includes 18 choices ranging from 100, to 150MHz. Choices include: 100Mhz, 101Mhz, 103Mhz, 105Mhz, 107Mhz, 110Mhz, 112Mhz, 115Mhz, 117Mhz, 122Mhz, 124Mhz, 127Mhz, 133Mhz, 140Mhz, 145Mhz, 150Mhz, and 155Mhz. Another setting also allows the CPU's FSB to be incremented independently by upto 28MHz, in steps of 1MHz.

From within the very same menu, it is also possible to change the processor's core voltage. The voltage can be set from 1.3v to 1.8v in steps of 0.5v. The Vio voltage can be adjusted similarly, from between 3.3v and 3.90 in steps of 0,1v.

Finally, a function exists to set the memory bus frequency to a setting 33MHz higher, or lower than the operating frequency of the main bus.

Next: Additional features.