nVIDIA have really surprised the AMD-market with the announcement of their nForce2 chipset. In the first nForce both manufacturers and consumers saw a great potential, unfortunately nForce had some child diseases, the performance and stability was not on the same level as the competitor VIA’s chipset. The expected success did not take place and mainboards with the nForce chipset became very rare. nVIDIA however showed up some interesting new features like DualDDR and a very impressive sound processor.

nVIDIA
have really surprised the AMD-market with the announcement of their nForce2
chipset. In the first nForce both manufacturers and consumers saw a great
potential, unfortunately nForce had some child diseases, the performance and
stability was not on the same level as the competitor VIA’s chipset. The expected
success did not take place and mainboards with the nForce chipset became very
rare. nVIDIA however showed up some interesting new features like DualDDR
and a very impressive sound processor.

A
few months have passed since the nForce2 chipset arrived, and with it nVIDIA
truly show that they have learned their lesson. The nForce2 chipset has become
a success with its rich features and impressing performance. nVIDIA themselves
have shown a great confidence in their mainboard chipset and expect to gain
additional shares of the AMD chipset market that until now have been dominated
by VIA.
We will in this review take a look at five different mainboards with the nForce2
chipset.

Time to move on, our first contestant is a board from ABIT.


ABIT
NF7-S v1.0
: Specifications

Chipset:
NVIDIA
SPP + NVIDIA MCP-T
Processors
supported:
Duron/Athlon
XP Socket-462, 200/266/333MHz FSB
Memory
supported:
3GB,
200/266/333/DDR400MHz DDR
Integrated
graphics circuit:
AGP:
1x
AGP 8X
PCI:
5 x 32-bit bus master PCI
IDE-controller:
4
units, ATA 100/66/33
RAID-controller:
SATA-controller:
Silicon
Image SIL3112A, 2 x 150MB/s
Network:
Realtek
RTL8201BL 10/100Mbit (nForce2 LAN)
Audio:
Realtek
ALC650 controller (nForce2 APU)
FireWire
(IEEE-1394):
Realtek
RTL8801B PHY (MCP-T MAC)
USB
2.0:
4
ports (NVIDIA MCP-T)
Price:
~
$110

The NF7-S is
as you see not a member of the popular MAX-series from ABIT. Even though it
doesn’t have the most features of the boards we have tested with the nForce2
chipset there are some goodies we will take a look at later. But first, how
are ABIT compared to the others when it comes to prices?

Price
and Availability

ABIT NF7-S is
one of the cheaper mainboards in this roundup. The price is around $110 –
$130 which is absolutely OK. The NF7-S offers some extra features that can
motivate an even higher price, but this is something we will try to disregard
when rating the different prices, and instead take in count when rating accessories/features.
Even if the price is not a ten-pointer, the availability surely is. After
a look in a buyers guide (a database with retail stores and their products)
we came to the conclusion that this mainboard can be found in more places
than any other of the other reviewed products.
$110 – $130 is an acceptable price and the availability is very good, therefore
ABIT NF7-S gets a good grade in this category.

Price/Availability
We
compare the price to equal products and even the accessibility among retailers.


 

Accessories
and Features

ABIT NF7-S is,
as mentioned, not packed with the amounts of features and accessories we are
used to from the ABIT’s MAX-series. But this board still has a whole
lot of things to offer and gives its contestants in this roundup some competition.
Besides the usual accessories like manual, CD-ROM with drivers and software,
I/O-panel and IDE-cables, ABIT also sent equipment for the on-board SATA.
In addition to a standard SATA150-cable we also got ABIT’s SATA-adapter
which makes it possible to use a regular IDE hard drive on the SATA controller.
It is in other words a very useful component that also came with the ABIT
AT7-MAX2 in our KT400-roundup. Also two extra “back-panels” were
included with USB 2.0 and Firewire ports to utilize every single percent of
the MCP-T chipset. The included software for NF7-S is not especially impressing,
like all the other mainboards in this roundup a monitoring program was included,
ABIT Winbond, and not much else.

The two first
nForce2 motherboards we tested here on Nordichardware, Chaintech 7NJS Zenith
and EPoX 8RDA+, were both using the MCP-T south bridge to take advantage of
the exclusive features it offers. But here in our roundup, ABIT NF7-S is the
only product using this south bridge, while the other three cards use the
simpler and cheaper MCP south bridge. This means that ABIT NF7-S is the only
card to make any use for features such as firewire and nVIDIA’s Soundstorm
sound circuit. Here below we also see pictures of the PHY circuits for LAN/Audio,
which comes from Realtek, and the small SATA contacts, situated next to the
battery.

We think that
ABIT NF7-S offers a good range of accessories and features. Not any really
unique ones except for the SATA-adapter, but ABIT has managed to fit in most
of the important stuff. The board offers 4 USB2.0 ports, 2 firewire ports
and to our delight the board fully utilizes nVIDIA’s SoundStorm chip as a
digital SPDIF connector is integrated directly on the motherboard. Also, the
future for your storing devices is secured with a SATA controller. This is
something that we think is getting more and more important, even if there’s
still only a few SATA disks on the market.

We miss some
small features but nothing you can’t do without. A PATA RAID controller doesn’t
really feel necessary nowadays but having it integrated on the motherboard
would still be nice. We would like to see ABIT using the the extra ethernet
controller offered by the MCP-T southbridge but this is also just a small
detail. ABIT NF7-S has most of the features we look for but there s still
a few details missing before we can call it the ultimate mainboard.

Accessories/Features
We
look at the amount and usefulness for included accessories and integrated
features.



In true ABIT
style the NF7-S is manufactured on and, in our opinion, boring, brown PCB.
Even if this doesn’t make any difference at all for the functionality, a striking
design is never wrong, especially not today when everybody is totally wild
about style and modding.

Somewhat surprising,
the layout of the card hasn’t got that true ABIT feeling.
During all these years making motherboards, ABIT have always been concentrating
largely on enthusiasts and overclockers. And you have been able to tell that
from their products but on the NF7-S they have messed up a bit with the layout.
First and foremost it’s the CPU socket, or rather the surrounding area.
There is a great deal of space around it which is very good. But what’s
worse is that they have neglected to add the usual four holes for mounting
large coolers and water blocks. This is clearly a mistake from ABIT who use
to be overclock-friendly and always try to provide for the demands of the
enthusiast market.
To their defence they have corrected this on their newly launched NF7-S v1.2,
following shortly.

They have also placed the power connectors badly, situated diagonally beneath
the socket, so you have to draw the power cord over the cpu-fan. This can
lead to an impacted airflow and in a worst-case scenario the cord can get
stuck in the fan itself.
As on their KT400 cards they have provided the NF7-S with a separate ATX 12
volt connector, three-phase system, all to make the power supply a bit more
stable.

On the lower
part of the motherboard we see the connectors for IDE/SATA and the SATA-controller
hidden under the green sticker.

The chipset cooler
is the same as on their KT400 card and doesn’t look very convincing. But never
judge a book by its cover. It keeps the nForce2 chipset surprisingly cool.
Nevertheless if it had had a larger heatsink, in case of a fan malfunction,
I would have felt much better.

ABIT is one of
a few motherboard manufacturers using proper thermal paste under the chipset
cooler and even if we have seen better it is much better than average. Also
we could establish that our board was equipped with an A2-stepping on the
northbridge and this can affect the overclocking negatively. But as you will
soon notice this wasn’t really the case with this motherboard.

Just as all the
other nForce2-boards we have tested the ABIT NF7-S is equipped with three
memory slots and support up to 3GB DDR400-memory modules. Noticeable is that
the ABIT-board has the same problem as the EpoX 8RDA+. They both have a space
deficit between the agp-slot and the dimm-slots making it almost impossible
to change memory modules with a large agp-card installed. And even if the
ABIT-card doesn’t seem to have the destroyed AGP-cards issues it is a really
bad layout flaw.
All the audio connections are integrated and that is appreciated.

The layout of
the NF7-S is not very impressing and in all honesty that is not common on
ABIT boards. It is details as the placement of the power connectors as well
as big bloopers like the lack of holes by the cpu-socket and non-existent
amount of space between the AGP and the DIMM slots. Since the card doesn’t
even have 6 PCI-slots we find it odd the last mentioned problem even occurs.
Also there is the chipset cooler which is kind of small making it a problem,
in case of a malfunctioning fan it would have a hard time cooling enough.
The fan itself is a bit noisy.
What’s positive is that all the audio connections are integrated with
the digital SPDIF-connector giving full support for Dolby Digital 5.1 surround
and also making it SoundStorm certified by nVidia.
The ABIT
NF7-S has a number of layout issues but since the card has got full support
for nVidia SoundStorm without external audio connections it still receives
a decent grade.

Layout/design
We
have considered the physical but also the esthetical aspects of the card’s
design. User-friendliness is also an important factor.



Even
as we were examining the BIOS on ABIT NF7-S we had the feeling that this card
wasn’t really produced for the enthusiast market. ABIT’s well-known Soft Menu
III is included in the BIOS which of course is a good omen, but unfortunately
ABIT have left a lot more to be wished for when it comes to settings for overclocking.


Soft Menu III

ABIT have included the settings most overclockers desire, but unfortunately
the number of different modes has been kept low. Until only about a month ago,
users were unable to set the FSB frequency above 237MHz. Luckily a bios update
from ABIT has been released which enables FSB settings up to 250MHz. However
there are not 1 MHz intervals all the way, but they stretch for as far as 233MHz,
and after that there are still a few more settings until 250MHz is reached.
This is a great improvement in comparison to the original bios, and almost required
for the real enthusiasts.
We think ABIT has been a bit too moderate with the different voltage settings
too, both CPU and DIMM current should have had higher max settings, and higher
voltage can do very much for overclocking which we saw during our Athlon XP
1700+ overclocking.
During our tests the CPU voltage “undervolted” a bit and remained
around 1.58v when the BIOS setting was at 1.60v, but we also noted that the
DIMM voltage overvolted with as much as 0.1v and at 2.7v the efficient voltage
was at 2.8v, which is a good thing for most overclockers.
Another positive thing is that ABIT have included a setting for chipset voltage
which is an advantage during FSB overclocking.
We have compiled the most interesting settings in Soft Menu III here below to
get a better overview.

BIOS
settings (version: 1.6)
FSB
frequency:

100-250MHz
(1MHz intervals to 233MHz)

Multiplier
settings:
5.5x
to 22x
AGP
frequency:
66MHz
– 99MHz (1 MHZ intervals)
CPU
voltage:
1.10v – 1.85v (0.025V intervals)
DIMM
voltage:
2.4v
– 2.7v (0.1V intervals)
Chipset
voltage:
1.4v
– 1.7v (0.1V intervals)
AGP
voltage:
1.5v
– 1.8v (0.1V intervals)

Furthermore the
BIOS does not offer any greater surprises, but makes a good impression as a
whole. Advanced Chipset Features offers the usual settings we have seen on nForce2
based motherboards and the only new setting we consider of any value is Enhanced
PCI Performance, which did not make any notable differences during our tests.
PC Health offers a great deal of information and in OnChip PCI device the possibility
to turn on and off the integrated features on the motherboard is offered. It
is also possible to turn off the SATA controller in another menu.


Advanced Chipset Features

PC Health

OnChip PCI Device

ABIT is actually once again a bit of a disappointment in what was once their
strength, BIOS settings. But if we focus on the comparison between other nForce2
motherboards the card handles itself pretty well. There is however still a
great deal to gain if we compare to EPoX 8RDA+ and Chaintech 7NJS Zenith which
have presented very nice BIOS settings.
A positive surprise among the BIOS settings is the possibility to change chipset
voltage, which is something no other card we have tested has offered.
ABIT NF7-S is equipped with a complete BIOS, which has a few flaws, such as
the lack of setting possibilities.

Bios/Settings
We
look at the design of BIOS and it s settings, both for regular use and
overclocking.


 

Overclocking

If we had started
directly with overclocking tests on ABIT NF7-S our expectations would probably
have been very high. But after having seen the very basic BIOS settings on
the mainboard and the fact that our test example was equipped with a A2 northbridge
we didn’t expect that much. It felt somewhat unjust that both our test examples
of EPoX 8RDA+ and ABIT NF7-S were delivered with A2 northbridges, since both
had potential to be strongly FSB overclocked. However, we should probably
not say any more until we have actually tested the overclocking potentials
on ABIT NF7-S. We’ll start with CPU overclocking which was performed on a
T-Bred B-stepped Athlon XP 1700+ (0252 JUICB). The voltage used was the highest
the mainboard allowed, and for cooling we used ThermalTake Volcano 7+. All
CPU overclocking tests were performed with a 11.5x multiplier so that the
card could be compared under the same circumstances. We also want to point
out that all tests were performed with DualDDR activated and using synchronized
bus speeds. ABIT NF7-S managed a good clock frequency of 2.12GHz, with a max
voltage of 1.85v.

If
the mainboard would have had support for a little higher CPU voltage than
1.85V the results would have been better. Although 1.85v is a good objective
for air cooled systems, sometimes you just want to push it further.

Lets move on
to the FSB overclocking which is more or less controlled by the mainboards
capacity and design. Since ABIT NF7-S gives the users the chance to change
the chipset voltage we tested it with both the original voltage of 1.6v and
the maximal voltage of 1.7v. Some mainboards have actually used 1.5v as the
original chipset voltage, so ABIT NF7-S clearly have a lead here. At 1.6v
we managed to push the mainboard to 198MHz FSB which is 6MHz better than what
we got with EPoX 8RDA+. When we increased the chipset voltage to max we got
a real increase.

We
got an increase of 12MHz from the FSB when we pushed the chipset voltage to
1.7v. You will soon see that we also managed to get the newer ABIT NF7-S
model, version 1.2, in time for this review and it will be very interesting
to see if that card it equipped with a A3 northbridge and if so how much it
will do for the overclocking.

ABIT NF7-S really
shows that ABIT still is a king when it comes to overclocking. And even though
the BIOS settings on the card held us back a bit when it came to CPU overclocking,
it really impressed us during the FSB overclocking. The card impressed us
even though it uses the A2 northbridge which is probably not even produced
any more since A3 stepping is taking over more and more. What we would like
to see though is that ABIT would be a bit more generous when it comes to voltage
settings on the mainboard, but otherwise there isn’t much to complain of.

Overclocking
Here
the theoretical overclocking potential of the motherboard is rated through
the use of practical tests.



Even if
the ABIT NF7-s v1.2 "only" is an updated version of the ABIT NF7-S
v1.0 the number of differences are many enough to test these boards as separate
products. We have received a lot of inquiries asking for a comparison of
these, so when the ABIT NF7-S v1.2 arrived to the test lab (a couple of
days before the review was published) we chose to include this board in
the roundup instead of an update.
We hope that you understand our reasoning regarding this and that we will
do our best to make the differences between v1.0 and v1.2 obvious to you.

ABIT
NF7-S v1.2
: Specifications

Chipset:
NVIDIA
SPP + NVIDIA MCP-T
Processors
supported:
Duron/Athlon
XP Socket-462, 200/266/333MHz FSB
Memory
supported:
3GB,
200/266/333/DDR400MHz DDR
Integrated
graphics circuit:
AGP:
1x
AGP 8X
PCI:
5 x 32-bit bus master PCI
IDE-controller:
4
units, ATA 100/66/33
RAID-controller:
SATA-controller:
Silicon
Image SIL3112A, 2 x 150MB/s
Network:
Realtek
RTL8201BL 10/100Mbit (nForce2 LAN)
Audio:
Realtek
ALC650 controller (nForce2 APU)
FireWire
(IEEE-1394):
Realtek
RTL8801B PHY (MCP-T MAC)
USB
2.0:
4
ports (NVIDIA MCP-T)
Price:
~
$120 (Are available for a cheaper price)

The technical
specifications of the ABIT NF7-S v1.2 are identical to the predecessor.
The only thing that seems to separate them is the price but there are some
obscurities that you soon will see.

Price
and Availability

We are not
certain how ABIT will continue their introduction of the NF7-S based boards
but probably they will stop producing v1.0/1.1/1.2 and concentrate on the
latest v2.0 version.
The best price on ABIT NF7-S we have found is $120 but it is unclear what
version we are dealing with. Just like Athlon XP and the T-bred B-stepping
the stores charges a little extra for finding out what exact version it
is. The result of this is that the best price we have found on a board,
which for certain is a v1.2, is somewhat higher. If you are lucky you may
get your hands on a v2.0 from one of those retailers not specifying versions,
but then you probably have to trust luck.
This situation will without a doubt become better but right now the availability
and price doesn’t look as good as it did for the v1.0.

Price/Availability
We
compare the price against similar products and also the availability
among distributors.


 

Accessories
and Features

There isn’t
much to say about this as the accessories and features are identical with
those on the other NF7-S versions. Fact is that this is the only part where
the grade remains the same on the newer v1.2.

We did find
one difference though; the PCB has got another colour. More about this later.

Due to the
similarities between v1.0 and v1.2, the motivation for this grade is located
on the v1.0 page (under Accessories and Features).

Accessories/Features
We
look at the amount and usefulness for included accessories and integrated
features.



Except
for the new PCB colour you wont find any major changes since the 1.0 model.
But when we look closer at the details we see that ABIT are concentrating
more on the enthusiasts, something we missed in ABIT NF7-S v1.0.

The first
thing we se that ABIT utilizes the four holes around the socket. This
was something we really missed on the 1.0 board (You can find these holes
on the 1.1 board also). There is still a lot of space around the socket
and except for the four holes there are few differences between the boards
here. If we go really close we see that the boards differ in the choice
of capacitors. Looking at power supply we see that the three-phase system
has been tuned up. Three of the mosfets has been changed. On the 1.0 board
two different types of mosfets were used, but now all six of them are
of the same brand and model. To get back to the capacitors we can tell
you that on the ABIT NF7-S v1.0 mostly TEAPO capacitors were used while
v1.2 only has capacitors from Rubycon. These are well known in the motherboard
market for their good quality. This brand is also used on the ABIT BH7
board that should be the overclockers choice for Pentium 4 systems.
Two other changes around the power connectors and capacitors are two new
jumpers. Their use however is unknown to us since they are not mentioned
in the manual (it’s the same manual for 1.0 and 1.2).
Speaking of power connectors we also see that they still are badly positioned.
This is not very surprising since ABIT probably hasn’t had the possibility
(time/money) to make any big layout changes on the PCB.
The lower part of the board is more or less identical to v1.0 but there
are some exceptions in model and size of the capacitors. We find another
change under the SATA connectors, two small leds where one shows if the
board has power and the other when the system is turned on.
To give you a better understanding of the details changed since v1.0 we
have gathered some photos of the two boards.

ABIT NF7-S v1.0 vs. ABIT NF7-S v1.2

The chipset
cooler is the same as on the 1.0 version and even if it feels kind of
small it seems to a good job cooling the chipset. ABIT has used proper
thermal grease and the surface gives good contact between the chip and
the cooler. We have to admit that we were relieved when we got the thermal
grease off the northbridge and found that it had the A3 stepping. The
first real "enthusiast board" we’ve tested where the A3 stepping
has been used on the northbridge as well. With the satisfying overclocking
results we got from the 1.0 board in mind, we have a lot to look forward
to in the overclocking tests with the ABIT NF7-S v1.2.

Unfortunately
we see that ABIT haven’t done anything about the problems with the placement
of the AGP port and memory slots. We assume that it yet again would be
too big of a physical change in the motherboard layout and therefore an
economical issue. It still is a big issue and we hope to see that ABIT
and other manufacturers (unfortunately there are many) change this in
their next series.
The I/O panel layout is a positive bit on the ABIT NF7-S (all models)
and makes it one of only three nForce2 motherboards available with full
support for nVIDIA SoundStorm (The other two are ASUS A7N8X Deluxe and
MSI KN72G-LISR with S-bracket).

The motherboard
layout of the ABIT NF7-S v1.0 did not satisfy us and unfortunately there
are only a few changes in the 1.2 model. The bad positioning of the power
connectors and the problem with memory slots and AGP port remains which
can be a rather big issue.
What’s really positive is the comeback of the four screw holes. These
were standard on the KT400 models tested earlier. Also ABIT have done
some smaller changes like the two leds for example. The fact that only
Rubycon capacitors are used is very positive but makes little difference
in this test. The small changes in motherboard layout in v1.2 gives it
a better score than v1.0 but there are still quite a lot of issues that
keeps ABIT NF7-S v1.2 from scoring very high.

Layout/design
We
have considered the physical but also the esthetical aspects of the
card s design. User-friendliness is also an important factor.