Date: |
April 12, 2004 |
Price: |
$115 |
Sponsors: |
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Author: |
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Editor: |
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Score: |
8/10 |
Abit AN7 Motherboard Review Bundle and Board Layout
 Upon opening the AN7 box you’ll notice 2 smaller boxes. Included is a driver CD, the SATA driver disk, two SATA cables, a 4 pin Molex to dual SATA power cable, ATA 133, a floppy cable, and a rear panel shield.
Looking at the overall layout of the motherboard, I have to say that there is little to be improved upon. The ATA connectors on the edge of the motherboard may be a nuisance to some, while I find it to be a very good use of space. The floppy cable connector is placed on the front of the board, and the 2 power connectors (20 pin ATX, plus 4 pin 12V) are both near the rear ports, and should be far enough away from the CPU socket to avoid any problems. All of the connectors are far enough away from each other that they should not pose a problem should you need to add or remove a cable later on.
 The position of the AGP slot and the memory slots are close enough that any of the larger AGP cards will interfere with the installation or removal of the DDR modules. For video cards with rear components, care should be taken to make sure nothing is broken during installation. Luckily for most this will not be a problem. Next to the AGP slot, where the first PCI slot should lie, there is an empty space, followed by 5 PCI slots. With newer video cards dissipating large amounts of heat, and some requiring the space of two slots, I feel this is of little loss. Between the PCI slots and the AGP slot also lays the header for IEEE 1394 (FireWire) connector.
The CPU socket has adequate space around it for your larger sized heat sinks or water blocks. Any heat sink designed to be in the “no components” zone around the socket should work here.
 At the “bottom” of the board next to the PCI slots you’ll find the Silicon Image RAID chipset, and the two SATA ports. In the bottom front of the AN7 you will also find the front panel header for USB ports, as well as the nForce2 south bridge, the system’s bios, µGuru™ chipset, and CMOS battery.
Between the SATA ports and the rear of the motherboard is the lower fan connector. I’m not sure why, but ABIT did not choose to place any fan power connectors close to the bottom front corner of the motherboard. There is one near the back panel of the motherboard, as well as 2 in the bottom rear corner of the motherboard, but none in front. This may be a small issue for someone with short fan cables.
To the rear of the PCI slots the front panel audio connectors, as well as the Aux and CD inputs for the onboard sound. The Realtek chipset for the Fast Ethernet connection is also found here. Also found on the rear bottom corner of the AN7 is a 2 digit LED display for retrieving error codes at POST (the motherboard’s startup sequence).
Last, but certainly not least, there is the back panel with the rest of the ports. On this connector panel you will find the standard keyboard and mouse PS/2 ports, along with 1 serial and 1 parallel port. Below the parallel port there is a pair of S/PDIF optical ports, both input and output, which should be a welcome addition to anyone who is an audio aficionado. To the right of these there are five audio ports, four USB 2.0 ports, the 10/100 Ethernet port, as well as the IEEE 1394 port.
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