ABIT KG7-Lite

[Trevor Schell]

Hi!,

I have been waiting for the release of the Abit KG7-Raid motherboard which was supposed to appear in July.

However nothing had been released. Now I just stumbled upon this motherboard.
KG7-LITE

It's the Abit KG7-Lite. I don't think this one replaced the KG7-Raid, although I am not sure.
Hopefully someone has some more information on these Motherboards and can clarify whether or not a KG7-Raid is still in the works and will be available.

Thanks for any help.




Trevor
My HomeTheater S.E.
Sonically Enhanced
C5

[Trevor Schell]

Ok,,Taking a closer look, it looks like the Lite has only 2 slots for memory while the KG7-Raid was announced to contain 4 slots for memory.
Not sure what other differences exist.




Trevor
My HomeTheater S.E.
Sonically Enhanced
C5

[Trevor Schell]

Now I am talking to myself.




Trevor
My HomeTheater S.E.
Sonically Enhanced
C5

[Bing Fung]

Trev, the KG7-RAID is still to be released, and it's performance should be everything it was anticipated to be, so hold on to your hat. Last I read it may be the end of August before we see them retail, maybe sooner. NCIX does not list it yet but PC Canada lists it, though not in stock.

The Lite is basically the same board less the 2 memory slots and the RAID controller.




Bing

[Trevor Schell]

Thanks Bing,,That's good to know.
Since I already have 4 memory chips ready to go, I will wait for the KG7-Raid board.




Trevor
My HomeTheater S.E.
Sonically Enhanced
C5

[SiliGoose]

The KG7-RAID is slowing becoming available. I've read of two people purchasing the mobo from here: http://www.pixelusa.com/. One person visited their retail store and walked out with one and the other ordered via email and reveived a shipping confirmation.

I still think it's going to be a bit difficult to find for a while as several sites have reserve orders to fulfill. Expect to pay a premium as well since it's a hot board right now.

I'd recommend looking very close at the Epox 8K7A+ and the Gigabyte GA-7DXR as well. They are (like the KG7) both based upon the AMD 760 chipset (with Via southbridge). They all sport RAID and are all very fast boards. The Gigabyte and Abit proved the fastest of the 760 boards in a recent comparison at Tom's Hardware.

The Gigabyte and the Abit most closely resemble one another in terms of features. The Abit has an extra DIMM slot (4 to the Gigabyte's 3) but in order to use all 4 you need to use registered RAM which most of us don't use anyway. Trevor, you mentioned you already have 4 DIMMs: if they are registered you should be fine, but registered is pretty rare in home PC's as it's redundant error correction is slow. The 4 DIMMs on the KG7 is one of those "features" many of us will never use. The Abit also has their Softbios jumperless bios while the Gigabyte has lots of jumpers. However, the Gigabyte has one distinct advantage: it uses a very cool blue PCB.

My current mobo seems to be having IDE controller problems (though I'm not sure) and may be dying (after only 2 months!). So, I may be on the market as well. These three boards are my leading contenders if I buy anytime soon. I'd love to wait for the new SIS or nForce chipsets but waiting sucks!




-Sili

[Bing Fung]

Silli, I had read that you would need registered RAM to use all 4 slots, if this is true, Trev will have extra RAM. However it seems like it has been done with 4 sticks of UR-RAM Click Here


The ABIT SoftBios has got to be one of the best things going, that alone always draws me to ABIT, I prefer totally jumperless designs.




Bing

[SiliGoose]

However it seems like it has been done with 4 sticks of UR-RAM Click Here

Wow! That's pretty cool. Thanks for the link.

I still think 4 DIMM slots is overkill. With DDR RAM as cheap as it is you can easily add more RAM than you'll need (in this hardware generation) with two 256 MB sticks. Of course, if you're a super Photoshop professional you might actually use 1GB of RAM, who knows?

Bing, have you any info about big name mobo's using the new SIS chip? I'm finding little info on Gigabyte, Abit, and Asus's entry into this chipset.

Thanks,




-Sili

[Bing Fung]

Sili, it's seems MSI has a SIS coming soon, to witt K735 Pro

Also ASUS (A7S266) and Gigabyte (GA-7SRX) are rumored, no official date but if Asus is behind it, it will be soon (best guess Sept?) Looking forward to them.




Bing

[Trevor Schell]

The interesting thing about the KG7, though, is the ability to run four unbuffered memory modules at once. This feature is not supported by either AMD or Abit, but in our testing with 4 Crucial 256MB PC2100 modules it seemed to work without a problem. However, because this feature is unsupported, different modules may have trouble working reliably. Props to Abit for breaking the norm once again and extending the limits of a chipset.

I guess I got lucky since the DDR ram I purchased was from Crucial..However I am not sure I understand the registered terminology. How would i know for sure if mine is registered. If it isn't am I out of luck then or would it still work..
Thanks,




Trevor
My HomeTheater S.E.
Sonically Enhanced
C5

[Bing Fung]

Registered DDR Was at the time ~twice the price. All you can do now is give it a try




Bing

[SiliGoose]

Best case: you'll be fine.

Worst Case: you'll have to settle with using 2 of your 4 DIMMS (but 512 MB ain't so bad)




-Sili