The BH7 is aimed at those that like to see how far their components can go. The usual limiting factors of FSB ceiling, CPU and DDR voltage have generally been taken out of the equation. With enhanced circuitry the BH7 is able to run at 200FSB without missing a beat. Finding a current processor that can match the board's FSB capabilities is the challenge that faces us.
There is a lot to like when it comes to the ABIT BH7 and it seems that stability and overclocking were on the top of the ABIT engineers' list of goals. Kudos to ABIT for building another fine mainboard.
Overall, it is hard not to recommend the BH7, it is a board for the tweaker, no doubt. The BH7 somehow is the equivalent of a classic British roadster, no frills, Abit unreasonable but lots of fun to play with. Anybody who wants all the gizmos will have to look elsewhere but then, he or she might find neither the performance nor the stability.
Heh, my current problem.Finding a current processor that can match the board's FSB capabilities is the challenge that faces us.
I have not had this issue, even with the retail HSF...... Can you provide a link?The high temperature readings is what has me concerned with this board.Some are getting insane temp readings.This causes the CPU throttle to kick in and you can't shut it off.All you can do is set it to the lowest 12.5% throttling.
I have been very pleased with the BH7... It will do fine until I find a dual channel DDR board that I like..really liking this board eh?
I have been very pleased with the BH7... It will do fine until I find a dual channel DDR board that I like..
Originally posted by: LastRide
The high temperature readings is what has me concerned with this board.Some are getting insane temp readings.This causes the CPU throttle to kick in and you can't shut it off.All you can do is set it to the lowest 12.5% throttling.
BIOS ID: 1.3
Released Date: 3/14/2003
1. Revise the SPLED (suspend LED) behavior.
2. Fix the warning sirens issue when PWM temperature is higher than the setting of CPU warning temperature.
3. Revise the fan speed for"Smart Fan Speed Control"function in Windows.
4. The Serial ATA bridge is set to "disabled", and it's a default setting after discharging CMOS data.
5. BIOS Compile Date: 3/18/2003
IN our tests, we overclock our P4 1.8Ghz to 2.9Ghz at 18 x 160Mhz at CAS 2.5, 3-3-6. This is definitely a surprise for me as this CPU of mine never make it above 150 on other boards I have tested before.
After thoroughly testing the ABIT BH7, it's quite clear that it's one of the best 845PE motherboards we've ever tested. As a low cost, high-performance motherboard the ABIT BH7 is definitely one of the top two 845PE motherboards to purchase, accompanying Albatron's PX845PEV Pro motherboard released in October of last year.
Therefore we used a mobile 1.7GHz Pentium 4 processor for our FSB overclocking tests. This is the same processor used in our 800MHz Sneak Peek article a couple weeks ago, and of course this CPU still has a default multiplier of 12 (instead of 17) when installed in a desktop motherboard like the ABIT BH7.
That was with a retail HSF and air cooling... The VCore @ 1.50v. That 1.7M did 225MHz FSB with good watercooling in my IT7 MAX. I can't wait to see how it will do in a BH7 along with the Prometeia.We're happy to report that the ABIT BH7 can indeed reliably operate at 800MHz FSB. In fact, the BH7 was able to reach just over 218MHz FSB (that's about 872MHz FSB for those of you that are mathematically impaired ). At 218MHz FSB, DRAM was running synchronously for an effective clock rate of 436MHz with timings set to CAS2/3T/6T/3T. This is very impressive to say the least.
Performance in general was good especially when we overclocked using the easy to use BIOS, hitting a stable 3530mhz on standard air cooling was an accomplishment. At stock speeds it was no slouch proving its might against the dual channel setup of the Granite Bay, proving that having dual channel DDR doesn't always guarantee great game performance.