Initial Abit IS7 Springdale benchmarks

[flyer351]

Ok,

After two solid days of troubleshooting, I finally have my Abit IS7 system up and running. XP Home SP1 would not load. It would always fail at the same spot during "configuring devices". However, I installed my pirated XP Pro volume edition and an old copy of XP Home. So definately, there is a conflict with my setup and XP Home SP1. All benchmarks were done under Win98SE. I doubled a few benches under XP and noticed identical results.

As Thugs has mentioned about the 875 series, the NB Strap still has the same effect on the 865 series boards. I couldn't get CpuId to show the memory timings, but the results show how the timings are being modified by the board.

-Kingston Hyper-X 3500 2 x 256MB, Abit IS7, Radeon 7500, Shitty Phillipines 2.53 OEM (won't even do 3.0G reliably)

-FSB 133, NB Strap by CPU, Memory timings by SPD, Sisoft 3297 Int / 2874 Flot
-FSB 133, NB Strap 800, 1:1, 2-6-2-2, Sisoft 2950 Int / 2669 Flot Screen of NB Strap 800
-FSB 133, NB Strap 533, 1:1, 2-6-2-2, Sisoft 3290 Int / 2849 Flot Screen of NB Strap 533
-FSB 133, NB Strap 400, 3:4, 2-6-2-2, Sisoft 3361 Int / 3071 Flot Screen of NB Strap 400
-FSB 150, NB Strap 400, 3:4, 2-6-2-2, Sisoft 3797 Int / 3471 Flot Screen of NB Strap 400 at 150FSB

I'm still undecided on this board. The feature set can not be beat by any other boards (8 USB, 3 firewire, gigabit LAN, 2 SATA Raid 0, 6 channel sound, and SPIF in / out). Unfortunately, I can't get the USB controller driver to load, and XP SP1 is out of the question. :frown:

 

[RaymondY]

Have you tried Windows 2000 Pro?

An especially interested in your comments on this motherboard as I am learning toward the IS7 or IS7-G as my next mobo. Planning on switching back to Intel from my current AMD systems.

 

[flyer351]

Originally posted by: RaymondY
Have you tried Windows 2000 Pro?

Nope. I'm too cheap for windows 2000. I'd consider it as an alternative tho. Only problem is, I'd hate to spend ~$150 only for it not to work. Right now the old XP home is working.

Not sure if you read my other IS7 thread, but my IS7 has the 3COM Gigabit LAN chip. I'm not sure if it was a mistake by Abit, but it works just fine and the 3COM diagnostic shows 1000Mbit capability. I don't know if Abit will change the chip in the future, but the only thing I'm missing vs. the IS7G is SATA Raid 0 + 1 and two extra Sata ports. Mine only has SATA Raid 0.

Also, several ppl over at Abit forums are complaining about the NB fan as whiny. I have no problems with mine. It is silent even at 7,000 rpm. If you really want, someone has already modded their NB with a Zalman NB heatsink while using the stock retention mechanism.