My wife and I are just novice computer builders. We are posting this just so that other people can know about our experience with this Motherboard (as we extensively used all your experience, insight and comments before assembling our first computer).
We have neither over clocked it nor intend to do it.
The config:
P4 3.06 Ghz @ only 533 FSB
PC 2700 Ram 2 strips of 512 MB each (Not dual memory)
Abit IS-7 Mother Board
300 Watt case with 2 fans
Bought all those at Newegg.com website.
OS: Windows XP professional OEM
Bought @DLJ Computer.
Main use: .NET development using Visual Studio.NET
Assembly of the motherboard was a breeze. One screw on the right hand side (away from the extension slots) was impossible to screw on, as part of it was under the IDE2 slot. It is useless.
We designed the fans such that both fans suck air out of the case, as our fans could only be located in a 90 degree angle close to each other. If we had 1 sucking in and one sucking out, we felt thermal cooling would not be uniform through out the case.
XP installation was a breeze and working beautifully until this moment.
We assembled the computer in our living room and have been using it in a corner of our living room, with room temperature constant at 70.5 degrees Farenheit. We have used our computer on and off for three days and all these three days it has been running continuously.
The PC Doctor software that came with the motherboard tells us that our processor is at about 43-48 degrees centigrade, that is about 113 degrees Farenheit.
Another problem with the mother board is the location of internal Audio headers and FP-Audio 1 headers. They are behind the extension slots and if we use more than a couple of PCI cards they almost crush the cables that come out of these headers, that is if we run those cables below the cards. If we run the cables above the extension cards, the cables need to be really long (longer than the diagonal length of your case, as CDROM drives in the first few slots and these headers are located diagonally opposite to each other in a normal mid-tower case).
Another problem we faced, that must be unique to our case-motherboard combo, was that the fire-wire port headers had more pins than the ones that came with the cables of my case. Instead of risking a mal-function we decided to use the additional ports that came with the motherboard that could be installed in the extension slots. Two thumbs up to ABIT for this fore-thought!
In essence, we love this motherboard and this new computer. Assembling this computer was a totally humbling and learning process. We thank you all and Anandtech website for giving us plenty of reading material that gave us the knowledge and confidence to pull this off.
K and N