Abit KG7-Lite Motherboard
| Reviewer: | Ken O'Rielly |
|---|---|
| Product: | Abit KG7-Lite Motherboard |
| Manufacturer: | ABIT Computer Corp. |
| Sponsor: | Deals Direct |
| MSRP: | $139.00 |
| Publish Date: | Oct 23, 2001 |
1. Introduction
I remember someone once telling me, "Never believe anything you hear and only half of what you read", and that has stuck with me for some reason. Well, Deals Direct was very accommodating to me and has allowed me to check out the whole, rather than the half, about what I been reading about for sometime.
I doubt very much that many of you haven't heard the name ABIT, none of you if you consider yourself knowledgeable in the OC'ing circles. I'd even feel comfortable saying a lot of you have had the chance to try one flavor or another of ABIT's products. I have read many a review, and many a forum posting, about the level ABIT is willing and able to catapult you into when it comes to over-clocking and stability at this high performance plateau. In this review of ABIT's KG7-Lite, I will personally find out if this is merely the hysterical ranting of many lucky people or if I am just plain lucky to have had a chance to review this board.
For those of you who don't know, ABIT offers 3 different boards of the KG7 variety. The most reviewed, at least from what I have noticed, is the KG7-RAID version, which as the name states has the RAID option. It also has 4 DIMM sockets to hold your DDR memory modules. For people who have no need for a RAID, ABIT offers the regular version the KG7, which does not have RAID onboard but does still offer the 4 DDR DIMMs. The last option of this board is the KG7-Lite, which not only doesn't have the RAID option, but also only has 2 DDR DIMMs.
I had contacted ABIT to give them my theory as to why they offer such a board. Although my wording wasn't the same, the overall idea was sound. Here is my attempt at paraphrasing (parrot phrasing...). ABIT offered this option of the board without the extra DIMM sockets and onboard RAID controller, so that people have a cost effective and viable solution, when looking to ABIT for stability and performance.
If you look at the board, you'll notice that all the places for the DIMM sockets, RAID sockets and RAID chip area, the tracks and holes are there but covered in solder. So basically it's the same board as the other two choices in the KG7 family, but the cost reduction is in the missing parts. Because they were not "stuffed" when the board went through the soldering process, everything was just covered with solder.
In a nutshell, you shouldn't have to drop big bucks to get ABIT into your box. Let's just leave that one alone shall we.
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