abit BG7E

Written by Stephen Sunday, 30 August 2009 18:34

.:: Introduction ::.

Abit Computer Corp. truly needs no introduction to the enthusiast community. They are well known throughout the industry for bringing incredible performance and overclocking options to their line of motherboards. Their SoftMenu Technology could easily be the one major item that Abit has been most widely known for. As we saw in our last review of an Abit motherboard, they are not well known for shelling out incredible packages full of extras. Instead, Abit focuses on their slogan, Speed, Performance, Power. Today, well be taking a look at Abits Intel i845GE based BG7E. If youre looking for a new motherboard and youre on a budget, stay tuned to find out if the BG7E should be on your list. Lets start off by first taking a good look at the official specifications for the Abit BG7E.

.:: Specifications ::.

Processor
- Supports Intel Pentium 4 Socket 478 processors with 400/533 MHz Front Side Bus - Supports Intel Hyper-threading technology

Chipset

Intel 845GE/ICH4 chipset Supports Hi-Speed Universal Serial Bus (USB 2.0) Supports Ultra DMA 33/66/100 Integrated graphics architecture yields higher 2D/3D performance
- Accelerated Graphics Port connector supports AGP 4X Interface (1.5V)

Memory

- Three 184-pin DIMM sockets (unbuffered Non-ECC DIMM) - Supports 2 DIMM DDR 200/266/333 or 3 DIMM DDR 200/266 (Max. 2GB)
- On board ALC650 6-Channel CODEC - Professional digital audio interface supports 24-bit Optical S/PDIF Out

USB 2.0

- Supports 6 Ports USB 2.0 at 480 Mb/sec transfer rate

Onboard LAN

- On board 10/100M PCI Fast Ethernet Controller - 10/100M Operation supports ACPI

System BIOS

- SOFT MENU III Technology - Support BIOS Protect function adjust by BIOS - Supports Plug-and-Play (PNP)
- Supports Advanced Configuration Power Interface (ACPI) - Supports Desktop Management Interface (DMI) - Write-Protect Anti-Virus function by AWARD BIOS

Internal I/O Connectors

1 AGP slot, 5 PCI slots 1 x Floppy Port supports up to 2.88MB 2 x Ultra DMA 33/66/100 Connectors 2 x USB headers, 1 x IrDA header 1 x CD-IN, 1 x AUX-IN
Back Panel I/O Connectors
1 x PS/2 Keyboard, 1 x PS/2 mouse 1 x Serial Port connector, 1 x VGA connector, 1 x Parallel Port connector 1 x S/PDIF Out connector Audio connectors (Center/Sub, Surround Speaker) Audio connectors (Front Speaker, Line-in, Mic-in) 2 x USB, 1 x RJ-45 LAN Connector

.:: Package ::.

When you open up the package dont expect to find much of anything spectacular. The package is nearly identical to that of the BE7-RAID we recently reviewed. For the BG7E, we have one ATA-66/100/133 ribbon cable, one floppy ribbon cable, one USB 2.0 expansion bracket with two
USB ports, one rear I/O panel bracket to accommodate for the rear I/O connector placements, and of course, the motherboard user manual and driver disc. Not much to get too excited about in this package. I would have liked to see Abit include a second IDE cable to accommodate users with multiple hard drives or optical disc drives.
One thing I have come to love about Abit is that they take the time to really go over the different BIOS options, no matter how high-end or low-end the motherboard is. Many other manufacturers will only skim the surface or not even cover the BIOS settings at all. Abit is a performance oriented manufacturer so it makes sense for them to spend a great deal of time explaining the available tweaking options to the end user. The manual also comes in several languages for universal use. Abit does a nice job covering the different aspects of the driver and software installations, and several of the other aspects that most other motherboard manufacturers will overlook.
The driver / software CD houses the drivers and software for the Abit 845 Series motherboards, so if youre looking to find a driver, this would be the place to do it. When you first insert the disc into your CD-ROM, the main window will pop up right to the driver install window. Here, you simply click which drivers to install and youre good to go. Within the main window, youll also be able to install any of the software you wish to. The included software suite is fairly nice with the inclusion of a hardware monitoring program, Adobe Acrobat, and Norton Anti-Virus. Overall the Abit BG7E comes along with a decent package, although Id love to see Abit throw in an additional IDE cable within the package. Itd be nice to see a feature or two added to this board such as RAID, although this motherboard isnt truly geared in that direction due to those two words that seem like nails on a chalkboard to any performance freak, integrated graphics.

.:: Feature Set ::.

The Abit BG7E motherboard comes along with ABIT SoftMenu Overclocking, 10/100M Ethernet On Board, 6-Channel Audio and Optical S/PDIF Out interface, Intel Extreme Graphics, Hyper-Threading Technology Support, and Enhanced 533MHz FSB, along with support for up to six USB 2.0 capable ports. Before we take our customary trip around the motherboard PC, lets take a look at the chips responsible for BG7E features.
.:: Layout: Socket Area ::.
As we always do, we'll now begin our tour of sorts around the PCB of the BG7E. Overall, the design of the BG7E is rather nice, although there are a few more notable items than we saw with the design of the BE7-RAID. The motherboard headers and jumpers are all easily accessible and are arranged nicely over the PCB. The BG7E uses a condensed PCB as we saw with the BE7-RAID. Since the board is not outfitted with numerous extra chips, this can allow for Abit to lower manufacturing costs, and therefore lower your cost to purchase the final product. The main 12V ATX power connector is in, what I believe to be, the best spot available once again, however the smaller four-pin power connector is not. Thats a quick overview of the more important aspects well be discussing, now lets get on with a more detailed look at the BG7E.
The BG7E comes along with the usual black heatsink retention system. Normally I quickly disassemble the retention mechanism before snapping the review images, though I left it on this time to bring up a minor issue which Ill be discussing momentarily. The processor socket is oriented lengthwise from north to south and reaches to the top edge of the PCB. The area to the right of the processor socket is fairly clean and clear of any larger capacitors. There is one, red, three-pin power connector that is going to be a little tough to get to when youre using a heatsink with the retention mechanism and have DIMM one filled. The spacing in-between the retention mechanism and DIMMs is rather small, and the fact that there are two small capacitors near the power connector doesnt help the situation much. Id prefer to see this connector located farther up the board in a slightly more accessible position.
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Tested Motherboard compatibility list:
The RocketRAID 1820 card is installed with maximum possible number of drives in the first slot closest to the AGP port. Testing consists of installing both Linux and Windows operating systems, using RAID 0, 1, 1/0, 5 and JBOD configurations, and executing a test suite to insure functional interoperability. Manufacturer ABIT ABIT ABIT ABIT ABIT ABIT ABIT ASRock ASUS ASUS ASUS ASUS ASUS ASUS ASUS ASUS ASUS ASUS Model IS7-M KT7E VP6 IT7 ST6 KG7 BE7 K7S8XE+ CUV4X-D A7V333 A7V600 A7V8X P4C800 P4P800 P4T P4T-E SK8N A7N266-VM Chipset Intel 865G Kt133 VIA 694X Intel 845 Intel 815EP AMD761 Intel 845/ICH4 SiS 748 VT82C694XDP Kt333 Kt600 Kt400 Intel 875 Intel865pe/ICH5R Intel 850 850/ICH4 Nforcepro Nforce1 BIOS Award Award Award Award Award Award Award AMI Award Award Award Award Award Phoenix Award Award AMI Award 1006 Beta 1005 P1.BIOS Version v1.6 03-30-2001 11-16-2000 PCI SLOT PCI-33 PCI-33 PCI-33 PCI-33 PCI-33 PCI-33 PCI-33 PCI-33 PCI-33 PCI-33 PCI-33 PCI-33 PCI-33 PCI-33 PCI-33 PCI-33 PCI-33 PCI-33 CPU P4 Athlon P3 P4 Celeron Duron Celeron Athlon Dual P3 Athlon Athlon Athlon P3 P4 P4 Celeron Opteron Athlon
HighPoint Technologies, Inc.
Motherboard Compatibility List Updated February 4, 2004
Manufacturer ASUS DFI DFI DFI DFI DFI ECS EPox EPox EPox FIC Giga Byte Giga Byte Intel Intel Intel Iwill MSI MSI Soltek SuperMicro
Model A7N8X KT400A Nforce2 Pro875 D875 Pro LanParty AD77-B P4IBAS 4PDA2V 8K5AI 8K5A3 AU13 GA-8IEXP Ga-60XT D850MV D845EBG2 D875PBZLK P4E K7D-Master K8D-Master-FAR SL-75KAV X5DPA-GG
Chipset Nforce2 Kt400A Nforce Utra Intel 875 Intel875 Kt400 Intel 845 Intel 865 Kt333 Kt333 Nforce Utra Intel 845E Intel 815EP Intel 850 Intel 845E Intel 875/ICH5 Intel 845E AMD762MPX K8T800 KT133 E7501
BIOS Award Award Award Award Award Award Award Award Award Award Phoenix Award Award Phoenix AMI Phoenix Award Award Award Award Phoenix
BIOS Version 06-23-2003 06-18-2003 7-24-2003 07-24-2003 V1.1d 08-15-2003 09-23-2002 10-25-2002 05-23-2003 06-21-2002 F8 MV85010A.86A.0038.P 15.0207241616 PT84520A.86A.0007.PBZ875.10A.86A.0047.P 12 36231A 12-13-02 07-15-03 Q8.1 V1.0
PCI SLOT PCI-33 PCI-33 PCI-33 PCI-33 PCI-33 PCI-33 PCI-33 PCI-33 PCI-33 PCI-33 PCI-33 PCI-33 PCI-33 PCI-33 PCI-33 PCI-33 PCI-33 PCI-66 PCI-33 PCI-33 PCI-X
CPU Athlon Athlon Athlon P4 P4 Athlon P4 P4 Athlon Athlon Athlon P4 Celeron P4 P4 P4 P4 Athlon MP*2 Opteron Duron Xeon*2
Manufacturer SuperMicro TYAN TYAN
Model X5DAL-G S2723 S2466
Chipset E7505 Intel 7501 AMD760MPX

BIOS Phoenix AMI AMI

BIOS Version V1.0 v1.02 4.04
PCI SLOT PCI-X PCI-X PCI-66

CPU Xeon Xeon Athlon