The Test
In recent times, choosing a motherboard cannot be completely determined by a Winstone score. Now, many boards come within one Winstone point of each other and therefore the need to benchmark boards against each other falls. Therefore you shouldn't base your decision entirely on the benchmarks you see here, but also on the technical features and advantages of this particular board, seeing as that will probably make the greatest difference in your overall experience.
Click Here to learn about AnandTech's Motherboard Testing Methodology.
|
Test Configuration |
|
| Processor(s): |
AMD
Athlon 800
|
| RAM: |
1
x 128MB Corsair PC133 SDRAM
1 x 128MB Mushkin PC133 SDRAM |
| Hard Drive(s): |
Western Digital 153BA Ultra
ATA 66 7200 RPM
|
| Bus Master Drivers: |
VIA 4-in-1 v4.16 BMIDE Driver
|
| Video Card(s): |
NVIDIA
GeForce 256 SDR
|
| Video Drivers: |
NVIDIA
Detonator 3.76
|
| Operation System(s): |
Windows
98 SE
|
| Motherboard Revision: |
ABIT
KA7 Revision 0.21
|
|
Windows 98 Performance |
||
|
Sysmark
2000
|
Content
Creation
Winstone 2000 |
|
| ABIT KA7 - Athlon 800 (KX133) |
151
|
30.1
|
| ASUS K7V - Athlon 800 (KX133) |
154
|
32.2
|
| AOpen AK72 - Athlon 800 (KX133) |
148
|
30.4
|
| MSI
K7Pro - Athlon 800 (AMD 750 SuperBypass Enabled) |
153
|
30.4
|
| Gigabyte
GA-7IX - Athlon 800 (AMD 750 SuperBypass Enabled) |
154
|
30.7
|
| EPoX 7KXA - Athlon 800 (KX133) |
152
|
30.6
|
| ASUS K7V-RM - Athlon 800 (KX133) |
152
|
30.6
|
For more benchmarks visit our KX133 Review and our Athlon 1GHz Review
The Final Decision
While we're still leaning towards the ASUS K7V because of its added stability and the reliability that we've come to know and appreciate from ASUS, credit must be given where it is deserved and ABIT definitely deserves credit for the KA7. System Integrators and OEMs will probably want to explore the ASUS boards as potential options because of their on-board audio codec and AMR slot, but performance oriented enthusiasts will definitely appreciate the amount of control granted by the KA7.
The KA7 is definitely reminiscent of what we all should remember ABIT for, as the company that helped define what features we take for granted now and as the company that helped pioneer the overclocking community.
ABIT hasn't had the greatest success in recent history, especially with all of the competition out there offering very ABIT-like options, but the KA7 is definitely one of the best KX133 motherboards available, thus helping to restore some of ABIT's unique qualities.
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