NOT your daddy's Abit board. SADLY.

Author's Rating:

Pros: Stable, reliable, and truly superior audio. Lots of USB. KT880, the best Via SocketA chipset.

Cons: NOT an enthusiat's board. Zero overclocking. MEAGER tweaking, less than some cheapo boards. False advertising.

The Bottom Line: 
If you want Abit's legendary overclocking features - dont buy this board - buy an ASRock. If you want an emasculated, but stable, kt880 board - it's worth 50 bucks.

Author's Review
Most geeks know that about 7 years ago, Abit's business model was transformed with a drive to make enthusiasts dream boards. The developement of Abit's jumperless, bios based, "Softmenu" cpu configuration utility was the most significant leap in performance tweaking feature sets in the motherboard world. The original incarnation appeared on the Slot 1, Intel BX chipset based "BE-6" motherboard. Since then, Abit has continued to blaze the tweaker's trail with one new enhancement after another, and fleshed out their boards with not just functional, but desirable on-board devices - such as gigabit ethernet, firewire, and surprisingly good on board audio solutions.
Today, Abit's place amongst the few preeminent board makers is due to this dedication - and unfortunately for buyers of the KW7 - has nothing to do with the design of this board. It does offer the appropriate features for any KT880 chipset based motherboard: Serial ATA, USB 2.0, 400MHz FSB support, and most notably, DUAL DDR400 memory support. It also includes the lovely Realtek ALC655 audio codec. Realtek's a/c's perform beautifully, and with a full, crystal clear, 6 channel output - including Digital Optical SPDIF In AND Out - no additional sound card is needed for all but true audio recording artists or studios. It also includes on board 10/100 networking which these days is entirely expected.
So what are the disappointments? A double whammy in that, despite Abit's reputation for building enthusiast boards - a reputation they promote with the gusto of a body builder on cocaine And steriods (just look at their homepage) - this board not only Doesnt have ANY overclocking features - but as well - Abit advertises this Specific board as supporting those features which is doesnt have.
Specifically:
1) Firewire. I bought this board when the Abit website listed it as built in, and *showed a picture of the board* on the website with the firewire present. When I emailed them about my board - their solution was to ignore me, but change the webpage and picture.
2)Softmenu. Softmenu is the area in BIOS where the user can select a) Front Side Bus speed. (e.g. 133, 166, 200MHz). This board, you can change 133 to 134, 135, and up to 165, but no higher. b) Also, agp/pci divisor. This is what allows you keep the motherboard stable when setting and 'off spec' FSB speed. c)multiplier. Take your 200MHz fsb speed, multiply by 10, and voila - your cpu is running at 2000mhz. Not on this board. d)CPU voltage. You can change this - but so what. It only makes your stock cpu run hotter. and e,f,g) memory voltage, (slightly useful), agp voltage (now pointless), and spread spectrum (if you care to use it). The one significant feature - h) CPU fast decode. If you enable this - it actually will boost performance - but you have to enable it by a jumper on the motherboard for it to work. That fact is poorly documented - and it entirely defeats the purpose of Softmenu's "jumperless" design, to require a jumper to enable it.
And the last smack in the face is, the manual for this board clearly states the above features do exist, when in fact, they dont.
So, how does the board perform? So, so. Yes, it does use the KT880 chipset - with Dual ddr support. I installed dual ddr400 cl2, 512mb modules, and "128 Bit, DDR400" was recognized. I benchmarked this board using 4 different programs, in 128 Bit (dual) and 64 Bit (single) channel memory modes - and the scores? Absolutely identical. Theoretically, Dual ddr should perform twice as fast - under the heaviest load. Via claims up to 50% increase under real world situations. My experience? zero. According to some review websites, with other brands of KT880 based motherboards, the performance increase is clearly measurable - and those other boards *equal* the performance of nvidia based dual ddr solutions. Not this board.
Compared to any other single channel ddr motherboards - this performs equally well, and in that situation, it's a lovely board. Abit claims to use Japanese capacitors - which do get old, and leak - taking the board out - and the Japanese caps are superior, and thus good. The board is also very pretty to look at. So, i do trust it is well built.
The back panel Full 6 channel out, with simultaneous mic and line in, *and* spdif In and Out - is the one Abit unique feature that stands out. But beware - Abit is now shipping a few boards that use the standard 3 jack out, no spidf solutions you would typically find on a cheap generic board. Not the KW7, but other Abit boards you might look at.
The board also does include LOTS of USB ports, front and back - so if you like USB peripherals, you'll be happy.
That's about all that's good. Stable, and nice audio.
Abit backs their boards with a 3 year warranty. Sort of. It's based on manufacture date - not purchase date - and, each year, what's covered reduces. In the 3rd year, you'd be better off buying a new replacment of the same model - as the price will drop.
The box includes a decent collection of cables, manuals, and drivers. No additional software worth mentioning. (no A/V is an unfortunate absence.)
I generally love abit boards, but in this case, like the value conscious, and admittedly useful VA-10 and VA-20 - nonetheless, it is clear that Abit has changed it's business model to include a significant 'value segment' line of motherboards - while riding on their reputation to delude buyers into thinking they are getting a great board at a fair price (and 'accidentally' advertising those (non-existant) performance features to boot.)
If you get a great price, and dont want any enthusiast features at all - it is a good, stable, reliable board - with very, very good on board audio. Otherwise, don't get suckered - buy ANY other KT880 chipset board - MSI, Asus, and yes, even AS Rock - and you'll have more overclocking and tweaking features, compared to this, the milktoast of KT880's.
2004/02/05
1) A bios update is available at abit's website. The bios is from Jan 25, 05 - but was not posted until Feb 25th. Given the kw7-g had a bios update release in january - there is no excuse for this (the same board without gigabit), board taking *longer* for an update.
2) here's a discussion thread for the kw7 http://forums.viaarena.com/messageview.cfm?catid=12&threadid=63647