The Package

The box is quite simple with a picture of ABIT's µguru chip on it.

Here is what you'll find inside the box :-

• One ABIT AI7 motherboard
• One 40-pin, 80-conductor IDE cable
• One floppy drive cable
• One CD containing the required drivers and utilities
• One User Manual
• One Quick Guide
• One Quick Installation Guide
• One USB 2.0 and IEEE-1394 cable with bracket
• One I/O shield
• One Serial ATA cable
• One Serial ATA power cable converter


Part of the package


The ABIT AI7 motherboard

The Layout

The board design is similar to the ABIT IC7 when it comes to the placement of the CPU socket, DIMM slots, north bridge, AGP slot and PCI slots.

The CPU socket orientation is unusual as it is rotated 45° counter-clockwise from the heatsink retention cage. The north bridge cooler looks much more attractive than those found on the ABIT IS7 or IC7 motherboards. It is identical to the IC7-MAX3 north bridge cooler.

CPU socket

It is common to find a 4-phase power solution on ABIT's Intel motherboards. ABIT announced that all their Intel i875P and Intel i865PE-based motherboard will be capable of supporting Prescott processors.

The AI7 has four DIMM slots which support DDR 266/333/400 in all slots while operating in either single channel or dual channel mode. The memory slots are grouped in two and color-coordinated to make it easy to set it up in dual channel mode. Each slot supports up to 1GB of memory. That means the motherboard supports up to 4GB of memory. All the connector were well placed except the floppy connector which was right at the bottom of the board.

The DIMM slots