ABIT AI7 Review: Budget Performance Motherboard

     The first computer I ever built had an ABIT BM7 motherboard, based on the Intel BX440 chipset. It ran an overclocked socket 370 Celeron 333mhz CPU. That was state of the art back about 5 years ago. My Voodoo 2 SLI add in card was bad mojo back then. I could Play Quake GL like no ones business. Wow, that seems like a lifetime ago. ABIT was the first company to embrace the overclocking community, and they still maintain that commitment today. The competition for your overclocking dollar is fierce these days. Companies like ABIT, DFI, Albatron, Epox, Gigabyte and of course ASUS are pulling out all the stops to be on top. Our ABIT AI7, Intel 865PE / ICH5R chipset based motherboard review will examine one of ABIT's latest efforts in the high performance "budget" segment. Does ABIT still have what it takes? You might be surprised...

     When planning a system to build, one can look at the budget in one of two ways. Up front, where you plan around how much you have to spend, or you can spec it all out first and have a severe case of sticker shock when you are done.  If you plan properly you can end with with nearly all the performance you would get with an unlimited budget.

     By selecting the AI7 based on the Intel 865 chipset, over the more expensive 875 chipset based alternatives, you can end up with a system that performs within a few percentage points of top dogs, and use the money toward some good quality PC4000 RAM.