Like its predecessor, the ABIT KT7E and KT7E RAID uses the same 1/6/1 (AGP/PCI/ISA) slot layout. This is another one of the few AMD K7 motherboards to use the ISA slot over the CNR or AMR slot, this a welcomed feature by most users. The ABIT KT7E series uses a standard AGP4x slot over the new AGP Pro slot. While very few video cards use this slot it would be nice to see it there when the cards come out using this slot (possibly some GF3 video cards).
- KT133E Chipset
Whats this? A new chipset from VIA, Well yes and no. The KT133E chipset is a new revision chipset designed to replace the KT133 chipset as being low cost to the motherboard makers. VIA have spec’ed this chip to only run 200MHz FSB, we shall see if VIA have improved its overclocking with this new revision chipset. Paired with the VIA 686B Southbridge the KT7E series supports ATA-100 IDE, AC’97 link, 4 USB ports and ACPI power management. Like all of ABit’s KT133 range of motherboars the KT133E Northbridge is cooled by ABit’s active cooling HSF which has proven to give extra MHz out of a chipset in the past.
- RAID Support?
As we can see from the picture above, the KT7E has the solder points to add the infamous HPT370 IDE RAID controller and extra IDE ports to support RAID 0, 1, 0+1, However, we have not seen any KT7E RAID versions on the market but we are assured but ABIT that there will be a KT7E RAID motherboard soon.
- Overclocking
What ABIT motherboard would be complete without its overclocking features, and this board is no different. The KT7E like its brothers the KT7 and KT7A supports the reliable and flexable Softmenu III. Softmenu III is ABit’s very own BIOS overclocking tool. Within the BIOS you can set the FSB of the CPU from 100Mhz all the way up to 200MHz (200MHz DDR to 400MHz DDR) in 1MHz increments, quite a handy feature to squeeze that extra speed out of your CPU. Along with its remarkable FSB settings you can also adjust the CPU multiplier from 5x all the way up to 15x, now thats flexable. Also, Softmenu III allows you to change the CPU core voltage and I/O voltages within a safe limit so as not to totally distroy the CPU.
