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LOSTCIRCUITS		SHORTCUTS: Top Page, VRM musings At One Glance Bundle, Layout Connectors, BIOS Test Configuration Memory Performananc I/O Performance Winstones Gaming Performance Overclocking Conclusions Your comments? ABit Mainboards Online
ABit BH7    The Legend Lives On
(Review by MS, March 31, 2003)

Five years ago, Abit's BH6 changed the ways of the BX-chipset boards and set the switches for the path towards jumperless boards as we know them today. There has not been any BH"X" board since on the market but the legend entwining around the BH acronym has lived on. Needless to say that a continuation of the series should be something special like a limited edition board. Or rather, since, courtesy of a lack of volume, limited editions don't make money, maybe a limited features edition...

Well, that doesn't sound quite right but essentially it is the venue that Abit has pursued with the BH7, sort of the Taiwanese equivalent of a British Roadster where aircondition would be a faux-pas and a radio would only distract from the cultivated roaring of the engine. Needless to say that not all features will make sense.

Paint it orange and you have something that sticks out from the crowd. If you own one, everybody thinks you are a tough guy. Kind of funny how that goes but if you are searching for the equivalent of four double-barrel carburettors, take a look at the VRM Abit threw on that board. And then, there are the little annoyances to quibble about...

If there has ever been one single mainboard that has shaped a manufacturer's reputation, that board would probably be ABit's BH6 released in 1998. Based on the Intel 440BX chipset, the BH6 offered a wealth of new features in the SoftBIOS along with its most famous feature, that is, the 66/100 MHz FSB selection in the BIOS. As a consequence, BH6 owners were the first to be able to take a garden-variety Celeron, simply select the 100 MHz FSB instead of taping the infamous B21 pin and get on with their lives.

ABit had a few other boards in between, some were good, some were better but none ever caught up with the success and the reputation of the BH6. There was no BH"X" board either to continue the naming legacy. Until now, that is. A few weeks ago ABit announced the BH7 using the slogan "The Legacy Lives On". Needless to say that the BH7 had to be based on an AMD K7, er, make that P4 platform.

Arguably the best bang for the buck right now when it comes to Intel performance desktop chipsets is the i845PE chipset. A chipset alone does not make a mainboard yet, there are a few other things required and especially when it comes to continuing the BH6 legacy, it should be something special. Overclocking capabilities have been in the spotlight for some time and have become some kind of litmus test for the quality of the design as well as the components used.

All the features that make the BH7 a BH7: Quadphase VRM with dual channel driver chips and asymmetric upper and lower FETs and one single brand of high quality Rubycon low ESR capacitors, click for larger picture.

With respect to design issues, the voltage regulator module is probably the most critical design complex and with the BH7, ABit is going all the way using the full capability of Intersil's HIP 6301CB programmable controller. That is, all four phases are enabled and to push things a bit further, internally, each phase is subdivided into two asymmetric MOSFETs with different timing characteristics for p- and n-channel to provide "staggered" switching.

Another issue that has been in the spotlight over and again is the problem with electrolytic capacitors and the plagiarized, flawed formula for the filling solution leading to massive failure of boards all around the world. Some manufacturers are somewhat above this mess, notably Nichicon and Rubycon appear not to be affected by the disintegration of capacitors. It is certainly a move in the right direction to stick with one brand of known good quality capacitors and this is exactly what ABit has done on the BH7, using Rubycons and Rubycons only, regardless of size, voltage or capacitance.

Anyway time to look at the BH7 in more detail.

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