Abit AI7 introduced

Abit introduced the AI7 last Friday, September 19. It's an 865PE based board with a dedicated uGuru processor to offload certain functionality from the CPU. There is no mention of an availability date in the press release, and there is no pricing on pricewatch.

Abit's press release is here: http://www.abit-usa.com/news/2003/20030919.php

Abit's description of uGuru is here: http://www.abit-usa.com/technology/uguru.php

A picture of the AI7 is here: http://www.hardocp.com/image.html?image=MTA2NDE5NzgxOXpFSmRRUGNzcjJfMV8xNV9sLmpwZw==

Any comments from the Abit experts out there? Does the uGuru have promise -- or just headache potential?

Regards,
Good Karma

Man this looks awfully good to me. The idea of being able to overclock, set voltages, mem timings in Windows in real time is very appealing to me. Like setting it up specifically for a game and then being able to change it back without ever having to reboot or enter the BIOS. Stuff like this should be been done a long time ago. I am anxious to see this board perform. Doesn't have the OTS though and it's not a i875 chipset even though Abit hints that it should outperform it.

While the utility may be handy, the only way it can increase performance is if you compare it to another board running some crap monitoring software in memory at all times. Simple not loading monitoring software when windows loads will do as much for performance as the Abit solution.

The board does look enticing though. It looks like a re-work of the IS7, and that is not a bad thing at all. My IS7-E flat flies and defines the peak of the value curve for PC motherboards. So I wouldn't pay a lot extra for the new version, but on the other hand I wouldn't shy away from it if the price is reasonable.

One thing that does concern me is that the awesome performance Abit generates with 865pe is dependant on the GAT PAT-like option. Intel claimed that they were disabling this feature in hardware to keep people like Abit and Asus from enabling the normally dormant PAT function in 865 chipsets. Apparantly this hasn't happened, and may not, but I would be aware of the situation in any event.

While the utility may be handy, the only way it can increase performance is if you compare it to another board running some crap monitoring software in memory at all times. Simple not loading monitoring software when windows loads will do as much for performance as the Abit solution

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I didn't quite get that. What I would like about it is say I have a 2.8C running stock. Then I want to play a game so I could then use the 'uguru' to overclock say to 3.4 gig with tighter mem timings and voltage increases without having to reboot the computer and doing it in the BIOS. The when finishing the game, I could go back to the 'uguru' and change it back to stock. That sounds really cool to me.

The point was that there is no performance benefit to this feature. It may be convenient, but but system will run just as fast if affect the same settings in the bios. Personally I focus at attaining a truly stable configuration, and run it there all the time. So for me this type of technology, although certainly interesting, doesn't have a huge attraction.

I realize there would be no more performance benefit than doing the same thing in the BIOS but a great benefit being able to do it in real time without rebooting and entering the BIOS. You say you would have no use for it and that's cool. But I would have a use for it because I would see no point in leaving it at extreme overclocked settings when not playing games (that would be the only time I would want the enhanced performance of all I could get). I see no reason to leave it at those overclocked settings in 2D for example. Seems like this would just be easier on the system to only use it when one really needed it instead of all the time. It will be interesting to see how well this feature actually works. Things don't always work out as advertised.

Considering the section of my post you quoted dealt with the perfomance aspect, it was hard for me to tell that you understood this portion of the discussion.

I'm not saying I have no use for this type of feature, but that it is of minor importance to me. Different strokes for different folks. I don't like to operate my system with settings that I feel are unsafe for any amount of time, but if I can get a significant overclock with safe settings it's going to be run that fast even though it may be overkill for some applications.

I seen this board, and I have to say that I don't get it. Why? unless it can offer some sort of enhancement, and it only seems design to allow for software ocing, which I personally shy away from. Its almost like a giommick rip off of MSI's "dynamic overclosking" woo hoo big deal, board is unstable as hell, and I bought MSI once. . . once was enough.

BTW there is already a way to tweak the fsb and agp/pci clock on the fly using a software utility called clockgen, can be found at the same sight where you download the CPU-Z prog, and sepcifically supports the IS7.

I will stick with the old fashioned way myself.

The old fashion way may still end up being the best (it's been so far) after that feature in the board is really tested. I know that some other software programs have attempted to do this, I have even tried it in the past (back in the days of one of my old bx chipsets with not good results). Problem with those is they have to try to figure everyone's chip and then try to make it compatible with everyone's system. Abit's may well work better being it's specific to the one board and it's got some hardware involved. Time will tell if this is really a viable alternative to the old fashioned BIOS way. But it would be nice to have BIOS settings that could be adjusted in Windows that work just as stable, IMO. Gonna be interesting to see what happens if the settings were set too high and Windows crashed.

You should try clockgen. It specifically supports the Abit boards, and has proven to be as stable as making changes in bios, and allows for several different clock settings. Won't let you do anything else, but it does work. I use it to amp my system up for game play, and then go back to the 110% settings for daily routines.

Where do you get clockgen.

WOW, Lookie the size of them caps....... I gotta know how that baby runs !!!