The chips behind the board

Powering the IC7-G is Intel's high-end 875P chipset. For more details on the chipset code-named Canterwood, see our review of the 875P. I'll just be covering some of the chipset's highlights.

With support for an 800MHz front-side bus, dual-channel DDR400 memory, CSA-attached Gigabit Ethernet, and AGP 8X, Canterwood's feature list reads like a Who's Who of high-end PC hardware. Of course, these features aren't unique to Canterwood; they're also shared with Intel's mid-range "Springdale" 865PE.

So how does Intel differentiate its high-end Canterwood from mid-range Springdale? With PAT, an androgynous acronym that stands for Performance Acceleration Technology. PAT aims to improve overall system performance with more aggressive internal timings inside the 875P north bridge chip's memory controller. PAT was supposed to be a Canterwood-exclusive technology. Much to Intel's chagrin, it appears motherboard manufacturers have succeeded in enabling PAT-like internal timings in their Springdale products.

PAT's migration to Springdale is great for consumers who now have access to Canterwood performance at Springdale prices, but it puts motherboard manufacturers like Abit in a tough position. Abit's Springdale-based IS7 should offer performance similar to Canterwood-based boards, which means Abit has some convincing to do if it wants users to trade up to the IC7-G.

With PAT enabled in Springdale, Canterwood's only remaining unique attribute is its support for ECC memory. ECC support isn't essential feature for enthusiasts and high-performance gamers, but the workstation crowd should appreciate it.

Abit pairs the 875P with Intel's new ICH5R south bridge chip. The ICH5R feeds the IC7-G's six USB 2.0 ports with a couple of extra ports to spare. Those extra internal ports can be used in conjunction with Abit's MediaXP drive bay insert. Intel has yet to embrace Firewire in its south bridge chips, so Abit uses Texas Instruments' TSB43AB23 to power the board's three IEEE 1394 Firewire ports.

On the audio front, the IC7-G's bountiful array of input and output ports is fed by the ICH5R's rather pedestrian integrated audio controller paired with the nearly ubiquitous ALC650 codec chip from Realtek. The ICH5R/ALC650 audio combo is adequate for casual listening and gaming, but anyone who's serious about audio quality will want to consider a discrete sound card or a motherboard that integrates VIA's new 24-bit Envy24PT audio chip.

It's worth noting that there appears to be some fidelity problems with the IC7-G's mic input, as chronicled in this thread over at Abit's forums. As far as I can tell, my board's audio outputs aren't affected at all; the audio quality just isn't anything better than satisfactory. Abit is apparently handling the problem through RMA channels and will fix any affected boards. We'll be looking into the issue further and will keep you updated with any new developments.

Traditionally, networking has been a south bridge feature, but the IC7-G's integrated Gigabit Ethernet is hooked up directly to the board's 875P north bridge via Intel's new Communications Streaming Architecture (CSA). With its Gigabit Ethernet controller hanging directly off the north bridge, users don't need to worry about high-speed network transfers consuming precious PCI or north bridge-to-south bridge interconnect bandwidth. This arrangement is especially crucial for Intel's new chipsets, since their north-south bridge links top out at only 266MB/sec.

Of course, any discussion of the IC7-G wouldn't be complete without mentioning the Rubycon capacitors that Abit uses all over the board. Rubycon capacitors are considered among the best, and they were largely immune to the cap-busting fiasco that plagued far too many motherboards not so long ago. The fact that Tyan uses Rubycon capacitors on their high-end server boards is a shining endorsement of the capacitors' reliability, too.

Serial ATA RAID, twice
When it comes to storage, particularly Serial ATA, the IC7-G is loaded. Check it out:

Not only does the board's ICH5R south bridge support two channels of ATA/100 and a couple of Serial ATA ports, there's also a Silicon Image 3112 Serial ATA controller serving up two more Serial ATA ports. The Sil 3112 controller supports RAID 0 and 1 arrays, which nicely compliments the ICH5R's support for Serial ATA RAID 0. Later this summer, Intel will apparently be offering a software update that will introduce software RAID 1 support to the ICH5R, too.

Does the IC7-G really need two Serial ATA RAID solutions? Technically, no, but I'd rather have the Sil 3112 than an ATA/133 RAID chip. With two Serial ATA RAID controllers, users can easily mix and match independent RAID 0 and 1 arrays to balance redundancy and performance with the latest high-performance Serial ATA drives.

Because it's integrated right into the south bridge, the ICH5R's Serial ATA controller has access to more bandwidth than the integrated Sil 3112, which hangs off the PCI bus. That probably won't make a big difference when it comes to single drive performance, which we'll test in a minute, but it could become a bigger issue in systems with multiple drives and PCI devices all running at once.

Laying cable
As far as bundles go, the IC7-G is far behind extra-packed motherboards like Chaintech's Zenith 9CJS and DFI's LANParty series, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Abit includes all of the essentials. Two Serial ATA cables and power adapters are included in the box, along with rounded IDE and floppy cables. Normally, I'd gripe about the inclusion of only one IDE cable, but since Abit also throws in a Serillel ATA/100-to-Serial ATA adapter, it's not an issue.

And that's about it. In theory, the lack of extras should make the IC7-G cheaper than its Canterwood-based competition, but you'll have to purchase that 5.25" drive bay port cluster, case strap, and memory card reader separately if you want them.