Abit VT7 Pentium 4 mobo

So how did the VT7 perform? To be honest you could do a lot worse if you're looking for a cheap Pentium 4 motherboard as the VT7 performs on par with Intel 865PE boards in SYSmark 2004, which is a feat on its own. It shows that the production motherboards performs as well as the VIA sample board, which hasn't always been the case in the past. The remaining benchmark numbers are equally good and there is no reason to choose an Intel chipset board over the PT880 chipset.

The Abit VT7 was tested using a 3.0GHz Pentium 4 Northwood, 512MB Corsair XMS PC3200LL memory, a Seagate Barracuda ATA V hard drive and an AOpen FX5900XT graphics card.

Abit has put together a very affordable motherboard with solid performance, and the VT7 deserves its Recommended award on these merits alone. If you want more features you'll have to look elsewhere, but at £44.59 Abit's first PT880 motherboard is a definite bargain.

Verdict

The VT7 is a rare gem in the budget motherboard segment, offering great performance as well as a low price. You don't come across products like this every day.

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