ABIT Introduces KA7,
 AMD Athlon Based Motherboard With
 4 DIMM , 6 Data Buffers, 6 PCI and SoftMenuTMIII

Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C. March 24th 2000—Unveiling a whole new level of quality and sophistication for the Athlon platform, ABIT has released their long awaited Slot A board, the KA7. This board is designed to support AMD-K7 Athlon Slot A 200MHz FSB Processors using the VIA VT8371(KX133) /VIA 686A chipset. It also supports all normal industry standard functions for motherboards such as Advanced Configuration and Power Management Interface (ACPI). AGP 2X/4X and 100/133MHz SDRAM Memory Bus Settings. The KA7 uses four 168-pin DIMM sockets supporting PC100/PC133 SDRAM modules up to 2 Gigabytes MAX. (8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512MB SDRAM). In addition ABIT has added a new level of stability and performance with their famous 6 chip Data Buffer Set with ECC support.

6 Chip Data Buffer

With systems now at the 133MHz external clock speed, the circuitry design is crucial, especially concerning the SDRAM. Signal bandwidth and length need to be adjusted accordingly. One slight mistake could cause an error, so a high speed data buffer chipset called the Data Switch was developed to guarantee the proper RAM stability at 100MHz and 133MHz when using 4 DIMMs. 

The chips act as buffers to increase the stability and data integrity when using all 4 DIMM slots. It is recommended highly to prevent system crashes when using 8 banks of memory. Since this data buffer is not required, but only recommended you will not find it on most of other motherboards with 4 DIMM slots.

ABIT has included the data buffer with the KA7 for an added level of stability and performance. “When it comes to system crashes we don’t think you should gamble and reliability is our primary concern at ABIT.” Says ABIT’s Eric Boeing.

SoftMenu™ III

While you might find some of the features you want in some Athlon boards, only ABIT has Soft Menu™, and now only to be found on the new KA7, there is the newly designed SoftMenu™ III for the Athlon platform. The KA7’s SoftMenu™ III has some special added features and functions that will allow the maximum performance and enhancement tweaks specifically for Athlon based CPUs, like FSB settings from 100MHz to 183MHz in increments of 1, (84 settings). In addition to SoftMenuTM  Technology the System BIOS features and supports Award Plug and Play BIOS, Write-Protect Anti-Virus function by AWARD BIOS and is of course Year 2000 Compliant.

  Multi I/O Functions

The KA7 has on board Bus Master IDE  Ports supporting UDMA 33/66 as well as 6 PCI slots and 1 ISA slot for maximum upgradability, most other boards only have 5 PCI, but ABIT has added an extra PCI slot making the KA7 the most expandable and upgradeable board in its class. In addition to the normal serial and parallel ports the KA7 has 2 USB ports PLUS an extra header for 2 extra USB channels.  

ABIT KA7 Special Features:
DRAM Clock: Host Clock plus PCI clock (ex. Host Clock 100MHz, DRAM 133MHz)
6 PCI (Including 6 master signals with added IC)
AGP 4X (Up to 1GB/Sec Transfer rate)
USB (EXTRA USB Header for 2 extra USB channels)

About ABIT
ABIT Computer Corporation designs, and sells a complete family of award-winning mainboards and video cards that support industry-leading technology and provide leading quality and performance for system integration of computer components supporting a broad range of PC applications, such as for e-commerce, e-business, entertainment and education. Corporate headquarters are located in Taiwan. For more information visit the Company's web site at http://www.abit.com.tw

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Specifications and information contained in this press release are subject to change without notice.