Differences Abit NF7-S vrs AN7? NF7-S not NF2 400U?

NetTechie · Post by **NetTechie** » Wed Jun 09, 2004 9:37 am

I am considering buying either of these two motherboards. I have read reviews of them and mostly everyone talks about uGuru... but I notice, on NewEgg it says nForce2 SPP + MCP-T for the NF7-S, and AN7 says nForce2 Ultra 400 + MCP-T. Does this mean the NF7-S is not an ultra 400? Is there a noticable performance difference?

What other differences are there? I'm very focused on acoustics and anything to dampen them. The AN7 uGuru has some nice fan control features, does the NF7-S have something similar? I notice the sound codec is newer, does this make a big difference? I am a gamer and music listener, so good sound is important to me.

What else is different between them?

What are the bads about the AN7, what are the bads about the NF7-S?

tay · Post by **tay** » Wed Jun 09, 2004 10:01 am

Great info about both boards available from http://www.nforcershq.com.

The NF7-S was cheaper than the AN7 when i bought mine. It has dual channel just like the AN7. The biggest difference with the AN7 is micro-Guru which is of dubious benefit to most around here. Lets you change a lot of bios stuff from a windows interfaces.

NF7-S has two fan headers that speedfan can control. Speedfan also sets the cpu disconnect bit i n the nforce chipset so you get lower temps. (i get 43C with a 5v panaflo idle w/ 33C motherboard). On load the fan speeds up. Be warned that when controlling panaflos you have to select VERY low percentages for the fan to actually slow down. For instance i run at 3-4% speed.

Hope this helps

zoob · Post by **zoob** » Wed Jun 09, 2004 10:39 am

tay wrote:NF7-S has two fan headers that speedfan can control.

Sweet! That was the main thing that was driving me towards the A7N8X. Thanks for the info.

NetTechie · Post by **NetTechie** » Wed Jun 09, 2004 10:43 am

Great, so silence should be about the same on an7 and nf7-s.

Anyone know if there are performance related differences? I mean, if the nf7-s is not 400 ultra, what does this effect? Or is it 400 Ultra after all?

peerke · Post by **peerke** » Wed Jun 09, 2004 11:38 am

NetTechie wrote:Great, so silence should be about the same on an7 and nf7-s.

Anyone know if there are performance related differences? I mean, if the nf7-s is not 400 ultra, what does this effect? Or is it 400 Ultra after all?

I couldn't find the 400 ultra claim on my nf7-s board or the Abit-site but, if my memory serves me right, Abit used to claim it. Abit claims 400 Mhz support though, and I have it running at 200Mhz real clockspeed wich is the equivalent of 400Mhz ddr memory speed. So it does the business of a 400 ultra and there should be no speed difference between these boards.
Regarding the newer sound specification; there should be no difference as both boards use the exact same (and very good) hardware.
So this leaves the uGuru as the sole difference and I doubt it's worth the extra cost. It's just a little more convenient to control things in windows but there are alternative programmes doing the same for the nf7-s.

tay · Post by **tay** » Wed Jun 09, 2004 12:57 pm

Ugh. I wasnt quite clear in my above post, but the NF7-S is a nforce2 400 Ultra. This means it can run in dual channel DDR mode @ 400 Mhz DDR. This is identical to the AN-7. Performance is identical. Sound hardware is identical and good _IF_ you use the optical out IMO. Otherwise an SBLive is better never mind an audigy.

Zoob : The Asus board has a passive northbridge which is a plus. You HAVE to replace the abit chipset fan as it is lousy (I soldered mine to the 5v line). IIRC speedfan can only control 1 fan header on the ASUS (I could be wrong here tho, I tried an Asus A7N8X-E which is the non ultra nforce2 400 chipset).

Interitus · Post by **Interitus** » Wed Jun 09, 2004 1:49 pm

I'm an NF7-S owner and I looked at the AN7 as well.

A few things to consider...

1) The NF7-S NB cooler is loud. I replaced mine with the Zalman NB47 as I don't overclock, so my NB doesn't get that hot.

2) The NF7-S whether listed at Ultra 400 or not, uses the same chipset as the Ultra 400's and typically overclocks to at least 225 FSB with no problems at all, most go higher than that.

3) The AN7 as reported by Ed here does not allow for Vcore below 1.375. You may want to look into that...specially if you plan to try to undervolt...

4) The Asus boards don't allow for undervolting period. It will detect your CPU's default and let you adjust upward, but not downward. Since the NF7-S and Asus typically run about the same price, I'd personally spend 5 bucks on a Northbridge heatsink for the NF7 for the voltage options...speedfan will not control nor read the RPM from the NB fan so you can't really quiet it down without wiring work like mentioned above.

IMO the AN7 isn't worth the price just to be able to adjust settings from within windows. It was reported buggy at first as well, don't know if they've fixed that.

I'm extremely happy with my board. In fact if you're looking to buy one, I'm getting rid of an extra here shortly. PM me if you're interested

NetTechie · Post by **NetTechie** » Wed Jun 09, 2004 2:09 pm

Interitus wrote:1) The NF7-S NB cooler is loud. I replaced mine with the Zalman NB47 as I don't overclock, so my NB doesn't get that hot.

Right, I didn't mention that bec I was only comparing abit board to board. In either case I plan to do the same adding an nb47.

NetTechie · Post by **NetTechie** » Wed Jun 09, 2004 2:43 pm

peerke wrote:Regarding the newer sound specification; there should be no difference as both boards use the exact same (and very good) hardware.

tay wrote:Sound hardware is identical and good _IF_ you use the optical out IMO.

Carefully reading reviews, I noticed the NF7-S uses Realtek ALC650 codec, and the AN7 uses the Realtek ALC658 codec. One reviewer went so far as to say something like "it's nice to see abit has updated their aging ALC650 codec to the popular ALC658" or something like that. I don't know the difference, but there must be one?

EDIT:
Link to ALC650 Spec Sheet
Link to ALC658 Spec Sheet

I still don't know what to make of their differences exactly. ALC658 has a lot more features it looks like.

NetTechie · Post by **NetTechie** » Wed Jun 09, 2004 2:46 pm

tay wrote:Sound hardware is identical and good _IF_ you use the optical out IMO. Otherwise an SBLive is better never mind an audigy.

I read a thread here discussing how soundstorm blows the audigy 2 even, out of the water. Does the soundstorm leaves things to be desired?

Something for me as a gamer to consider is some games really stress the system w/their sounds, I sometimes have had to turn down sound quility for frames-per-second to be ok, soundstorm seems aimed at this kind of thing.

I do have to admit onboard sound for me has never been any good compared with the sblive value I have. But w/soundstorm this is supposed to not be the case? In fact, some go so far as to say it is better than a live 5.1 by far.... others say not, especially w/the asus soundstorm boards. (It seems asus soundstorm may be not that great for some reason.) All in all I read soundstorm is the best tho it seems.

tay · Post by **tay** » Wed Jun 09, 2004 3:27 pm

If you use analog out on the motherboards they must use the Realtek 650 or some crappy chip to drive the analog ports (digital to analog conversion). This is where the limit in sound quality is, since these chips arent in the same class as the SB chips. Soundstorm is not capable of driving analog on its own.

If youre using digital out (whether stereo or dolby digital stream) you will allow the Soundstorm chip to realize its potential since the Realtek chip now simply passes the digital stream from the soundstorm on.

With respect to fps for games, soundstorm is no better than the sb audigy series. Its probably not much better than sblives for cpu usage. Check anandtech they had a preview a while back (im too lazy). You wont lose or gain any fps (< 5% is my guess) with soundstorm in most circumstances.

Search the audio portion of the nforcershq site i posted earlier for details.

NetTechie · Post by **NetTechie** » Wed Jun 09, 2004 3:30 pm

Something interesting I just found:

hoot wrote:For one thing, not all soundstorm runs the same. The way a paticular mainboard manufacturer shields the APU is absolutely crucial. Think about the Asus A7N8X Deluxe rev 1.2 horrible shielding problems. The sound for a long time would chirp, and crack, and sqeal enlessly after about 30 min of gameplay. The Asus was not the only board to exhibit this, It happened to thosands of people, and still does.

So... asus did and sometimes does have a problem! This snipit came from this topic:
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview ... id=1306073

NetTechie · Post by **NetTechie** » Wed Jun 09, 2004 3:32 pm

tay wrote:If you use analog out on the motherboards they must use the Realtek 650 or some crappy chip to drive the analog ports (digital to analog conversion). This is where the limit in sound quality is, since these chips arent in the same class as the SB chips. Soundstorm is not capable of driving analog on its own.

If youre using digital out (whether stereo or dolby digital stream) you will allow the Soundstorm chip to realize its potential since the Realtek chip now simply passes the digital stream from the soundstorm on.

With respect to fps for games, soundstorm is no better than the sb audigy series. Its probably not much better than sblives for cpu usage. Check anandtech they had a preview a while back (im too lazy). You wont lose or gain any fps (< 5% is my guess) with soundstorm in most circumstances.

Search the audio portion of the nforcershq site i posted earlier for details.

That's good to know.

I did search around, didn't find anything to in-depth. Could u give me a pointer link? The reviews there seemed to be one paragraph!

tay · Post by **tay** » Wed Jun 09, 2004 4:26 pm

http://www.nforcershq.com/forum/viewfor ... 470b114514

Read the FAQ (sticky) in that forum. Check the diagram a few pages down in the FAQ and then browse around the forum. Be careful of anecdotal responses saying how much better this is or that is. I found a lot of false information especially on the anandtech boards. But once you read a few well chosen threads you'll know more than you cared for about nforce sound quality and soundstorm.

I think a setup where you have a dolby home theater system hooked to your nforce is the ideal scenario. Too bad its such a pain in the ass and expensive.

nova · Post by **nova** » Thu Jun 10, 2004 2:10 am

If I remember correctly NF7-S V2 is ultra 400

edit: my memory isn't so bad after all http://www.abit-usa.com/products/mb/pro ... =1&model=6

edit: more proof... http://www.abit-usa.com/products/mb/comparison.php

check under AMD K7 MOTHERBOARDS COMPARISON

tay · Post by **tay** » Thu Jun 10, 2004 4:15 am

NetTechie wrote:Something interesting I just found:

hoot wrote:For one thing, not all soundstorm runs the same. The way a paticular mainboard manufacturer shields the APU is absolutely crucial. Think about the Asus A7N8X Deluxe rev 1.2 horrible shielding problems. The sound for a long time would chirp, and crack, and sqeal enlessly after about 30 min of gameplay. The Asus was not the only board to exhibit this, It happened to thosands of people, and still does.

So... asus did and sometimes does have a problem! This snipit came from this topic:
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview ... id=1306073

As far as i know those problems are related to drivers and the realtek chipset. There is no sheilding in any sound card that I am aware of at ANY pricepoint. Be careful theres a lot of JUNK on the AT forums. I am too lazy to read the ALC650 vs ALC658 but I doubt the sound quality is suddenly improved. Search for updated DAC's in the specsheet if youre curious.

I wouldnt worry about the sound too much. Get the MB you want, if you dont like the sound quality just get the cheapest audigy you can find (about 40 for OEM versions).

good luck!

mrybczyn · Post by **mrybczyn** » Thu Jun 10, 2004 8:17 am

The best way to shield your sound card seems to be using an external sound card... Several USB models exist.

Cheers,
Mitch

Interitus · Post by **Interitus** » Thu Jun 10, 2004 9:48 am

I think you'll be perfectly happy with the onboard on the NF7-S. I used to have an audigy platinum and honestly since I didn't use it for home theater purposes, it's really an insignificant factor. You have to weigh what you're going to use it for vs. what it can do. If you're not going to go with the elaborate home theater setup, then why pay an extra ton of money for a soundcard that can do it better?

My experience is that for gaming and typical music listening purposes you won't see too big of a difference either way. Unless you're a big audiophile, the sound quality is going to be little difference if any. Honestly the only thing I miss about my audigy platinum is the front volume adjustment for my headphones, and that has nothing to do with the card itself.

Soundstorm and the Audigy make most use of digital outputs. Like mentioned before, the SB and the Soundstorm both are going to wind up crippled by the analog outputs that even some of the best computer speakers still use. I had a set of Klipsch Promedia Ultra 5.1's and they STILL use analog connections...

Lastly I'd stick by nVidia's drivers more than SoundBlaster's. I don't know if they've since fixed them but the first Audigy's were riddled with XP compatibility problems, mine went so far as to cause random reboots in XP before I finally found a homebrew driver that fixed the issue.

NetTechie · Post by **NetTechie** » Sun Jun 13, 2004 4:10 pm

That link about soundstorm... difinitively answered some very important questions.... thanks a ton!!!

Since the NF7-S 2.0 has 400 Ultra for sure (thanks for showing me this!), I'm thinkin there's no real reason to get an AN7... uGuru is nice, but since the NF has two controllable fan outputs, no incentive to get a AN7 that I can see... thanks.

I think I'll eventually get an external DAC decoder, like the extigy, if I'm not happy with soundstorm and it's crappy realtek dac.

*edit* Audigy 2 drivers are fixed now, and work wayyy better than the original audigy drivers ever did, as I understand.

NetTechie · Post by **NetTechie** » Sun Jun 13, 2004 4:55 pm

That board has a 'Nettechie' registered?!?!?!?!?!? I can't believe it....... when I first registered the name back a year or so ago, I did a google search, and nothing came up at all... some nettechie email, but nobody using it as an alias. How can this be

I will now be known as NetTechie2 on that board.