Abit to enter low-price motherboard market as well!

[Guru]

http://www.digitimes.com/NewsShow/Article.asp?IR=N&ClassID=100&datePublish=2002/05/30&pages=14&seq=95

Seeing that demand from the clone market has continued to wither, Abit Computer has decided to expand its business further into the low-end motherboard market this month, following the lead of Asustek Computer and Foxconn Electronics (the registered trade name of Hon Hai Precision Industry).

Company president Edwin Lin said that Abit is planning to launch two lines based on the SiS645 chipset from Silicon Integrated Systems (SiS) and Intel’s 845GL chipsets. Prices of the new boards will be quoted higher than products made by Asustek’s Hua Ching (transliterated from Chinese) subsidiary and Foxconn’s First Tech.

Among the second-tier board makers, Abit is the only company that has landed OEM orders. According to sources, an OEM client in Singapore already closed a deal with Abit, placing orders for new Pentium 4-based barebone systems.

Ohn my GAWD they are going to start selling MOBOS thats has blown caps straight out of the box!!!!

[dZeus]

yeah, how on earth can they possible go _more_ lowend than their current line of boards?

[Wombat]

Maybe this is a good thing. Abit hasn't made quality boards since the bx days. Hopefully they'll actually start charging low prices to match their shoddy boards.

[The PIT]

Originally posted by dZeus
yeah, how on earth can they possible go _more_ lowend than their current line of boards?

I was wondering that.

[PeTe]

So whats so wrong with these Abit boards:

AMD:
ABIT KR7A
ABIT AT7-Max

INTEL:
ABIT IT7-Max
ABIT TH7-II

Comments from [H]ardOCP.. about IT7-Max

"ABIT did their homework, and it shows, from the layout and design to innovative new features. The performance of the IT7 is nothing short of fantastic. Combined with the great overclocking ability of this board and its features and outstanding flexibility, the IT7 is not only the easiest board to recommend to anyone looking for a Pentium4 board, but the easiest board to recommend to anyone buying a new motherboard, regardless of platform."

Yeah, Abit sure does suck.. NOT.

Its funny how on EVERY forum there is atleast one brand or pc hardware that people LOVE to HATE.

PeTe

Ps. MY KT7 is still live and kicking [ not to mention working just fine ].

[The PIT]

Don't believe what the reviewers tell you. Abit lost a lot a over the early Via based boards the KT7 133R being particularly bad. This also got good reviews. The best way to buy a product is too search various forums.
Either reviewers don't test the boards properly, sponsored by the manufacturer or they don't have the board in their hands long enougth for problems to arise.
I had an Abit BX board with no problems the Via based one should have never left factory.

[PeTe]

So actually you have nothing bad to say about ANY of those boards... and btw, that reviewer actually said that he now uses that same board on his own comp.. so maybe it just is as good as he claims ? Or atleast nothing as bad that you have here commented.

FYI, i too had a Abit BX board and had VERY little problems with my KT7, and its still pretty fast.

PeTe

[DentyCracker]

Lucky you PeTe. I have a KT7 non-raid 686A, and it isn't too bad. The only problem i have with it now is that it won't work with my Logitech Quickcam Express Webcam in XP. I have used that webcam in the same machine under linux and win98se, and in XP on other KT133 based boards. I thought the problem was that the onboard usb had a problem so I obtained a usb 2.0 board and the webcam is now almost usable. I am going to try George's pci latency patch and see if that helps. I bought this board at the time because it was the only one available that I could change everything in the bios in order to overclock. I think what people are saying is that Abit boards are usually more expensive than say MSI and are usually less stable.

[PeTe]

Well "less stable" was very mildly put if you read those comments. If you dont like Abit boards, just dont buy them. No use bashing any product that you havent even tried.

But, like i said, people LOVE to HATE. Ask any of these guys what they think about ATI drivers. Ill bet that most of them will say that ATI's drivers are the crappiest drivers... ever made. Even if they have NEVER had ATI cards.

Like Matrox didt have *ucked up drivers when the G400 came out. Uuuh, i can still remember that whining.. RELEASE THE TurboGL.. sure hope that Matrox has GOOD drivers ready for Parhelia.

[ But i secretly hope that those drivers will suck at the begining, so i can watch you guys moan a bit. ]

PeTe

[Tempest]

Aside for the fact that my Abit KA7-100 didn't run any memory higher than 133 MHz Normal settings, had a damn noisy AGP bus and blew its capacitors a couple of months after its 1-year guarantee ended, there was nothing MUCH wrong with it...

Now I have an Epox 8K3A+ and to quote an old song from U96: "Call it love, call it sin, it's the state I'm in - feels like in heaven"

ps. But I think Abit must have learned something from the KA7 and KT7 days.

[Jammrock]

Abit have always performed very, very well. The problem with Abit has been that their boards day 2-3 months after the warranty expires.

My wholesaler just picked up Abit. They have some great concept boards, but after my past 2-3 boards died after 14-18 months, I'm not too keen on buying one.

Jammrock

[Gurm]

Look, the point is this - ABIT has a reputation for using "bleeding edge" hardware - this means they overclock like crazy, but their failure rates are higher than normal.

Add to this the fact that they traditionally use experimental stuff from Highpoint, and you have a recipe for flipping a coin... heads you win, tails your caps blow up.

ABIT's quality control sucks ass. Is the board design itself bad? Heck no, some of them are quite nice. Will the board work out of box? Well, they're getting better - I'd guess they're up to 75% now.

- Gurm

[RichL]

Originally posted by PeTe
But, like i said, people LOVE to HATE. Ask any of these guys what they think about ATI drivers. Ill bet that most of them will say that ATI's drivers are the crappiest drivers... ever made. Even if they have NEVER had ATI cards.

Like Matrox didt have *ucked up drivers when the G400 came out. Uuuh, i can still remember that whining.. RELEASE THE TurboGL.. sure hope that Matrox has GOOD drivers ready for Parhelia.

[ But i secretly hope that those drivers will suck at the begining, so i can watch you guys moan a bit. ]

PeTe

Once, young gl****opper, I too was skeptical of the crowds screaming about the quality of ATI drivers.
So, I purchased an ATI card for a system I was building.
Very soon I realised the masses were correct. ATI drivers are unmitigated sh*te.
Matrox drivers might not be the fastest and best optimized ones around, BUT, crucially BUT, I've never had a Matrox videocard driver that FUBAR'ed my system, unlike the ATI Radeon VE drivers I used.
For the record, I swapped the Radeon VE for an old 3dfx Voodoo3000. Not only is quality better, the drivers are stable and actually work with everything tried.

[Pace]

RAID just broke on my SA6R.

[Dr Mordrid]

I'm with Gurm. ABIT takes too many chances in their designs and thinks that HighPoint knows how to make a controller. Not good on either count.

I once had an ABIT BX6 blow so many caps so fast it sounded like someone was making popcorn

That said; if they are now moving to the SiS chipsets there might be hope for them provided they don't go nuts with the design again. SiS's chips are now VERY solid, so if there are problems with those boards we know who to blame

Dr. Mordrid