ABIT SD7-533 is a good performer and it has proven itself to be very close to the Ref SiS645 board we tested months ago. We just have a feeling that it could even be better as we are not able to run DDR333 under the Ultra timings. The best timings we did for DDR333 was Turbo. As we can see from the benchmark numbers, the SiS645 based ABIT SD7-533 brought down the price/performance ratio and gives you an assurance of performance even at DDR266 and better at DDR333.
This board has a number of onboard features like SoftMenuIII which makes overclocking it relatively simple. There is also a 6 channel audio on board, if paired with a DVD, you would have a simple yet powerful home theatre system. Installation is very straightforward, we did not encounter any major hiccups so far. The only annoying thing is the way the ram timings for SDR:AGPCI in the SoftmenuIII, they should have just indicated the FSB instead of putting up numbers and expect us to go and get a calculator to calculate what speed our RAM, PCI and AGP is running at. The manual also didn't explain very clearly on this point.
We were able to take this board up to a maximum of 115Mhz fsb. In fact, if you are able to get hold of a Engineer Sample of P4 which the multiplier can be reduced, it is possible to reach a high of 165Mhz. The SoftMenuIII also has user defined options which allows you to run async at 100/75 which has a similar effect of -33Mhz (e.g. CPU at 133Mhz, RAM at 100Mhz).
As I mentioned earlier in this review, we have had the opportunity to work with the SiS645 / 961 chipset on a variety of boards. SiS has certainly hit a homerun on many fronts with this chipset and MuTIOL® technology for sure. While I am a bit disappointed in the overall 3D performance of the chipset in comparison to the fantastic overall performance of the SD7-533, this is by far the strongest showing of an SiS chipset to date.
End users who use use their machine for a wide variety of tasks ranging from Photoshop, spreadsheet, audio/video editing as well as the frequent romps into the gaming realm will be the most satisfied with the SD7-533. For Socket 478 P4 users who primarily use their machine for work, office/business applications, this motherboard is at the top of my list.
The extremely confusing CPU/Memory/AGP/PCI settings is somewhat of a drawback. No one likes to have to break out the calculator to figure out what the final CPU to memory ratio will be with a setting like 48/80/30/15. That can easily be avoided by simply sticking with the settings you are familiar with if you are unwilling (or unable) to do the math involved in selecting an optimal setting for your system.
ABIT has certainly done a great job in delivering a board that wrings every last bit of performance out of the SiS645. Bundled with a good feature set, the SD7-533 is certainly a board that deserves to be at the top of your list when looking for a Socket478 motherboard.
What it all boils down to is whether I would recommend this board to my friends, family, and most importantly YOU. To that, I can honestly say, "Yes".
