Abit TH7IIRaid & P4 Skt. 478 P4 CPU!

 
This is just a bit of "show and tell", so to speak, on an all new motherboard from Abit and the new Socket 478 Pentium 4 CPU!  The TH7II-RAID is Abit's follow on product to our favorite P4 motherboard, the TH7-RAID.  The TH7II-RAID is designed around Intel's i850 chipset as well, except the board comes equipped with an "mPGA478" (Micro Pin Grid Array w/ 478 pins) socket to house Intel's latest CPU.

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On board ATA100 RAID of course is included and there are a few more bells and whistles the first rev of the TH7-RAID didn't have, namely Softmenu III support!

For full specs of the TH7II-RAID for the Socket 478 P4, click here!

The PLL used on the TH7II-RAID is from the same company that Abit uses for most Softmenu III designs, Realtek Semiconductor. 

Another very nice feature of the TH7II-RAID is one that was carried over form the original TH7.  The board has two small momentary button switches, for reset and power on functions.  This makes life ease for folks, like us here at HotHardware, that don't always install boards into a case for testing.  Simply plug in your cables, and power supply, hit the power on button on the board and she'll boot right up!

Finally, not to be forgotten is our first look at a live Socket 478 Pentium 4 CPU.  These things are tiny when compared to T-Birds or the Socket 423 Pentium 4.

Again, the mPGA 478 version of the Pentium 4 has, you guessed it, 478 pins.  There are many more power and ground pins in this version of the chip, which will help to stabilize the part at speeds at 2GHz. and higher.  Intel simply didn't have the mPGA 478 ready in time for launch of the Pentium 4, so they went with the PGA 423 package which was more mature at the time.  However, all furture clock speeds beyond 2GHz. will be in this new mPGA 478 package.  The PGA 423 design will support speeds up to 2GHz. but no higher.

That about covers our quick little tour of Abit's new TH7II-RAID Motherboard and Intel's new mPGA 478 based Pentium 4.  Look for a review of the TH7II-RAID in the days ahead and stay tuned for more on the mPGA 478 based Pentium 4!

-Dave

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