ABIT BH7 (845PE): Entry Level 800MHz FSB

ABIT BH7: Stress Testing

We managed to test the ABIT BH7 in several different areas and configurations, including:

1. Chipset and motherboard stress testing was conducted by running the FSB at 218MHz.
2. Memory stress testing was conducted by running RAM at 333MHz and 400MHz at the most aggressive timings possible.

Front Side Bus Stress Test Results

At 218MHz FSB we did not encounter any reliability issues with the ABIT BH7 (at least issues that we could notice in the small timeframe we tested this motherboard). At this speed we were able to run 24 hours of Prime95 torture tests without a single failure. We reran our gaming suite (Unreal Tournament, Quake 3 Arena, Jedi Knight II) in addition to data compression and Word and Excel apps while those 24 hours of Prime95 torture tests were running in the background. We also found some time to run SPECviewperf and XMPEG to put even more stress on the BH7, but after all was said and done the BH7 came out a winner.

Memory Stress Test Results

Since all 845PE motherboards support the DDR333 standard, we obviously had to conduct some type of DDR333 memory testing. As usual, we decided to simply test the board in the most strenuous situation possible at DDR333 speeds, and that of course meant testing at the lowest timings with all DIMM slots occupied. Here were our first batch of results:

We're delighted that the ABIT BH7 is able to achieve these memory timings with all memory banks filled and running at 333MHz DDR. These DRAM timing results matches the results we experienced with the ABIT IT7 Max2 V.2, ABIT's cutting-edge 845PE motherboard. We look forward to testing ABIT's first dual DDR Pentium 4 motherboard, which will come once Intel releases their 865 and 875 chipsets in April and May.

DDR400 memory speeds should be more challenging for the ABIT BH7, as neither Intel nor ABIT has validated for DDR400 operation, especially when all memory banks are filled. Here were the best results we could achieve at 400MHz DDR:

These are actually the second best memory timing results we've been able to get with an 845PE motherboard, tied with the Albatron PX845PEV Pro and just a hair below the ASUS P4PE (active to precharge of 5T instead of 6T). This is impressive in case you didn't already catch the hint.

As usual, we ran several memory stress tests and general apps to make sure all these timings were stable. We started off by running Prime95 torture tests; a grand total of 24 hours of Prime95 was successfully run at the timings listed in the above charts. We also ran Sciencemark (memory tests only) and Super Pi. After all was said and done, the ABIT BH7 was able to withstand each of these memory stress tests.