The first thing you notice about the KT7-RAID is the cooler on the chipset. No wimpy green heatsink here. Instead Abit chose to add a full heatsink fan to keep the hot VIA chipset nice and cool.

Look at the center of the Socket and you will notice a temp probe sticking out. This is much improve over the old temp probe wire Abit use to give you. The CPU handle is no longer made of metal and won't interfere with the use of big heatsink so important to overclocking.  

The layout of the KT7-RAID is very well done. There is room for a big cooler like the copper HedgeHog. The placement of the power supply connector is also very well done. The only problem I see is the CPU socket is placed too high up. When installed into my case, there is about an inch of space between the heatsink and power supply. This made it nearly impossible to remove the heatsink without first removing the power supply.

Check it out. Four IDE ports! Enough to hook up eight hard drives. It should be noted that you only get four IDE ports and ATA100 support if you order the KT&-RAID. You only get two IDE ports and ATA66 support with the KT7.

Not only did Abit  squeezed six PCI slots onto the KT7-RAID but they also managed to include a ISA slot as well! I can't remember the last time I had any ISA device but it was still a nice thought. Notice the fan header near the AGP slot (there are four headers in total). This can be use to power after market video card coolers.

Next page: How does it perform?

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