My ABIT NF7-S & Fortron Experience:

markgun

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Jul 5, 2002
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Whew, I just upgraded my MSI KT3 Ultra to the NF7-S (Version2) and I am impressed!

Anyways, the memory performance is around 20% higher, and to my surprise, the hard drive performance of my WD800JB is around 20% higher too?????? Has VIA always had such crappy hard drive performance? I’m running the hard drive on SATA with the provided adapter, which is actually supposed to slightly reduce performance. I’m just using this to improve my case’s airflow.

I’m running a 2 year old 256MB stick of Micron/Crucial PC2100 and a 6 month old 256MB stick of Crucial PC2100. And to my surprise, they’re operating flawlessly in dual channel mode @ PC2700 Speeds (2.5-3-3-6 @ 2.8V) with an FSB at 166MHz too. The modules are physically different in size as well. I ran Memtest86 for 12 hours without a hiccup. So those with older DDR memory shouldn’t be afraid of the NF2.

Soundstorm is awesome as well.

I upgraded my Antec 300W SmartPower to the Fortron P530XF530W. It’s MUCH quieter and it’s actually spitting out fairly COOL air. My case temps dropped around 5C. Thanks for the recommendation, Crashman!

My loose DIMM clamps/nubbins on my KT333 pissed me off for the last time. I always had to reseat my memory. Not anymore though :smile: .

I HIGHLY recommend the NF7-S & the Fortron P530XF530W. But if I had to start allover, I’d without a doubt go Intel.
 

Crashman

Polypheme
Former Staff
I tell people about Fortron quality, and they still stick to recommending only Antec/Enermax. It's almost like they think I work for the company or something. Fact is, I've been doing this a while, and Fortron saves me money in at least 4 ways;
1) Less chance of failure
2) Lower initial cost
3) Fewer customer returns on systems
4) Greater tolerance for heavy loads, I don't have to buy such a "big" supply to get good performance.

Considering the trouble I've had with Antec's economy power supplies (which are still just a bit more expensive than Fortron's), it's a done deal to go with Fortron when I have to buy new.

<font color=blue>Watts mean squat if you don't have quality!</font color=blue>
 

markgun

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Jul 5, 2002
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I am very pleased thus far! The voltages are near-perfect and hardly fluctuate under load. I wanted to get the 400W one, but the 530W was too tempting for just $10 more. Too bad it's a complete overkill for my system. But that doesn't bother one bit cause I still paid less than I would have for an Antec TruPower.
 

Crashman

Polypheme
Former Staff
The good news is, since you went overkill, you probably got better heatsinks internally, and the thing is at lower stress, so that you may never actually put enough load on it to kick the fan up to full speed.

<font color=blue>Watts mean squat if you don't have quality!</font color=blue>
 

markgun

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Jul 5, 2002
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Hrm. I just noticed that my monitor doesn't make an annoying hum like it used to when viewing a mostly white screen. And I'm using the same refresh rate/res. Another plus!