The most popular chipset in this group is the top-line Intel 875P that supports dual channel DDR memory and also the latest 800MHz FSB (Front Side Bus) of the Northwood C Intel Pentium 4 processor.

Naturally 875P also supports Hyper-threading, but as it is targeted at the workstation market 875P also supports ECC (Error Correction Code) memory, which is more expensive than regular DDR memory as it has nine chips on each module rather than the usual eight chips. In addition, the checking procedure to ensure that data has been correctly transmitted causes a performance penalty.

There was no way that Intel was gong to allow its flagship chip to be slower than its junior brother in the 865 family, so the company introduced a technology called PAT (Performance Acceleration Technology) that allegedly only works on 875P and not on other chipsets. This merits a price premium for 875P and the Abit IC7-G costs a fairly steep £130 plus VAT. You get a fair amount in the package, but there are far more accessories and software packaged with the DFI and MSI motherboards.

The over-riding impression of the IC7-G is of a quality package. The box itself is big and heavy and more understated than any Abit product we have seen before. Inside are some discreet white boxes containing rounded IDE cables, a Serial ATA cable and a back bracket with two USB 2.0 ports and two Firewire ports.

You also get an Abit Serillel adapter. This little feller sound like a spelling mistake but instead it plugs onto the back of a standard parallel ATA hard drive so you can connect it to a Serial connector on the motherboard. Very few of us have Serial ATA hard drives at present, and this gizmo means that the connectors on the motherboard don't go to waste. The driver CD is specific to this motherboard, as is the driver floppy for the Serial ATA controller.

Of course the most important thing is the motherboard itself, and it is very impressive. The Intel ICH5R Southbridge controls two Serial ATA connectors while a Silicon Image chip controls another pair, and in addition there are two Parallel ATA controllers, so you could connect up to eight devices to this motherboard. The integrated audio is six-channel and has optical input and output for digital connection.

Also on the backplate are four USB 2.0 ports, a Firewire port and Gigabit Intel LAN (Local Area Network), which is 10/100/1000Mbps rather than the more usual 10/100Mbps.

As Abit includes an AGP Pro 50 graphics card slot, there is a suggestion the IC7-G is intended for the workstation market, but there is no doubt the Abit board would make an excellent gaming platform if your budget will stretch that far.