I'm about to order a new board and am wondering which one i should choose. There is only a $12 difference between them so price is negligable. I've got a Barty 2500 non-mobile with a SLK 900. Temps in my comp area are too high for a serious run at overclocking but I might use this setup to try my first watercool. I have 2x512 mushkin
2-2-2 special. So do I go tried and true NF7-s or the newer AN7. What do you guys think?

I have the NF7-S rev 2 and it has worked perfectly ever since I bought it. The NF7-S seems to be quite popular among the members here so i'd say go with the NF7-S.

There was a post like this a couple of weeks ago by someone else. I have both boards and like them both a lot. The AN7 has more 2 more USB ports on the back and a FireWire port. Not much else to say there. They both OC about the same for my CPU's so I don't think you can go wrong with either. The AN7 has more headroom for OC though I think as it have higher standard voltage adjustment settings in the BIOS.

Perfect Feral. That is what I have read but wanted an up to date opinion on these guys and you having one of each is great. I'm leaning toward the AN7 at the moment because of the higher voltage options and the updated soundstorm.

one tiny issue however, is the knowledge base and success rate of the NF7-S is alot bigger / better than the AN7 (voltmods, pencil trace tricks, supported hardware, etc), plus the custom BIOS'es for the NF7-S (Tictac and PR3ACH3R's HARDM3NU), last i heard, the uGURU feature was a little on the useless side...

i vote NF7-S

Quote: Originally Posted by Fu3lman one tiny issue however, is the knowledge base and success rate of the NF7-S is alot bigger / better than the AN7 (voltmods, pencil trace tricks, supported hardware, etc), plus the custom BIOS'es for the NF7-S (Tictac and PR3ACH3R's HARDM3NU), last i heard, the uGURU feature was a little on the useless side... i vote NF7-S

True dat! I don't mess with the whole volt mod stuff or custom BIOS's though. uGURU blows donkeys and I only use the BIOSE for tweaking... call me old fashioned. I got my AN7 about 4 months ago and it seems to work fine. I know the older ones were all jacked up but it seems they have resolved the issues they were having with them.

The knowledge base on the NF7-S is HUGE while the AN7 is still treated like a step child... Probably because of the NF7-S's great success over time since rev 2 came out on it and hose the AN7 came out not too long after that and was having initiall problems. But lets not forget that the original NF7-S's was plaigued with SATA problems though that has been fixed for a long time now with better drivers.

PS: I would hit nforceshq.com . They have a great ABIT board with tons of knowledgeable people there that I feel would be of great help in your decision also.

The uGuru feature is useless, but given product life cycles, I would go with the later produced board. The support will be there longer. I've had nothing but good luck with my AN7.

Thanks guys. AN7 it is. After reading here and elseware I couldn't really find any reasons not ot order the AN7. It being the newer board is probably one of the main reasons I swayed this way. The sucess of the NF7-S has probably slightly overshadowed the release of the AN7. Not sure if there will be some custom bioses made for the AN7 with so many available for the NF7. Also, there is the belief that the audio on the AN7 is significantly better with analog speakers. There are reports of some AN7s OC'ing very well and some not. Since at this time I can't go for a major OC this wasn't much of factor for me but I'm hoping to build an AMD 64 system in about 8 months so I might watercool this guy and see what she'll do.

I have the AN7 and have had a a few NF7-S boards.....I can hardly tell the difference..they run damn near identical...I went on a tip from BA to opt for the AN7 and am very happy I did.....
ME? I would and did get the AN7....
Is it me or is most of the NF7-S hatricks compatible with the AN7 since they are virtually the same board.....
But fu3lman has a point if your into tricks and tweaks to the hardcore...get the NF7-S its got the extra stuff that the AN7 does not....

Setting up the AN7 in my brother's rig was great! It looks to be a nice board from my little bit of playing with it.

Abit has a few new revisions of the NF7 though...check their site out..

NEWS FLASH!

It seems that ABIT has a couple of new NF-S boards out there now. The NF7-S2
and the NF7-S2G

From the physical looks of it, the NF7-S2 and 2G have two more USB 2 ports on the back of the board, no FireWire at all, no Sound Storm audio, and are using the NVIDIA nForce2 Ultra 400 chipset with MCP RAID instead of the NVIDIA nForce2 SPP chipset with MCP-T. What the actuall difference in those two chipsets are I don't know yet....

It looks like it has native SATA instead of a PCI controller chip on board.

The ATX connector location looks anus though, right next to the AGP slot X_X

I have to agree with you on the ATX connector. WTF where they thinking?

Looks like they are using fewer MOSFETs also. or just put a few next to the RAM

I was looking at those yesterday but without the cash to go SATA yet, I couldn't pick one up.