Since its inception, AMD’s Athlon has gained a significant amount of momentum, most notably in the DIY market. To many users, AMD is no longer a second-rate alternative to Intel, but a competitive, and often superior force.

The biggest reason for that success, aside from the Athlon itself, has been platform support. Initially, motherboards for the Athlon were few and far between, and sales of the CPU were correspondingly low. But as more and more motherboard manufacturers have released more stable and reliable boards, the Athlon has become regarded as an extremely viable platform, and sales have matched accordingly.

Taiwanese OEM Abit was actually rather late to join the Athlon scene, it’s first EV6 board was the KX133-based KA7. Fortunately, the KA7 turned out to be an extremely impressive board, and remains today arguably the best KX133 board available.

When the Athlon migrated to the Socket-A platform, Abit continued that success with another impressive release, the KT133-based KT7-RAID. The KT7-RAID offered an excellent platform for enthusiasts and tweakers, a demographic to which the Athlon presents a significant amount of appeal. Abit looks to continue that success with the KT7A-RAID, a slightly upgraded version of the KT7-RAID, featuring VIA’s KT133A chipset, and official support for the 266 MHz, 133 MHz DDR FSB. This time around, though, Abit faces tough competition from the likes of Asus, EPoX, and Iwill. Read on as we put the KT7A-RAID to the test.