QDI's KinetiZ 7T
A KT133 Based Motherboard With A Funny Name

August 29th, 2000 By Sean 'BiZ' Mueller

Asus T10 Full Tower ATX Case w/ 300W PS(supplied by Outside Loop Computers), AMD Duron 650 @ 650MHz. and Overclocked, QDI 7T Socket A Motherboard, 128MB of Samsung -GH SDRAM @ 100MHz/CAS2, 18gig WD Expert 7200 RPM ATA66 Hard Drive, Leadtek Winfast GeForce2 GTS w/ NVidia 6.18 Detonator3 Drivers, Asus 48X CDROM, Win98, DirectX 7.0a,
Via 4-in-1 4.24a Drivers (4.03d AGP driver)

Benchmarks with the QDI KinetiZ 7T Smooth like butta...

In spite of all the "issues" me and Mr. KinetiZ went through, he did manage to survive every benchmark I could throw at him. So I'll give a little credit, where credit is due. The 7T also managed to overclock my Duron 650 to 690MHz, without the aide of any voltage tweaks. I have no doubt that the ability to adjust the voltage would have enabled me to reach much higher speeds.

QDI 7T Drives Benchmark


 

These scores aren't too shabby, for AMD's "scrub" CPU, on a VIA based motherboard (deja vu...). The memory benchmarks could have been much better, if the board had been stable at the ±33 MHz setting. My Samsung GH memory has run as high as CAS2 133MHz, or CAS3 143MHz. But all the 7T could handle was CAS2 106MHz. The saving grace, as far as memory performance is concerned, is the board using Bank 4 Interleave.

ZD Winbench

Here's the Winbench99 results. I included a few other systems, for reference.

3DMark2000

And now, everyone's favorite benchmark, that seems to think it's a vegetable.  But it is pretty fun for bragging rights. Complete default video card settings (except V-synch, which was disabled), and I utilized the latest, and greatest, Detonator 3 drivers.

3DMark2000 results in detail (650MHz)


Duron @ 650MHz


Duron @ 690MHz

Quake 3 Arena 
 

*Quake3 Arena w/Duron @ 650MHz* Game Options: All off except dynamic lights, and high quality sky Quality Setting: High 32bit color
Resolution	650MHz	690MHz
640x480	125.3	131.9
800x600	119.6	125.1
1024x768	94.8	97.2

Well, there really isn't much to say about QIIIA. The Duron 650/GeForce2 combo is pretty powerful. If you can't live with 97.2fps in Q3, at 1024x768 32bit color, then something is definitely wrong with you, and you should go seek medical help.

The verdict is in

This was a pretty difficult review for me, for a number of reasons. The main reason being, that I'm a pretty positive guy and I don't like to do a whole lot of complaining. But seeing how this is the first motherboard I've ever used that didn't work correctly (and believe me, I've used more then my fair share...), it was a little tough. Now, don't get me wrong, I knew there was a chance of it not working, even before I ever plugged it in. Shoot, go into any BBS and you'll see untold millions of geeks whining about how they can't get their board to work correctly. But up until now, I'd always chalked it up to some folks being knuckleheads, and not knowing what they're doing. I guess I have a better understanding now, of what those poor saps were going through. Anyway, regardless of all the KinetiZ 7T's short comings, It still managed to to be a stable, and decent performer. And those were the only reasons I didn't give it our lowest rating. The QDI KinetiZ 7T has a less then perfect layout, has features that do not work (multiplier changer), a lackluster BIOS (no voltage adjustment) and basically didn't run correctly (IDE port 1). Because of these "issues", I'm going give the QDI KinetiZ 7T a Hot Hardware Rating of.....

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