Stability/Performance Compared

Stability

In terms of system stability, both the K7M and K7 Pro are solid products. When we initially obtained our K7M in November its stability was a little questionable, but newer BIOS releases have since ironed out any issues we once encountered with the motherboard.

Like our 6167 the K7 Pro was extremely stable during testing. We even tested AGP 2X with the GeForce 256 DDR and had no problems.

Newer steppings of the 751 chipset have solved AGP 2X issues with the GeForce 256 as well as enabled Super Bypass, a feature also present on older steppings of the 751 chipset but didn't work properly and was thus disabled.

With Super Bypass, memory latencies between the CPU and main memory have been reduced, improving system performance. Unfortunately our stepping four K7M we originally obtained back in November doesn't run reliably with Super Bypass or the GeForce 256 running in AGP 2X mode. (Super Bypass is enabled on all the newer 751 North Bridges starting with stepping five.)

With both motherboards performing so well in this category we couldn't decide an outright winner. The simple truth is that both products are extremely stable and we wouldn't hesitate to recommend either motherboard to someone looking solely for a stable Athlon motherboard.

STABILITY WINNER: Tie

Performance

Along the same lines, we knew it wouldn't be fair to the K7M if we compared its performance with the Super Bypass enabled K7 Pro. Unfortunately due to time constraints we weren't able to complete a full battery of overclocked and non-overclocked tests with Super Bypass disabled on the K7 Pro. However, we did include the K7 Pro scores with Super Bypass enabled on the next page.

Both motherboards performed well in our games and applications, the primary difference lies in the overclocking implementation.

While both motherboards support the same range of bus speeds, the K7 Pro allows CPU voltage adjustment via System BIOS; the K7M does not.

This can be handy to have if your CPU is right on the verge of running stable at a given clock speed and just needs a bit more juice. K7 Pro users simply up the voltage via System BIOS. The K7M requires adjusting jumpers.

One downside of the K7 Pro voltage adjustment feature is the range of voltages; the K7 Pro only allows voltages of 1.5V-1.85V. The K7M supports voltages from 1.3V to 2.0V.

During overclocking testing, neither motherboard was able to run successfully at 110MHz system bus with the Athlon 850 processor. The K7M slightly edged out the K7 Pro in overclocking testing with the 850, running stable at 104, while the K7 Pro at that bus speed was a little flaky in Quake 3. (even after voltage adjustments) This, coupled with more voltages, puts the K7M just ahead of the K7 Pro.

PERFORMANCE/OVERCLOCKING WINNER: K7M