WE'VE HAD AN EARLY sample of Abit's BG7 motherboard here in Damage Labs for a while now. Today is the official launch date for Intel's 845G chipset, on which the BG7 is based, so we thought it was time to finally pull the curtain back on this exclusive look at Abit's newest motherboard. The BG7 packs the key features of the 845G, including 533MHz bus support, USB 2.0, and downright decent integrated video, plus—thank goodness—an AGP slot. Of course, the BG7 also carries Abit's trademark SoftMenu III suite of overclocking options and a built-in NIC and sound.

In fact, you can run the BG7 as a fully functional computer without a single card installed in an expansion slot. Eerie.

Of course, we weren't content to just look at the BG7 and its Intel 845 chipset in a vacuum, so we rounded up a total of six comparison systems, based on six different chipsets, to see how this thing stacks up against the competition. Not only that, but we'll show you just how the 845G's built-in graphics handle. We'll compare them to the competition from SiS, and we'll measure their impact on overall system performance. You might be surprised at what we found.