PCMech » Motherboards

Albatron PX845PE Pro II

Quantum — Thu, 20 Feb 2003 12:00:00 +0000

An elephant-sized thank you to Albatron for providing this motherboard for review!

Although Intel has already released the Granite Bay chipset, supporting dual channel memory, the prior release named 845PE has been the choice of budget builders because of the Granite Bay’s higher price point and limited availability. Albatron, a relatively new motherboard maker has been making quite an impression among the enthusiast crowd. We have had the chance to review some of their Athlon-based boards, but this is our first Pentium 4-based. In my prior experiences working with Albatron boards, outside the context of Maximum3D, each has been an extremely positive experience. Hopefully, their latest board will live up to my expectations.

Support for 400/533 MHz FSB Pentium 4 Processors
3 x DDR DIMM Slots, 2 GB PC2700
AGP 4x, 6 x 32bit PCI slots
Onboard Intel Pro 100 EV LAN
Onboard 6 Channel Audio
Onboard USB 2.0 with 6 Ports
Promise SATA Raid with 2 SATA and 1 PATA 133

Chipset
This Albatron board uses Intel’s 845PE northbridge in conjunction with the ICH4 southbridge. The northbridge is merely an update to its predecessor, Intel’s own 845E, with official support for DDR333 memory. If you remember, most 845G motherboards had unofficial support.

A piece from the past, Intel continues to use their ICH4 southbridge giving support to current technologies as USB 2.0 and integrated LAN. There has yet to be integration of Serial ATA support yet, but should be implemented as soon as companies such as Seagate start to release their serial hard drives.

The Package
Here is a quick run down of what is included in the box:

Manual

Overclocking Instructions

Quick-Start Guide

Reference Sticker

Promise Fast Trak Manual

Driver CD

One SATA Cable

Three 80pin PATA Cables

One Floppy Cable

USB2.0 Breakout Bracket

Optional SPDIF Breakout Bracket (I didn’t receive one)

Motherboard

Overall, a really nice bundle though another SATA cable and PATA to SATA adaptors would be nice.

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Albatron PX845PE Pro II

Abit NF7-S

scott — Wed, 15 Jan 2003 12:00:00 +0000

The story of AMD’s rise to fame starts several years ago. Some of you may not even remember the early days of the K7, way back when CPUs were still in slots, and a video card called Voodoo was still around. Yes, kids, those were exciting times. AMD was challenging the great Intel, and early reports said that this new K7 was quite the ass kicker. The only weakness in the AMD plan was the motherboard support. People speculated that with Intel’s market power, no serious manufacturer would dare build a chipset to support this new CPU, thus killing AMD’s hopes of conquering the giant.

Of course, PC history students will recall that VIA stepped up and released a solid AMD chipset, and the rest is, well, history. Over the years, it was VIA or nothing when it came to AMD performance, until NVIDIA stepped into the fray. The release of the nForce chipset was the first major threat to VIA’s dominance of the AMD market. The nForce was followed by the nForce2, the next generation of NVIDIA chipsets, and offers a very solid feature set with good speed and stability.

With the Abit’s reputation for extremely overclocker-friendly boards, the NF7-S was greeted with great expectations in our office. The box seems a little heavier than most of the other motherboards we have, so that’s a good thing, right? Sure.

In the Box

Sporting the typical red and black box design, the nForce2 arrives packed with every conceivable part, cable, and manual. Inside, you will find a well written manual, delivered in about 400 different languages. Standard IDE cables, driver CD, and floppy disk for the Serial ATA are included, as to be expected. For users that have no idea about the Serial ATA, a quick setup sheet has been tossed in the box, complete with pictures for the reading impaired. The included Serial to ATA converter allows standard drives to be connected to the mainboard, rather than using the IDE connectors. Both IEEE 1394 (FireWire), and USB 2.0 port brackets round out the hardware package.

The board itself is something of a departure from the other Abit boards we have tested in the past. The layout has several changes, some good, some not. We’ll start with a tour of the various items of interest scattered around the PCB, beginning with the CPU socket, and moving our way down from there. Seems like a good place to start, anyway.

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Abit NF7-S

Tyan Trinity 371 S1857

David Risley — Sun, 01 Apr 2001 12:00:00 +0000

Motherboard Specifications
CPU Interface	Slot 1 / PPGA 370
Chipset	Intel 440BX
L2 cache	N/A
Form Factor	ATX
Voltage Range	Auto-Detect
Clock Multipliers	3.0x - 8.0x
Bus Speeds	66 / 100 / 133
Memory Slots	3 3.3V unbuffered 168-pin DIMM
Expansion Slots	6 PCI Slots 1 ISA Slots 1 AGP Slot
BIOS	AMI BIOS

Tyan has long been known for
top quality motherboards, but mainly for the server / workstation
type machine. When they finally decided to take a swing at the
mainstream consumer board, some were disappointed because they
didn’t seem to put the same amount of quality into them. Well,
ladies and gentleman, I think that is old news. Tyan indeed does
produce high quality motherboards, and even the Trinity 371 S1857 as
a consumer model shares this quality.

As I like to do with every
motherboard review I do, let’s address the layout and features here.
While some people like to drown you in benchmarks, the truth is that
the motherboard does not have a hell of a lot to do with
performance. Stability, yes. But, actual performance is not affected
majorly by the board.

Feature-wise, the board is not
lacking. This board has both a Slot 1 and PPGA 370 interface for the
CPU, although both cannot be used at the same time. 6 PCI slots mean
that you should have plenty of space for all of those cards. It has
1 ISA slot for your old modem. The board can support the new 133 Mhz
bus speed, although there is a note that although the board supports
it that neither Tyan nor Intel recommend it. The feature is more for
the speed-freaks, and the reason they don’t officially recommend it
is because the Intel 440BX chipset was only designed for 100MHz and
the 133 MHz speed is effectively overclocking the chipset.

The layout is quite good. In fact,
I couldn’t really find anything major wrong with it. Unlike some
boards, this one isn’t loaded down with capacitors and the ones it
does have are located on a side of the Slot 1 interface that would
not interfere with a CPU fan. The three memory slots are placed just
high enough to clear any AGP card you could throw in that slot.
Jumpers J10 through J13, the ones used for changing the bus speed
and multiplier, are located out in the open so that you could adjust
the settings without removing any hardware. The settings themselves,
besides being in the manual, are printed on the PCB. The most common
CPU speeds are shown in three separate charts on the PCB. Some of
this data is printed a little too close to the Slot 1 so users with
a big CPU fan like my Celeron Arctic Cap fan can’t see the charts.
Tyan should, for purposes of ease, print this chart closer to the
J10-J13 jumper set and without splitting it up.

Performance is fine. I was running
an old Celeron 266 in it. I ran some WinStone 99 tests through it as
well as bootMark and some games and it tested fine. I also
overclocked it to 400Mhz using the 100Mhz bus speed ( I didn’t have
any 133MHz memory) and it ran stable. Once you figure out the BIOS
screens, you can really manipulate the board quite well. It had a
setting for bus speed that was set at Auto and wouldn’t allow me to
overclock the Celeron. Once I changed this to 100MHz, the thing
overclocked fine. AMI BIOS is a little different than the AWARD BIOS
I’m used to. Although I haven’t yet had a chance to test the 133 MHz
memory speed, the board seems quite stable. I should also mention
that Tyan boards are known to be a little picky with memory.
Although I had no trouble with AZZO memory, which isn’t really
well-known, I would pay attention to the manufacturer of your memory
before using a Tyan board.

The manual is very detailed as a
manual should be. In fact, I liked the manual for having all the
info it needed but still being simple to read.

Pros:

Stable
Compatible w/ just about
everything
Well laid out
Nice performance
6 PCI slots
Nice documentation

Cons:

Can’t use Socket 370 and Slot 1
at same time
Imprinted charts on PCB in weird places

So, obviously there are more
pros than cons with this board. The Trinity 371 is a great all-around
ATX motherboard that is for both the Slot 1 processor and the Socket
370 Celeron. No major complaints, nice performance, and
stable.

Manufacturer: Tyan Computer
Web Site: http://www.tyan.com
Product Link: http://www.tyan.com/products/html/s1857.html

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Tyan Trinity 371 S1857

Tyan Trinity S1598

David Risley — Sun, 01 Apr 2001 12:00:00 +0000

Motherboard Specifications
CPU Interface	Socket 7
Chipset	Via MVP3
L2 cache	1 MB
Form Factor	ATX
Voltage Range	1.3 - 3.5 V Core
Clock Multipliers	2.5x - 5.5x
Bus Speeds	66 / 75 / 83 / 95 /100
Memory Slots	3 3.3V unbuffered 168-pin DIMM
Expansion Slots	5 PCI Slots 2 ISA Slots 1 AGP Slot
BIOS	Award BIOS

Tyan has long been known for
top quality motherboards, but mainly for the server / workstation
type machine. When they finally decided to take a swing at the
mainstream consumer board, some were disappointed because they
didn’t seem to put the same amount of quality into them. When Tyan
entered the Super 7 market, consumers had this same opinion. Coupled
onto this was the fact that most Super 7 motherboards are not very
well made.

Well, I think Tyan has improved the
pot with the S1598. No, it is not the perfect board, but compared to
many of its competitors, it isn’t bad at all. Let’s look at it.

Feature-wise, the board is not
lacking. It has all the standard features of a Super 7 board. It has
5 PCI slots, all capable of handling a full-length card. It has 2
ISA slots, one capable of handling full length while the other could
if you don’t use the PC speaker and ACPI LCD connectors. It supports
all the standard bus speeds, although I was surprised that it didn’t
offer any support beyond 100 MHz. That’s kind of a slap in the face
to overclockers. The board uses the MVP3 chipset, a very good one.
Using Via’s new Service Pack 4.01, you can install all of Via’s
drivers and patches in one swoop. Quite nice, and about time. These
drivers are available on the Via site.

After some research into the board,
I found some info on the Via chipset. Apparently, the Via North
Bridge on this board is the VT82C598AT, Rev. CD, a revision that was
revised and re-released due to incompatibilities and problems. I find
it interesting that Tyan used this chipset anyway for the S1598. I’m
sure future revisions will not use this chipset.

The layout is good. Like most
Super 7 boards, the design is quite open, leaving lots of space.
There are few capacitors on the board. The important jumper blocks
are located out in the open, so you don’t have to do the twist to
adjust the settings with the board installed. Due to so much space,
Tyan had plenty of room to print the jumper settings right on the
PCB, allowing for pretty easy setup. But, if you want, the manual is
quite detailed, so you can turn to that too. Speaking of manuals,
Tyan, I think, is one of the few manufacturers still choosing to
print a manual of this quality. Many manufacturers are now including
a quick-start guide and putting the full manual in PDF on a CD. Many
might appreciate Tyan’s extra effort here.

The board runs quite well. It was
easy to setup. We had it in a very loaded down system and it seems
to run great. You can’t really expect staggering numbers since this
is not an overclocker’s board, but using the standard specs of the
latest CPU’s, this board offers slightly better than average
performance than its competitors.

Some down-sides to the board: It
doesn’t support any quick bus speeds. It boasts a very quick 4ns L2
cache, but the 8 ns L2 tag ram would hinder any overclockability of
the L2 cache. Simply put, this isn’t an overclocker’s board. Second,
Via did not use all the power this board could offer with this
chipset it has. This chipset supports both Ultra ATA-66 and AMR slots.
They took advantage of the ATA-66 support, but did not do anything
with the AMR support. This probably isn’t a big deal for you, but
its an issue. And third, it would have been nice to lose an ISA slot
and throw in a 6th PCI. Hint hint, Tyan.

Pros:	Stable Better than average performance Well laid out Higher quality than most Super 7 boards Printed documentation
Cons:	Lack of support for 100+ bus speeds Not good for serious overclocking Only 5 PCI slots Uses the buggy VT82C598AT North Bridge

Overall, this is a fine board. Good
quality, good performance, and a pleasure to work with. If Tyan
would throw in some higher bus speed settings, add a PCI slot, and
change to a newer revision of the chipset, this would be one of the
best boards out there. Keepa chuggin’, Tyan!

Manufacturer: Tyan Computer
Web Site: http://www.tyan.com
Product Link: http://www.tyan.com/products/html/s1598.html

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Tyan Trinity S1598

FIC PA-2013

David Risley — Sun, 01 Apr 2001 12:00:00 +0000

Motherboard Specifications
CPU Interface	Socket 7
Chipset	Via MVP3
L2 cache	512 K / 1 MB
Form Factor	ATX
Bus Speeds	66 / 75 / 83 / 100 / 112 / 124 MHz
Clock Multipliers	1.5x – 5.5x
Voltages Supported	2.0 – 3.5 V (0.1V increments)
Memory Slots	3 168pin DIMM SDRAM
Expansion Slots	4 PCI Slots 2 ISA Slots 1 AGP Slot
BIOS	Award PnP BIOS

The FIC PA-2013 is a very
nice ATX socket 7 motherboard, typical of the FIC family.
Feature-wise, it is basically an ATX counterpart to the VA-503+.

Let’s talk about layout. I
believe layout to be one of the most important aspects of a good
board. A bad layout and feature list make the board tough to work
with, regardless of how well it performs.

Being of the ATX form
factor, the PA-2013 is much easier to use than the AT form VA-503+.
One of the most nagging things about the VA-503+ was the hard to
reach and complicated jumper setup. In the PA-2013, FIC managed to
make the jumpers easier to adjust by putting them in much more
reachable locations. It isn’t perfect, though. The frequency jumpers
are located up in the corner of the board, right next to the CPU.
And, when the board is installed, all of the ribbon cables make it
difficult to reach this particular jumper block. Jumper setup is
definitely less complicated than the VA-503+. FIC actually managed
to create a manual with no addendums. The novice user, with a little
thought, should be able to set up this board without too much
trouble. The manual even includes a nice table of CPU and their
respective settings.

The case connectors are
mounted sideways on the board, making hooking up the board that much
easier. The board comes with a standard AWARD BIOS, including USB
support.

A couple other features of
the board are nice. The board comes equipped with thernal detection
hardware for the CPU. It also comes with remote wake-up support.
Trend Chip-Away Virus protection come hard coded into the BIOS,
making sure you can rid the system of boot-sector virii before the
OS is loaded.

Performance is fine. The
board is very stable, as long as you have good memory in it. It ran
stably at high bus speeds, including the undocumented 112 and 124
MHz speeds. I did run into a problem with Winstone 98, but this is
not something I’m blaming on the board, but on the software. Unreal
ran quite well on the board on both the Cyrix and AMD CPU’s,
although it was slower on the Cyrix.

Pros:

Stable
Compatible w/ just about everything
Well laid out
Nice performance

Cons:

Only 2 ISA slots, and 4 PCI’s
(which is actually fine for most, but some need more)
No EDO RAM slots

So, obviously there are more
pros than cons with this board. The PA-2013 is a great all-around
ATX Super 7 motherboard. No major complaints, nice performance, and
stable.

Testing Configuration
Processor	AMD K6-2-300 Cyrix M2 300
RAM	1 x 64MB AZZO PC100
Hard Drive	Samsung WU33205A
Video Card	ATI Xpert@Play 8M AGP
Operating System	Windows 98

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FIC PA-2013

ASUS P3V4X Apollo Pro 133A Motherboard

David Risley — Sun, 01 Apr 2001 12:00:00 +0000

ASUS has always been known to produce high quality motherboards. This is one of the reasons why I wanted to review the ASUS P3V4X mainboard, which features the VIA Apollo Pro 133A chipset. Unlike ASUS, VIA hasn’t been known to manufacture high quality products. I wanted to see whether ASUS could provide a stable platform that is based on a chipset made by VIA. As VIA seem to be on a roll lately with their KX133 and the Apollo Pro 133A chipset, I also wanted to find out whether they can better their reputation as a chipset manufacturer.

– Click to zoom in –

Motherboard Specifications

As I mentioned earlier, the ASUS P3V4X board makes use of the VIA Apollo 133A chipset. With this chipset, the board offers an impressive array of features including ATA/66 hard drive support, 66/100/133MHz bus speeds, and AGP 4X support.

ASUS P3V4X Apollo Pro 133A Motherboard Specifications
Processor	Slot 1 Coppermine Pentium^® III/II 300MHz~800+MHz or Celeron^TM Processor (with ASUS^® S370 Card Series)
Chipset	VIA^® Apollo Pro133A VT82C694X 133MHz AGPset with VT82C596B South Bridge
System Memory	4x 168-pin DIMMs Sockets Support 16MB to 2GB 3.3V PC133/100 SDRAM and Virtual Channel Memory (VCM) Support
Expansion Slots	6 x 32-bit PCI, 1 x 32-bit AGP slot, 1 x 16-bit ISA slot
BIOS	Award^® Medallion v6.00
Bus Speeds	66 / 68 / 75 / 80 / 85 / 90 / 95 / 100 / 103 / 105 / 110 /112 / 115 / 116 / 118 / 120 / 124 / 126 / 130 / 133 / 135 / 138 / 140 / 142 / 144 / 146 / 148 / 150 / 155 / 160 / 166

The first thing I noticed when I opened the box was that this board has done away with only 1 ISA slot. This is a boon for those who adbandoned most legacy hardware as the board adds an extra PCI slot to add up to a grand total of 6 PCI slots. None of those slots are crippled either. They all support bus mastering.

There are 4 DIMM slots available for use, which means you can run up to 2GB of SDRAM. I don’t think many of you will be running 2GB of SDRAM, but it’s nice knowing it’s possible. Although there’s some room for a large heatsink, there isn’t sufficient room for a heatsink the size of a meatlocker.

One of the most impressive features of the motherboard is its ability to run its memory at a different frequency than that of the FSB. The Apollo Pro 133A chipset lets you change the frequency the memory is running at by +/-33MHz. Building a system with a motherboard based on the VIA Apollo Pro 133A chipset is much cheaper than using a board based on the i820 because the Apollo Pro uses SDRAM while the i820 requires RDRAM. RDRAM is much too expensive right now for it to be feasible. To add insult to injury, RDRAM only offers a slight performance increase over SDRAM. Even better, with the VIA chipset, you can run the FSB at 133MHz while the memory is at 100MHz. With this feature, you can save even more money by using your old PC100 SDRAM instead of going out and buying a new stick of P133 SDRAM.

There is also support for AGP 4X. That line says it all. THERE IS AGP SUPPORT! Many mainboards with VIA chipset were often troubled with poor AGP support. But the Apollo Pro 133A chipset does not seem to have any problems with the AGP bus. I have read that the earlier revisions of the chipset had some AGP support problems, but mine ran without a hitch.

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ASUS P3V4X Apollo Pro 133A Motherboard

Asus P2B Review

David Risley — Sun, 01 Apr 2001 12:00:00 +0000

Motherboard Specifications
CPU Interface	Slot-1
Chipset	Intel 440BX
Form Factor	ATX
Bus Speeds	66 / 75 / 83 / 100 / 103 / 112 MHz
Clock Multipliers	2.0x – 8.0x
Voltages Supported	1.5v – 3.5v (Auto-Detect)
Memory Slots	3 168pin DIMM Slots
Expansion Slots	1 AGP Slot 4 PCI Slots 3 ISA Slots (1 Shared / 3 Full Length)
BIOS	1998 Award BIOS

The Asus P2B is one of the
best Slot 1 boards I have had the pleasure of using. It is highly configurable and very
stable. I find it to be a great board for anyone upgrading to the Slot 1 setup.

One nice thing about this board is that Asus seems to
have put what is really needed on it. We are provided with 3 ISA slots, which is useful
for those of use who still use ISA cards, which most of us do. At the same time, the board
provides a hearty 4 PCI slots, and 1 AGP slot. With 3 DIMM slots, we have room for more
SDRAM than we would probably ever want. Setting the board up is pretty easy. The board
comes with the typical well-written Asus manual which outlines all of the jumper settings.
At the same time, the basic jumper settings are printed on the board’s surface. In fact,
one could set this board up rather easily without looking at the manual.

The board comes bundled with all of the hardware needed
for mounting and CPU installation. A bundled CD-ROM contains some useful utilities:
Desktop Management Interface Utility, a Flash Memory Writer (used to upgrade the Flash
BIOS), LANDesk Client Manager Software, and the Asus PC Probe Utility.

The Award BIOS is simple to use and highly configurable.
Most of the board’s settings can either be put into Auto mode or be set manually. Advanced
features such as CAS latency and memory timings can be controlled to tweak the performance
that extra hair.

The board was very stable though all of my testing. In
fact, it never crashed. At the time of testing, only one processor was available for
testing, the Pentium II-266. The board ran flawlessly at all major speeds: 66×4.0,
100×2.5, 100×3.0, 103×3.0, 112×2.5. The 133MHz bus speed is not mentioned in the manual,
but this is not a big deal because, for the most part, there is no memory fast enough to
withstand this speed.

During the testing, the board scored a 54.9 at the 66 x
4.0 setting, and 56.9 with the 100 x 3.0 setting under ZD Business WinStone 97. All BIOS
setting were set to Auto or default in order to be as close as possible to the
configuration of the typical user.

There aren’t really any major flaws to this board at all.
I did find that the board was a tad small for the ATX form factor, meaning that it was a
little cramped. This really wasn’t much of a problem, though, unless I was trying to flip
the jumpers on the board while still in the case.

Overall, this board is great for anyone: the typical
business user or the avid overclocker.

Testing Configuration
Processor	Pentium II 266MHz
RAM	1 x 64MB AZZO PC100 SDRAM
Hard Drive	Samsung WU33205A
Video Card	Diamond Viper V330 PCI
Operating System	Windows 95 OSR1

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Asus P2B Review

MicroStar 6309 Motherboard

David Risley — Sun, 21 May 2000 12:00:00 +0000

Manufacturer: MSI Computer Corp.
Web Site: www.msi.com.tw

Motherboard Specifications
CPU Interface	PGA 370
Chipset	Via 82c694A/686A
L2 cache	N/A
Form Factor	ATX
Voltage Range	Set Auto
Clock Multipliers	3.0x – 8.0x
Bus Speeds	Ranges from 66 MHz to 138 MHz
Memory Slots	3 3.3V unbuffered 168-pin DIMM
Expansion Slots	5 PCI Slots 1 ISA Slot 1 AGP Slot 1 AMR Slot
BIOS	AMI
OnBoard Audio	Creative CT5880

Let’s jump right to the point. The
MicroStar 6309 is a nice board, although it is not the best
performer in the market. Of course, those who have read my
motherboard reviews know that I never tout performance when
it comes to a motherboard. Let’s face it, and I’ll say
it again, a motherboard doesn’t have a large impact on
performance. Mainly, what needs to be looked at is features,
upgradibility, arrangement of parts, etc. For the most part,
the 6309 is all plusses in these areas. Add to that the fact
that here we have a Socket 370 motherboard that doesn’t
have an Intel chipset, and I’m already liking it.

The layout of the board is pretty
standard. It is a reasonable sturdy 4 layer design, boasting
5 PCI’s, 1 ISA, an AGP, and an AMR slot. The AMR slot is
below the AGP slot, allowing room for extra video cooling if
you so choose. The Via 694X North Bridge is very low
profile. It lacks the heat sink that the Intel counterparts
have. Also, being the most recent chipset of its class by
Via, the 694 offers support for AGP 4X. The previous 693 had
every feature but lacked 4X support. The Via 82C686A South
Bridge offers, among it’s other features, ATA-66 support
and DirectSound AC97 Audio. This audio support, of course,
means the board has on-board audio in the form of the
Creative CT5880 with all the various connections located
near it. MSI does not go overboard with capacitors as some
manufacturers do, and has them all in nonobtrustive
locations. The two drawbacks I encountered in the layout of
the board involve two connectors. (1) The CPU FAN connector
is right in between the power and the CPU socket. This can
be a little obtrusive. (2) The CMOS Clear jumper is located
way down near the battery. These two connectors are located
right up near the PCI slots, making it very tough to clear
your CMOS with any PCI cards installed.

Installation is pretty
straight-forward. The board has no jumpers for CPU speeds or
voltages. In fact, the only jumpers on the board are the
CMOS clear and the Flash BIOS enable. CPU settings are all
controlled in the BIOS. The manual does a good job of
outlining the various settings on the board and it is
readable (what do ya know!). It’s not the Abit-style
manual, which can give an entire history of computing. But,
it works. The included CD has MSI manuals on it as well, but
not the one for the 6309. You’ll have to download that one
if you want. The CD, though, pops up a window with buttons
to install the Via 4-in-1 drivers, the audio drivers, modem
drivers, etc. The rest of the CD is filled up with other
titles like PC-cillin, Acrobat Reader and other good filler
titles. Installation of the drivers off the CD was a piece
of cake.

The BIOS is made by AMI, which is
pretty similar to Award. If you’re familiar with working
in the CMOS, you’ll find no surprises with the 6309. One
change I noticed is that the CPU settings have been moved
from the Standard CMOS section to the Hardware Monitoring
section. The settings, of course, offer an AUTO setting for
the newbie, but the overclocker will be satisfied with the
range of settings available for manual setting. There are
separate settings for the CPU Frequency (bus speed),
multiplier, and voltage. The board offers a lot of control.
If you set the ClkGen Spread Spectrum to Disable, you even
get access to bus speeds up to 200 MHz! Of course, you’ll
fry everything at that speed. The board was pretty stable at
the 133 MHz speed, though.

One of the neat things about MSI boards is the
D-LED. Located right next to the serial and parallel ports,
the D-LED provides a little insight into what’s going on
with your board. The board comes with a sticker outlining
the various “codes” of the D-LED. I don’t know why
this wasn’t included in the manual itself. The LED
provides a series of red and green lights that mean
something. All 4 green lights means “all systems go”. If
your system hangs in boot, you can interpret the LED light
combination to determine what is wrong. It is a neat little
tool for diagnostic purposes.

Overall, the MSI 6309 is a nice board and doesn’t give
anyone any reason to choose a Slot 1 over the Socket 370.
The 6309 offers some nice options and is pretty stable as
long as you’re using the latest BIOS update. The D-LED is a
nice little gimmick and the layout is decent, considering to
two negatives I pointed above above. I would not hesitate to
use this board in a system of my own.

Pros:	Stable Drivers easy to install D-LED Room for expansion AGP 4X support Onboard audio
Cons:	Couple badly placed components D-LED not documented in manual First BIOS version unstable

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MicroStar 6309 Motherboard

ECS P6BAP-Me Motherboard Review

David Risley — Sat, 22 Apr 2000 12:00:00 +0000

Motherboard Specifications
CPU Interface	PGA 370
Chipset	Via 82c693A/596B
L2 cache	N/A
Form Factor	ATX
Voltage Range	1.3 - 3.5 V Core
Clock Multipliers	2.0x - 8.0x
Bus Speeds	66 / 75 / 83 100 / 124 / 133 / 140 / 150
Memory Slots	3 3.3V unbuffered 168-pin DIMM
Expansion Slots	3 PCI Slots (1 full length) 1 ISA Slot 1 AGP Slot 0 AMR Slot
BIOS	Award 4.51PG
OnBoard Audio	CMI 8738

The EliteGroup P6BAP-Me is basically
a mini-ATX board with on-board sound. As I’m sure was the first
impression of many, I first thought: great, another mediocre board
aimed at the novice who doesn’t care about performance. Well, I could
follow the normal opening of a review and say: nope, i was wrong! But,
I wasn’t. This is a nice board, but mediocre.

Sporting only 3 PCI slots, 1 ISA and
the standard single AGP, the board has a pretty classical ATX layout.
There is only support for one full length PCI card. The AGP was jammed
up so close to the lever releases for the memory slots that I couldn’t
really open them without removing the video card. My only other
complaint on the layout was that the various jumper blocks were
scattered all over the damn place and made it interesting to find
them.

The board has the Via VT82C693A North
Bridge. Like other Via chipsets, it supports the half-speed AGP as
well as a memory clock that can run at FSB – 33MHz or FSB + 33 MHz.
With Via having released the 694 which supports 4X AGP, the 693 has
been beaten, although it is still fine since 4x AGP isn’t much
supported. ECS chose the 596B South Bridge which allows for ATA-66
transfers on both IDE channels.

The P6BAP-Me has PCI on-board sound

in the form of the C-Media CMI8738 chip. The chip supports both
DirectSound 3D and A3D 1.0. The chip itself supports a 4-speaker
setup. The sound is fine and will work for most apps just fine. Of
course, when it comes to pure performance issues or upgradability
concerns, you may not like the on-board sound idea.

The Award BIOS version 4.51 is highly
customized by ECS. I saw a few previously unseen settings and noticed
the overclocking options under BIOS Setup. All the FSB settings and
voltage settings are controlled via the BIOS rather than jumpers.
There are, though, jumpers to control the AGP speed or to force the
FSB to 133 MHz. Due to the multitude of FSB and voltage settings
available in the BIOS, stability is pretty good even in overclocked
systems. Performance is mediocre and could probably be improved with a
BIOS update. I did only preliminary performance tests because the need
to pit boards against each other in benchmarks is non-existent. The
motherboard does not significantly effect the overall performance at
all.

The package came with a printed
manual in a simple binding, not the normal fully decorated manual. I
don’t know if it is standard. It also came with the driver which
provided various manuals, audio and modem drivers, and the Via 4-in-1
drivers.

To sum up, the Me has nothing to make
it stand out or impress me. Performance was nothing to write home
about. Stability is good. The board has decent on-board sound and a
modem connector via an optional connector. the microATX form factor
leads to a lack of slots. For a basic home computer the board is fine,
and due to some cost cutting by ECS, is affordable. Gamers and
performance buffs, hold your nose up to this board.

Pros:	Stable Decent quality Many available FSB and voltage settings Nice layout
Cons:	Lower than average performance On-board sound leads to upgradability problems Few expansion slots Older chipset and BIOS AGP slot cramped up on memory slots

Manufacturer: Elitegroup Computer
Systems
Web Site: http://www.ecs.com.tw

Post from: PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.

ECS P6BAP-Me Motherboard Review