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.

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

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