Tekram P6B40-4AX
- BIOS Version: 1.04 (July 21, 1998)
- Board Revision: 1.0
- External clock speeds: 66, 75, 83, 100, 103, 112, 133 MHz
- Slots: 4x full size PCI, 3x full size ISA, full size AGP
- Memory: 4x DIMM
Tekram is becoming more and more famous in the motherboard sector. Their actual BX board, the P6B40-4AX is a small ATX board with 4 DIMM sockets. The on board connectors are labeled very well, particularly the power on switch is marked clearly. Two connectors are available to directly connect the CPU and one chassis fan, a third would have been nice. The multiplier has to be set via some good described jumpers, the bus clock can be set easily in the BIOS with the restriction that the FSB type is detected automatically. This means that the Pentium II CPUs up to 333 MHz and the Celerons will run at 66 and all other Pentium IIs over 350 MHz do run at 100 MHz FSB. Of course you can go the way via "B21", but this may be too much circumstances since today a modern motherboard has to be as comfortable to handle as possible, isn't it?
From the performance point of view there's nothing interesting, it performs average. As some other boards, the Tekram board does not work with our 256 MB SDRAM, too. The rest of this candidate is basically fine, but a motherboard can only be a good choice if you can be sure that it works with all common memory sizes. Many people would be surprised to hear how many users do already have memory modules larger than 64 MB.
TMC TI6NB
- BIOS Version: S3-0512 (May 5, 1998)
- Board Revision: 2.20
- External clock speeds: 66, 75, 83, 100, 103, 112, 133 MHz
- Slots: 5x full size PCI, 2x full size ISA, full size AGP
- Memory: 4x DIMM
The TMC motherboard comes with the maximum DIMM sockets and PCI slots. All connectors are placed together in a line, nevertheless they are labeled adequately. The FSB type is detected automatically, only the multiplier has to be set via dip switches on the board. In the BIOS you will get the option to change the bus speed inside the 66 or 100 MHz range. Two fan connectors are available on this board; unfortunately the floppy connector has been placed behind the CPU slot, it seems as if this habit has shift from AOpen to TMC...
The item to release the USB interrupt has not been forgotten and works fine. It's good to see that the 256 MB modules ran stable; sometimes I'm even glad seeing a system boot up with this kind of RAM. From the performance view there are certainly faster boards; nevertheless it's not very likely that you could face problems with the TMC board. That's why it is a good choice and a recommendation for most users.
