ABit BH6
- External clock speeds: 66, 75, 83, 100, 103, 112, 124, 133 MHz
- Slots: 5x full size PCI, 2x full size ISA, full size AGP
- Memory: 3x DIMM
The first ABit board caused me some headache. The memory question seems to be a big problem for this board. First I used the LGS 64 MB PC-100 memory; one of them worked fine, but if I plugged in two, they had to be placed on bank 0 and 2, else the board would only log in 64 MB. Next I tried the Toshiba memory, but they also ran instable unless I used the very slowest memory timings. The 256 MB modules didn't run at all as well as the special PC-66 32 chip module. How ironic: The only SDRAM which ran stable at all frequencies up to 112 MHz was the good old Samsung PC-66 memory!
If the board was tuned and an absolute winner type regarding performance I would even tolerate the necessity to tune down the timings, but since the benchmark results are average (game benchmarks or Business Winstone) or maybe some better sometimes (Highend Winstone) I wouldn't go for this board now, because those memory troubles can of course be avoided.
The power-on connector on the board is situated between two others; but in spite of a description it's not clear which two pins belong to it. At last some good news from the BIOS: Besides the option to change the CPU voltage as also with the BX6 you can also clock the AGP bus with the common 66% of the external clock (2/3) or with full external bus speed for avoiding trouble with AGP cards at 83 MHz, since most cards don't tolerate such high bus speeds. What I like is the item to use the "turbo frequency"; if you enable this setting, the chosen FSB will be higher by a few MHz (e.g. 103 instead of 100). It's also possible to run a 66 MHz FSB Pentium II or Celeron at 100 MHz FSB just by setting the corresponding item in the BIOS. Last but not least the USB IRQ can also be released.
ABit BX6
- BIOS Version: dated July 10, 1998
- Board Revision: 1.0
- External clock speeds: 66, 75, 83, 100, 103, 112, 124, 133 MHz
- Slots: 4x full size PCI, 3x full size ISA, full size AGP
- Memory: 4x DIMM
The BX6 was designed very generously. It's clearly wider than most other Slot-1 boards in this review. ABit equips this board with three fan connectors; the two fan connectors are placed at the opposite sides of the board; so you can install one fan in the upper region of the case and another one directly in the vicinity of the system components. ABit was the manufacturer who introduced first the soft menu to facilitate the CPU setup. As Tom mentioned it in the last review ABit also includes the possibility to change the CPU voltage. This can be a dangerous thing for inexperienced users, since it offers a tool to possibly destroy the CPU. However, it can also be a great and helpful tool for overclockers, who really want to push their CPU to the edge. I can only recommend to be extremely careful with this feature, but it may be the last resort for getting your CPU to the clock frequency you desire. The BX6 does also offer the choice of running the AGP at 66 or 100% of the front side bus, so that touchy AGP cards run at 55.5 MHz rather than 83 MHz AGP clock, if you chose this frequency as your FSB speed. The BX6 is certainly the best board for people who want to clock their CPU as high as in any way possible.
The USB interrupt can successfully be released without difficulties. Also the memory tests ended satisfying: Only the big 64 MB module made trouble, all other memory ran perfectly at 112 MHz max. 133 MHz did only run with the LGS 64 MB memory (7 ns). If you don't care about 2% less performance than the very top of this review or if you are a die-hard overclocker, you can become happy with the BX6.
