Review of Slot 1 Motherboards with Intel 440BX Chipset - Spring 1998

Microstar MS-6119

Microstar could carry on its success in building fast and reliable Pentium II boards. Microstar's LX board already received my recommendation and the MS-6119 could have made the top of the recommendations list if it wouldn't have a few minor problems. The board is first of all not as easily overclockable as e.g. the Asus P2B. It recognizes the CPU FSB clock, so that you can either choose between 66/68/75/83 or 100/103/112/133 MHz in the BIOS setup menu. The good thing is that you won't require any fiddleing with jumpers, the CPU setup is completely done via the BIOS setup.

MSI included all the popular new features, offering an optional hardware monitor as well. Also using this fancy heat sensor that's closer to the CPU:

The compatibilty testing went fine in the '5 card test', however, the PnP ISA network adapter didn't want to connect to a network unless it was using IRQ 5.

Performance wise the MS-6119 was about the fastest board in the test, so that it all in all could still make second in the recommendations list.