Socket 7 Board Review July 1998

Elitegroup P5SD-B+

Baby AT motherboard, VIA Apollo MVP3 Chipset, 512 kB L2 Cache, AT and ATX power supply, 4 PCI, 2 ISA, AGP slot ; 2 DIMM, 2 SIMM sockets. Voltages : 3.5 - 2.0V.

The BAT format is not dead at all - ECS also has an actual product based on the older form factor. The package contains a PS/2 mouse adapter and two driver discs instead of a CD. At least one of the four PCI slots can be equipped with a large PCI expansion card and both ISA slots as well. Its performance is quite well, under Quake II it is even one of the fastest - please consider that the board is "only" equipped with 512 kB L2 cache.

This is another board which does not allow the user to directly disable the power management in the BIOS. This revision lacks the 95 MHz which you would need for the K6-2 333 MHz.

The Elitegroup motherboard proved to run fast and stable. At the right price this board is a good investment.