440BX Motherboard Review - Fall 1998

MSI MS-6119

• BIOS Version: 2.1 (June 16, 1998)
• Board Revision: 1.1
• External clock speeds: 66, 75, 83, 100, 103, 112 MHz
• Slots: 4x full size PCI, 3x full size ISA, full size AGP
• Memory: 3x DIMM

Tom had originally reviewed the board version 1.0, now we got 1.1 and the changes are really great: The actual revision has now an integrated PC speaker and the Pentium II rails/lock installed permanently. As similar with the Superpower board, the second IDE connector is white instead of black, so you don't have to take a look onto the board or the manual in case you should have forgot which is which.

It performs quite well: top within the Highend Winstone and even better with games and the Business Winstone. The board revision 1.0 with a BIOS from February did not want to speak with the 256 MB memory modules; the actual ones do improve this: the only RAM that did not run was the quite exotic 64 MB PC-66 module with 32 chips. As other top motherboards it also offers three fan connectors to be able to cool the system properly. A fourth DIMM socket would have been nice, but since there are no real deficits, the board can be called a good choice and also made it into the holy recommendation list!

QDI Brilliant-I P6I440BX

• BIOS Version: 1.2SL (July 31, 1998)
• Board Revision: 1.0
• External clock speeds: 66, 75, 83, 100, 103, 112 MHz
• Slots: 4x full size PCI, 3x full size ISA, full size AGP
• Memory: 3x DIMM

The QDI board offers a CPU menu in the BIOS to select the right settings for your CPU; and the BIOS also features a special sub menu for the configuration of the system monitoring capabilities. It supports bus speeds of up to 112 MHz, but you are restricted to the default FSB of your CPU. If you want to run a 66 MHz CPU at 100 MHz bus speed, you will have to go via B21. A look at the benchmark charts makes clear that the overall performance is within the very middle of this test.

The second fan connector is placed at the bottom of the board; so you will need regular power cables to use a fan within the top of a tower case. Furthermore it's good to see that the connector pins are labeled clearly. The board doesn't claim to be an absolute high end product, so it's no problem that there are only three DIMM sockets. You shouldn't use 256 MB memory modules with the QDI board, since it only recognizes 384 MB instead of 512 (two DIMMs). All other memory besides the "big one" 64 MB type ran fine at all available clock speeds. Finally disabling the permanent usage of the USB IRQ was successful, so installing much hardware should be no problem. If there wasn't this memory drawback the Brilliant I would have been a good choice, what a pity.