Elitegroup P4Vmm2
Board Revision: 7.3
BIOS Version: May 23, 2003
Elitegroup has a decent market share in the low-cost segment, so we would expect to get a low-cost board too. In concrete terms, that means: VIA P4M266A with integrated graphics. And in fact it is the cheapest board in our comparative test.
Despite its cheap price, the board offers many features: a VIA network controller and sound system, four USB 2.0 ports on the back panel, two more in reserve, AGP 4x, CNR slot, color-coded connection block, and two PCI slots. Considering the equipment, this should be enough. More ambitious users, however, may still reach for other boards.
The layout is somewhat crooked, because the floppy connector is directly behind the Northbridge and the back panel, so the cable is forced to run across the CPU. But who still needs a floppy drive? We have already discussed this topic above.
This board offers absolutely no overclocking options; apparently, there was no room for them in the development budget. However, booting can be done from the USB drive.
Since this board can only handle DDR266, it does poorly on the benchmarks, as might be expected. On the other hand, this saves you yet a little more money - the PC2100, aka DDR266, is often a little cheaper than PC2700/DDR333.
The package includes a ribbon cable and a CD with driver, PC-cillin 2002, and an Adobe Acrobat Reader. Keep in mind that this board is targeted for the cheapest possible system. If the computer is only for working with text and tables, it will easily do the trick in any case. But as soon as more ambitious functions are needed, other products will be a better choice.
