Comprehensive VIA motherboard roundup June 2000
Recommendations
Best Boards: Asus P3V4X, Soltek SL-67KV, TMC TI6VG4, Gigabyte GA-6VX7-4X, QDI Advance 10
The Asus boards are some of the best boards available once again; the CUV4X however could not quite reach the "Asus standard". All of them can be configured quite easy via the soft setup, whilst system integrators can make use of the DIP switches.
Gigabyte did very good work with their 6VX7 motherboards. The 6VX7-4X features excellent stability, outstanding performance and a better price/performance ratio than the Asus boards.
The Soltek boards are very easy to handle and got good performance results as well. Moreover, I expect them to be even cheaper. TMC also shines due to great stability and the best design amongst the boards of this review.
The price/performance winner is the QDI Advance 10, as it comes with all important features, excellent stability and attractive pricing.
Overclocking: ABit VT6X4, AOpen AX64 Pro, Asus P3V4X, Asus CUV4X-M, FIC KA11
ABit and Asus are very famous overclocking boards due to their comfortable soft setups and various options. Both feature lots of FSB speeds and several Vcore options, with the Abit board being a bit more comforatable than its competitor from Asus. In conjunction with their excellent performance and stability, you will get all overclocking possibilities.
The FIC KA11 is not among the fastest, but comes with great overclocking options as well. It's maybe the cheapest overclocking solution. AOpen also comes with nice features, but being an average performer, most speed freaks will likely get another one. Nevertheless it runs very stable and offers all interesting overclocking options.
Conclusion
Most VIA motherboards are now on the way to become as reliable as Intel-based motherboards, as they had some time to mature. Some people still warp their eyebrows after hearing the name VIA, but there's no reason for such reactions any more. Both Athlon chipsets KX133 and KT133 are still causing some trouble, but the VIA products for Intel's Pentium III and Celeron processors have become very solid today.
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So if you plan to get a more affordable Via based product, you should not run into stabilities troubles any more. The differences in Windows 98, NT and Windows 2000 are neglectible today. Only users with more performance demand (high end applications or games) should take the benchmarks as buying criteria.
Socket 370 is basically the better choice today, but I would make my decision according to the prices, as you can run every Socket 370 processor in a Slot-1 motherboard. All you need is a converter board.
Patrick Schmid was the editor-in-chief for Tom's Hardware from 2005 to 2006. He wrote numerous articles on a wide range of hardware topics, including storage, CPUs, and system builds.