Overclocker's Delight
Written: May 12 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Great price, abundant features
Cons: BX board, aging technology
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| blusavana's Full Review: Abit BX6 2 |
I bought this motherboard over a year ago, and this baby is still going strong. The price: inexpensive. The features: go on and on and on, like that bunny. For under 100 bucks, this is what you get: Pentium III compatibility, 4 DIMM slots, a whole mess of expansions slots (read on), softmenu II(a must), and a couple of Ultra DMA/33 IDE channels.
The Good: I cannot rave any more about this particular motherboard. It's so rock solid. Abit is continually up to speed with their BIOS updates as well, I have had no problems "flashing" my BIOS chipset. It's quick and easy. Okay, let's look at the features. Expansion slots are always important, so here's what you get. A AGP slot for that fast video card, 5 PCI slots for all those modems, soundcards, or even a Ultra DMA/66 controller card you want. You even get 2 ISA slots for those old legacy products you own. This is a slot 1 motherboard, so if you don't have a slot 1 or a slot 1 converter for those intel chips, it's not gonna work, sorry AMD, but Abit's got something for them too. The motherboard is also a bit bigger, so the CPU/fan and the RAM aren't too close together. You also get a couple of USB ports, your standard ps/2 device ports (keyboard and mouse), a couple of serial ports, and a parallel port. This motherboard uses the 440BX chipset.
The softmenu is one of the most unique things about this motherboard. I am not fond of DIP switches, as most people are not. Forget them! The softmentu II is like the software version of DIP switch, just have to reboot every time you make a change and voila! change is made. This is great for testing out different speeds for your CPU. Please note: overclocking your CPU voids your warranty and shortens your CPU life.
For example, I have used 2 CPUs and got them to work exquisitely. I have a Celeron 300a@450MHz and a Celeron 366@550MHz, both run 66Mhz front side bus normally, but can easily run 100Mhz front side bus.
The Bad: As good as this motherboard is, Intel's chipset focus has moved, the BX chipset isn't as hot as it used to be, but it's still being used heavily. This is no longer cutting edge.
The Ugly: None.
The bottom line: If you are looking for a low-cost solid solution for your 66/100Mhz cpus, go for it, especially if you want up to 1GB of memory, it has 4 DIMM slots for it! Unfortunately, since the BX boards are now not the cutting edge, it's life may not be as long.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
blusavana
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Member: Rosa Grimm
Location: Ashland, KY
Reviews written: 121
Trusted by: 8 members
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