I chosed Abit BE6v2 two years ago. Sounded like an overkill for my needs, but what the hell..
udma66 and BX chipset were the FORTE points.
Very first day she wouldn't find my SoundBlaster. After a while it worked, but only on PCI slot#2.
After some months of arguing with the support team, a new BIOS update finally allowed me to work WinNT4.(Not UDMA66)
After a while, I could even use my Maxtor HD! (Not UDMA66)
Years later Win2000 would not boot in UDMA66.
I Wonder, did I pay for that damn Htp366 UDMA controller?
However, under Win98 she went smooth like ice, even overclocked, which made me extremely MAD.

If WinNT then ABIT_BE6II.No_Way!
Else ABIT_BE6II.Hell_Ya!
__________________________________________________________

The Geriatric Update

Some 4 years went by. My Abit is still alive and kicking. As the XP hype came and passed I came to realize that I’ve been too cruel with the old lady. Tried to drag her kicking and screaming in the century of the Fruitbat but all she did was being a lady. She taught me how to relax and love the bomb.

After countless tries of putting my HDDs on the UDMA66 Controller I gave up. I said to meself: You don’t have UDMA66, you’re stuck with UDMA33 for the rest of your life – deal with it! Well, that brought me to realization of a fact that will actually change the PC (and the criteria of choosing M/Bs) forever: If I was to set the UDMA66 controller to PIO Only I would have … 4 IDE controllers! That brings me up to 8 IDE slots! (mind you, in Milennium, the controller still rocks but I use Win2000 and WinXP)
So, we have 2 CDRECs, 1 DVDROM, 4 HDDs.
Always thought I’ll have to sell the 3 (smaller than 6Gb) HDD to get a new unified 20Gb but that was no longer the case.
When Germany invaded my PC (a friendly and much welcomed takeover) by the means of SuSE Linux surprise struck: Not only that the UDMA66 controller worked fine AS a UDMA66 controller but I got to RAID 2 HDDs on the other 2. And that my friend is groovy! That will throw your read/write speed though the roof of a very high building!
In the light of recent discoveries I no longer throw abuse at old ladies.
- The overclocking queen as far as I saw. (steps of 1Mz, 2 temperature sensors).
- Settable behaviour in case max temperature is reached.
- Self-resseting CPU settings in case of failed boot. (only CPU settings are reset!)
- PCI control a little weird, SoundBlaster128 still works only on a certain slot.
- Reliable as hell, lots of Power Failures and never any trouble.
- ACPI functions still compatible even in XP’s house of pain.
- Years went by and she’s still up there, throwing binaries around, rock solid like an Elizabeth of my PC.
- Saw new M/Bs with P4 failing to deliver the promised speed, or getting fried at the first Power Failure.
- Saw new M/Bs that with a CPU fan failure kept on going and fried the CPU.
- Saw only a handful of M/Bs that can handle more than 4 IDE devices.
- Can you believe that the same guy that had a crisis on the first part of the review BOUGHT ANOTHER Abit (the same model) for the wife? (It’s true, very very cheap..)

1) If you have this model, don’t throw it away! Stock her on a shelf, you might never see that kind of reliability and just might want to put her back.
2) If you can find this model cheap, don’t think twice! ESPECIALLY if you Linux your way! (and we are all going to Linux, we just don't want to accept that yet)
3) If you read the review and threw yours away (don’t believe that anyone in their right mind did) then sorry, I was only trying to help.


Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 130