About My Favorite MOTHERboard On MOTHER'S DAY!
Written: May 13 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: 8 IDE Devices, UDMA66 support, Soft-Bios
Cons: Only 1 USB Hub, No 6th PCI Slot option
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| shauncool's Full Review: Abit BE6-II Motherboard |
I cannot think of a better topic to write about today (after midnight my time) than a motherboard – because it is now Mother’s Day! Therefore, I will talk about my favorite MOTHERboard!
WARNING: This is a review written by a techie and is intended for other techies or wanna-be techies. The motherboard is a very complicated and detailed part of every computer – but something that the average computer user does not have to be concerned with. If you have not or will never consider building your own computer then this review is not for you. I apologize for this because usually my reviews are readable by all – but to make this review ‘universally’ readable would require much more than the 1,200 or so words that I already piled into it. Sorry (Perhaps one day I will write a review entitled “What is a motherboard”.)
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I built a new computer for myself in February 1999 and never had any intention or second thoughts to use anything EXCEPT the Abit BE6-II board. I have the 100+ page user’s manual in front of me right now, but I doubt that I will need to refer to it when writing this review. Just as with my older [Abit BX6] board, I know this MOTHERboard like the back of my hand!
Brief Description
This is an ATX form-factor main board intended for slot-1 CPUs (Celerons and Pentium II & IIIs – or PPGA Celerons with a Slot-1 adapter kit). It has slots for an AGP video card, 5 PCI cards, and 1 ISA card. The Rev-1 of this board had 5 PCI slots and one shared PCI/ISA slot – but for some reason this newer revision did away with the option of using a 6th PCI slot.
You can insert up to three DIMM memory modules for up to 768MB of RAM (3 x 256). Personally I have 192MB in mine (128 + 32 + 32), and it uses all three card with out incident. My BX6 board supports four modules, but three is the norm, and is all you will need.
Externally this board has all of the standard plugs: 2 USB ports, 2 Serial ports, 1 Parallel Port, PS/2 Mouse plug, and a PS/2 Keyboard plug. Internally it has connectors for two extra case fans, an IR header, a Sound Blaster audio link header, a Wake On LAN header, and several other lesser-used connectors. Personally I use both USB ports, both PS/2 ports, and none of the extra internal links.
An extra item included with the board is a special thermal sensor. This plugs into the board and can be placed anywhere inside the computer. Personally I monitor the Temperature of my hard drive cover with the sensor. This option was available with my newer VA6 board as well, but the sensor was not included with it.
The most important piece of the motherboard is the ability to turn the SOFT BIOS on or off (This is done with a jumper on the board – the default setting is enabled). When enabled you can change ALL BIOS settings through the software and do not have to handle the board at all. However some people may be more comfortable disabling the Soft BIOS controls of the computer and configure it manually. Personally I LOVE the soft bios and definitely do NOT disable it! In fact the soft BIOS is why I started using Abit products in the first place – it is their greatest feature and they were the first to employ it!
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The BEST feature of this motherboard
This board actually has the built-in ability to run EIGHT IDE devices. IDE devices are hard drives, CDROMs, DVD Players, CDR drives, Interal Zip and tape drives… etc. Nearly all motherboards can support only 4 drives but not this one – this motherboard is double-packed with power! To my knowledge this is the ONLY board that Abit has ever made – even to this date – which possesses the ability to run eight devices without using an additional card. (In my experience IDE cards do NOT work correctly.)
The first two devices are operated by the standard UltraDMA-33 Controller – allowing up to a 33MB/second transfer rate. The extra two are operated from a built-in UltraDMA-66 Controller – allowing, you guessed it, up to 66MB/second transfer rate. It should be importantly noted, however, that only special hard drives with special UDMA66 cables (included with the motherboard) can be used at that full speed. This does not mean that only UDMA66 devices can be used on the 66 controller – it IS backwards compatible.
Why This Is So Special
The way that this motherboard is configured – it is ideal to have your removable media drives (ZIP, CDROM, DVD…) running off of the UDMA33 controller – and have your fast UDMA-66 hard disks running at full speed on the UDMA66 controller, independent of the slower devices.
Even if you are upgrading your computer and do not yet own a faster-66 drive, do not worry – you can still use the controller if you want to with the slower drive – or even leave it unused completely – it doesn’t matter. But you can be SURE that the next drive you buy WILL be running at the UDMA-66 speed. In fact drives are starting to be released at UDMA-100 speed – but you do not have to worry about them just yet – and they are also backwards compatible with the 33 or 66 speeds, as the 66 is backwards compatible with the 33 speeds.
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Who is this for?
Quite frankly, it is highly unlikely that you will ever have the need and/or desire to run eight IDE devices simultaneously on your personal computer. Personally, however, I do. I have a full-tower system that is capable of holding eight 3.5” hard drives internally and five 5.25” drives externally (faces showing). I am CERTAINLY capable of installing 8 IDE devices - and then some. The average user, however - with a mid-tower or mini-tower system cannot hold more than 4 or 5 devices at once – so the expandability of this product would be a complete waste of money – and with a price tag of about $120.00 – this MOTHERboard is not cheap.
As said above, this board is for installation into a new computer system into a full-tower with the need for greater than four IDE devices. If you do not meet both of those criteria than this is not the right MOTHERboard for you. If you want the Abit quality but don’t need the eight device support – I recommend the Abit VA6 (with onboard audio at a price of about $80) over this model – which also has the UDMA66 support and even an additional USB hub on the board for expansion.
What I don’t like about this board
1. I had trouble “popping” in the Pentium-3 retention unit. It just didn’t want to go in right and I had to play with it a little to get it in properly. And, once I got it in, the CPU did not snap into it as well as it could have. ( I had the same trouble with the VA6.)
2. There is not an additional USB hub on the board – which is too bad. Every Abit board made after this one has that feature – I believe that this is the last one that did not. (The extra USB port onboard allows the addition of a USB expansion card (about $8) to support two more USB devices without the need or expense for an external hub. To clarify, this board does NOT have this feature.
Conclusions
I apologize for the extreme length of this review. Believe it or not I did not write HALF the facts/features/opinions about the board that I wanted to. If you would like to learn more I recommend browsing through my earlier review of the BX6 MOTHERboard – it contains some important information about Abit boards and about motherboards in general. [All of my past reviews are conveniently sorted and linked to on my profile page.]
Thanks for your continued support!
Recommended:
Yes
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shauncool
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Member: Shaun Smith
Location: USA
Reviews written: 121
Trusted by: 236 members
About Me:
Website Applications Developer concentrating on Database Design & Integration into websites based on ASP Technology.
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