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Hardware & Systems : Chips & Upgrades: Abit BX6 II Review

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Abit BX6 II Review
March 7, 1999
By Tony Martin and Scott Mahaney

bx62.jpg (20692 bytes) 

 
This is the overclocker’s dream board. With Abit’s Soft Menu, a plethora of bus speeds to choose from, selectable voltages and hardware monitoring, the BX6 II is placed at the top of the pack.


Features

CPUs Supported Intel Pentium II, 233 - 450+ Mhz 
Intel Pentium III, 450 - 500+ Mhz 
Intel Celeron Slot 1, 266 - 400+ Mhz 

Top MHz supported: 1224 MHz (8*153)

Clock Multipliers 2 to 8 (.5 increments)
Bus Speeds 66, 75, 83, 100, 103, 112, 117, 124, 129, 133, 138, 143, 148, 153Mhz 
CPU voltage settings 1.30-2.1v (.5v increments), 2.2v, 2.3v
System Memory Four 168-pin DIMM sockets supporting SDRAM, 1024 MB max. 
(8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256 MB)
Expansion Slots 1 AGP 2x, 5 PCI, 2 ISA    (all full-length)
Internal/External I/O
  • Floppy port supports up to 2.88MB and mode 3 floppies
  • Ultra DMA/33 IDE supports up to 4 devices (Including LS-120)
  • Two USB connectors
  • Two 16550 fast UART serial ports
  • Built-in Standard/ECP/EPP parallel port
  • PS/2 mouse and keyboard connectors
  • IrDA Infrared port header (not external)
  • Wake-On-LAN header
  • Wake-On-Ring header
  • SB-Link Header
Form Factor ATX (12" x 8.5")
Miscellaneous
  • Intel 440BX chipset
  • CPU SOFT MENU II
  • Award BIOS
  • Supports ACPI and Soft-OFF functions
  • Motherboard temp, CPU temp, system and CPU fan speed, and voltages monitoring
  • Keyboard and Mouse wake-up
  • Y2k compliant
Boot Options A, C, SCSI 
C, A, SCSI 
C, CD-ROM, A 
CD-ROM, C, A 
D, A, SCSI (At least 2 IDE HDD can be used) 
E, A, SCSI (At least 2 IDE HDD can be used) 
F, A, SCSI (At least 2 IDE HDD can be used) 
SCSI, A, C 
SCSI, C, A 
A, SCSI, C 
LS/ZIP, C
  

Summary


Price 
          Street 
          $110 (about) 
  
+ 
  Stability & Compatibility 
  Feature Variety 
  CPU/System temp. 
  Voltage Control 

- 
  Still a little high in price but this should change over time.  
 

Overall 
    One of the better, if not best overclocking board. 


Setup as tested:
See below
  

History of the BX6 II

Abit really started to draw attention in the motherboard world with their introduction of the LX6, which included Soft Menu and a pseudo 100MHz bus setting. This board quickly became popular was an extremely stable 75 and 83.3 Mhz setting. They improved on the LX6 with the introduction of the BX6 version 1. Based off of Intel’s BX chipset, it brought even more light and credibility to Abit’s engineering capabilities. This was just the beginning; next the BH6 rolled out and became probably the top board for overclocking. Coupled with a Celeron 300a and the board’s abilities to up the CPU core voltage in .1 volt increments placed Abit at the forefront of the overclocker’s dream. Most companies would have been happy with this standing, not Abit… 
 

Setup

There have been reports that the BX6 II is not stable above 133MHz or 138MHz; not true. The problem is memory and so I tried many combinations to find the right mix. 
 
CPU Celeron 300a OEM (Costa Rica)
Celeron 300a Retail (Malaya)
Pentium II 266 OEM
Pentium II 266 Retail
 
Video ATI Rage PCI
 
Ram Mushkin PC100 128meg
Crucial PC100 128meg
Corsair  PC100 128meg
Viking PC100 128meg
LGS PC100 64meg

 

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