Monday, December 13, 1999

The performance tests results

All tests were all performed under Windows98.

The system setup was as following:

Motherboard: Abit BE6-II
CPU: Intel Pentium II 350mhz
Memory: 64mb of Mushkin PC133 SDram
IDE first channel Primary port: Quantum Fireball KA 9.1gig UDMA66
IDE second channel Primary port: Kenwood 48X True X
AGP slot: ATI Rage Fury 128GL
OS: Win98 4.10
DirectX 6.1

The Tests

As the BE6-II employs the 440BX chipset from Intel - a set now long in the tooth, and passed over by events - I used as a reference point, a series of recently tested boards. All the boards tested support ATA66 drives, PC133 memory, and a few support 4X AGP. No need to remind you that these are all functions that the 440BX chipset does not support, and that reflects on the BE6-II. The BE6-II does support ATA66, though, thanks to its integrated ATA66 controller but for these tests, I bypassed use of the integrated controller, and instead I used the BX own ATA33 controller just to see if it would have any negative side effects...

Winbench 99 CPUmark

Here then is a remarkable opening performance. In effect, the BE6-II takes a spot 1.4 points behind the original BE6 - which itself outperforms all the other tested boards....

Winstone 99

Once again the BE6-II puts up a great show. While the BE6, and the BE6-II take the head of the pack in the non-Overclocked tests, the BE6-II - when pushed to 420Mhz - attains performance nearly identical to that of the AOpen MX64 - which itself was Overclocked to 434Mhz...

Video Sub-System Tests

Yet again, the BE6-II, and the BE6 take the lead.

Using Mushkin PC133 memory, we were able to tweak our PII-350Mhz to 420Mhz for this test. The results, as you can see, correspond with those of our previous tests. Note that 420Mhz was the top frequency that was obtainable by Overclocking this board, while with the other boards, it was possible to push our PII-350Mhz to 434Mhz most of the time.

Disk Sub-System Tests

The evaluation table below shows both the strong and weak points of the tested motherboard. No need to remind you that performance is not the sole purchasing criteria in a motherboard. Most of today's motherboards exhibit performance very close to each other, so we need additional information in order to help us distinguish the real advantages of a motherboard compared to its competitors. This is exactly where this evaluation table comes in handy.

The Abit BE6-II scored 89, out of a possible 100 points. See below for further details.

The Weak Points

The BE6-II's weak points are these: the ATX connector is situated a bit too close to the processor, and the presence of only 3 memory sockets. In short, nothing really drastic has changed here... A certain amount of instability arises with this board, as well, when I made attempts to set the system bus higher than 120Mhz. In comparison, when using exactly the same hardware with other motherboards, I was often able to push the system to 124Mz, or even 140Mhz, or 150Mhz in some cases.

The Strong Points

The BE6-II's strong points are these: exceptional performance, a great Overclocking versatility, a 100% jumperless design that offers a wide range of possibilities, and the integration of a ATA66 controller in its very circuits.

Conclusions

The Abit BE6-II took us on a truly wild ride. Effectively, a motherboard based on the somewhat dated Intel 440BX chipset managed to show up boards based on the newer Apollo Pro133, and Pro133A chipsets from VIA. Just when we though the 440BX was dead, we find that it leads the pack; even if it doesn't support 133Mhz system bus speeds, 4X AGP, or ATA66. Abit, in its infinite wisdom, has truly managed to take advantage of the 440BX set by including a ATA66 controller. The funny thing is that these new features (PC133 memory, 4X AGP, ATA66) provide so little in additional performance when everything is said, and done. After having personally compared ATA33 and ATA66, 2X AGP and 4X AGP, as well as PC100 and PC133 memory, I can certify that the performance gains of the new techs are so small as to be nearly immeasurable... You can see for your very self, that the BE6-II - possessing none of these features - manages to stay neck-and-neck, or even exceed the performance of its competitors... On the other hand, it looks like that the VIA Apollo Pro133, and Pro133A chipsets are not quite as nimble as the Intel 440BX set; don't you think?

For additional information, visit Abit.

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