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Abit's
BE6 Motherboard - Slot1 Intel BX w/ ATA66 EIDE
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Probably
the most familiar name to the hard core Overclocker, Abit
has been producing motherboards, that break the mold and set
new standards, for many years now. I remember the first time
I used an Abit board back in the early days of the Pentium.
The SoftMenu setup feature made life so easy and we all
could squeeze a few more MHz. out of that tired CPU. A lot
has changed since then but one thing hasn't. Abit is still
trying to differentiate its products in the marketplace and
they have succeeded again with the BE6. The new BE6
Motherboard from Abit is a combination of mature Intel
technology and new standards for hard disk interfaces. This
board is the industry's first Slot 1 Motherboard with an on
board ATA66 EIDE Hard Drive Controller.
Abit of course threw in a few more goodies. We took a good
look at this product for you.
Feature
Set
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CPU
- Supports
Intel Pentium® III 450~600MHz processor cartridge
- Supports
Intel Pentium® II 233~450MHz processor cartridge
- Supports
Intel Celeron® 266~433MHz processor cartridge
Chipse
- Intel®440BX
AGPset (82443BX and 82371EB)
- Supports
Advanced Configuration and Power Management Interface (ACPI)
- Supports
AGP 1X/2X (Sideband)3.3V device
Memory
- Three
168-pin DIMM sockets support SDRAM module
- Supports
up to 768MB MAX. (8, 16, 32, 64, 128,256MB SDRAM)
- Supports
ECC
System
BIOS
- CPU
SOFT MENUTM II eliminates the need for jumpers or DIP
switches needed to set CPU parameters
- Award
Plug and Play BIOS supports APM, DMI and ACPI
- Write-Protect
Anti-Virus function by AWARD BIOS
- Year
2000 Compliant
Functions
- Two
channels of bus Master IDE Ports supporting up to four
Ultra DMA 33/66 devices
- Two
channels of bus Master IDE Ports supporting up to four
Ultra DMA 33 devices
- PS/2
Keyboard and PS/2 Mouse connectors
- One
Floppy Port (up to 2.88MB)
- One
Parallet Port (EPP/ECP)
- Two
Serial Ports
- Two
USB Connectors
- Built-in
IrDA TX/RX header
Miscellaneous
- ATX
form factor
- One
AGP slot, Five PCI slots and Two ISA slots
- Hardware
monitoring - Includes fan speed, voltages, CPU and
system environment temperature,and one thermal header
for other temperature monitoring
- Keyboard
and Mouse Wake Up
- Built-in
Wake on LAN header
- One
thermal sensor cable Included
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Installation
and Use
We
couldn't help think to ourselves, what else could we
possibly want in a motherboard. Well, the answer to that
question is, not much! The BE6 is packed with features. From
the on board EIDE
ATA66 controller from HighPoint Technologies.
right down to the included thermister probe, this board
almost has it all. Could there have been a few more FSB
settings like 122, 126 or 129MHz.? Yes. We also would like
to have seen the ATX Power Connector a little closer to the
edge of the board near the Power Supply. But hey, we haven't
found a perfect Motherboard yet! We'll keep looking but the
BE6 sure tries hard!
Set up
on the BE6 was a snap with one exception, playing around
with IRQ resources for the ATA66 Controller was a bit of a
guessing game. The board does thankfully let you designate
what IRQ will be assigned to SOME of the PCI Slots. However,
they are often paired up with other resources on the board
like the AGP Slot or the ATA66 Controller. This issue was
nothing more than a nuisance to us and we prevailed fairly
easily on setting up a somewhat complex system with most all
slots full.
So with
that out of the way, we hit the power button of course! :-)
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Abit
BE6 Benchmarks this way! -->
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