ABIT BX133-RAID i440BX Socket-370 ATX

AnandTech Motherboard Rating

Performance

The BX133-RAID is a bit slower than other i440BX boards, although the difference is minimal, making it more or less average.

Interestingly, it actually slowed down when we used the onboard HighPoint HPT370 Ultra ATA/100 controller. Of course the real performance advantage of the HPT370 shows up when it's setup for RAID operation and/or with an Ultra ATA/100 hard drive

Price

ABIT boards have generally been priced a bit less than competitors, but the BX133-RAID is quite a deal at under $150 for a solid i440BX board and an Ultra ATA/100 RAID controller.

Stability

Stability used to be ABIT's weak point, but their recent releases have been rock solid. They started this renewed focus on stability with the KA7 and it continues here with the BX133-RAID.

Quality

ABIT has never been known for producing the highest quality products and our standard metric puts ABIT quality at approximately average. In spite of this, the board was still extremely stable during our tests.

Features

While other manufacturers seem to be focusing on adding little frills to their products, ABIT's actually worked on some useful features. First it was SoftMenu III, the most flexible jumperless CPU setup for overclockers we've ever seen. Now it's the addition of onboard Ultra ATA/100 RAID.

Of course, it's still an i440BX board, so there's no AGP 4X (regardless of how useful it may or may not be) and no official 133 MHz FSB speed.

Layout

ABIT has finally moved the ATX power connector away from the very back edge of the motherboard, a location that required you to run the power cable over the memory and CPU. It's now on the side of the board, although still towards the back.

Otherwise, the BX133-RAID layout is very good, with all 5 PCI slots available for use with full length cards, HDD/FDD connectors in the proper place, etc.

Availability

Finding ABIT motherboards isn't a difficult task at all, most people have heard of them and when you have a large demand for a particular brand, you'll always find vendors that stock them.

The BX133-RAID should be available within a few weeks of the publication of this review, but it could be a short lived product if Intel decides to cut off supply of the i440BX. We've seen no indication that this will be happening soon, but it is something to be aware of.

Documentation & Software Bundle

ABIT has always had strong written documentation bundled with their motherboards and the BX133-RAID is no exception.