Value Dual Socket-370 Motherboard Roundup - August 2001

ABIT VP6

Click here to enlarge.

ABIT VP6
CPU Interface	Socket-370
Chipset	VIA Apollo Pro133A VT 694X North Bridge VT 686B South Bridge
Form Factor	ATX
Bus Speeds	66 - 178MHz (in 1MHz increments)
Voltages Supported	Auto Detect 1.30 - 1.85V (0.05V increments)
Memory Slots	4 168-pin DIMM Slots
Expansion Slots	1 AGP Slot 5 PCI Slots (1 Full Length) 0 CNR Slots
On-board Audio	N/A
BIOS	Award Modular BIOS 6.00PG

Overclocking has been the key to ABIT's success, going back to the introduction of SoftMenu seemingly eons ago. That trend continues today with all their products, including the VP6. Accordingly, within the BIOS you can find a wide variety of memory and voltage tweaking options.

Memory tweaking options.

The big overclocking feature, however, is availability of 1MHz increments for the FSB, something we hardly saw in any other dual Socket-370 motherboard. This setting allows you to fine-tune your FSB to maximize the overclocking potential of your CPU. Thanks to the clean design of the board, we were able to hit a FSB speed of 155MHz without compromising the stability of the system.

In classic ABIT fashion, you should have no problem fitting large HSF units on the motherboard since ABIT has made sure that there is plenty of space around both CPU sockets. Further, four memory slots are available, giving you added flexibility when it comes to memory configuration.

Like most other recent ABIT products, the VP6 is outfitted with the Highpoint IDE RAID controller as well. The controller allows RAID 0, RAID 1, and RAID 0+1 setups. Of course, you can disable the RAID functionality and just use the controller as another IDE controller.

The Highpoint IDE RAID controller and connectors.

The only problem we encountered during testing was in the stability department, where the VP6 wasn't exactly the most stable board in the lab.

Overall, the VP6 is a board with a clear target market - the overclockers looking to dabble with SMP.. The only downside is stability, but otherwise the VP6 contains pretty much everything that a hardware enthusiasts could ask for.