Anand Tech Report Card Rating
94/A-

The Good

We've heard this time and time again in the BX world, 4 PCI, 3 ISA, and 1 AGP slot, nothing more to it.  If you have more than 4 PCI cards you may want to shift your attention to the MTech/Soyo BX board, if you need more than 3 ISA slots you may want to search for upgrades to some of your older peripherals as it is highly unlikely that you will see that happening.  The three DIMM slots on the P6SBA should be more than enough for average users, an extra DIMM slot wouldn't hurt of course. 

The P6SBA's layout is common to more than one motherboard, it is much like that of the ASUS P2B and the DFI P2XBL, however the P6SBA's jumper setup is a bit easier to configure.  A single jumper controls the bus speed, off for 100MHz, on for 66MHz.  The clock multiplier is controlled by a standard 8-pin jumper block located out of the way of any obstructions, aided by the comprehensive Supermicro manual you shouldn't have too much trouble setting this board up.

Unlike most motherboards, Supermicro chose to go with the AMI WinBIOS instead of the Award PnP BIOS for their CMOS Setup Utility.   The AMI WinBIOS mimics the old Windows 3.11 interface and even allows you to navigate through the setup with your mouse provided it is plugged in at the time of startup.  While this is a "cute" feature, the WinBIOS does not lack in power when compared to the more conventional Award BIOS.  In fact, the AMI WinBIOS can be a very difficult setup to configure, especially when dealing with the Chipset Features and Memory Timings.  Luckily, like most other BX motherboards, the P6SBA offers a SDRAM Auto configuration setting which communicates with your PC100 SDRAM using its on-board SPD ROM (those extra bucks spent on SDRAM w/ on-board EEPROM finally pay off) that configures your Memory for the best possible combination of stability/performance, virtually eliminating the need to learn the meanings of all of your BIOS Settings. 

If you do feel like manually configuring your SDRAM is necessary, the Supermicro User's Manual also doubles as an AMI WinBIOS manual, and a very good one at that.  Not only does the manual provide the best explanation this webmaster has seen of common BIOS settings, but it also recommends what settings should be enabled/disabled (unfortunately quite a few settings are left with the phrase "leave as default setting" next to them). 

The stability of the P6SBA isn't something you can complain about, the motherboard is solid as a rock and it is obvious that the board was intended to be run in a do-or-die situation like its Dual Processor Brothers, the P6DBS and P6DBE. 

The performance of the P6SBA is identical to that of the P6DBS and P6DBE when using a single processor, in comparison, the Supermicro board falls in-between the top two performers in the BX World currently, the ABIT BX6 and the Top Tier performing ASUS P2B.  Congrats to Supermicro on another job well done, however you overclockers out there may be a little more than disappointed with one of the P6SBA's "features..."

The Bad

Don't plan on overclocking the P6SBA, if you have a Pentium II - 233, 266, 300, or 333 (66MHz bus speed Pentium II's) then the P6SBA will auto-detect the proper bus speed for your CPU and it will clock your system accordingly.  You could set your system to 100 x 3.5, and the board would still over-ride your decision by clocking it at 66 x 3.5.  Of course, as with other BX motherboards, the Pentium II - 350 and 400 can only be clocked at their rated speeds (350MHz & 400MHz respectively) regardless of the clock multiplier used.  If you want the performance of a Pentium II - 400 on this motherboard then you're going to have to buy a Pentium II - 400 to get it.

That's the only real beef you may have with the P6SBA, the "one-size fits all" user's manual that also contains the P6DBS, DBE, and SBS' jumper settings may make you a bit un-easy however rest assured that it is a very thorough manual.

The lack of any overclocked bus speeds, and the presence of SDRAM SPD Auto Configuration options in the AMI WinBIOS of the Supermicro motherboard make Recommended BIOS Settings obsolete for this motherboard.

Recommended SDRAM

Recommended SDRAM: Corsair PC100 SDRAM
SDRAM Tested: 1 x 64MB Corsair PC100 SDRAM

Manufacturer: Corsair Microsystems
Purchase Web-Site: http://www.nf-ny.com 

The Test

In recent times, choosing a motherboard cannot be completely determined by a Winstone score. Now, many boards come within one Winstone point of each other and therefore the need to benchmark boards against each other falls. Therefore you shouldn't base your decision entirely on the benchmarks you see here, but also on the technical features and advantages of this particular board, seeing as that will probably make the greatest difference in your overall experience.

How I Tested

• Each benchmark was run a minimum of 2 times and a maximum of 5 times, if the motherboard failed to complete a single test within the 5 allocated test runs the OS/Software was re-installed on a freshly formatted Hard Drive and the BIOS settings were adjusted to prevent the test from failing again.  All such encounters were noted at the exact time of their occurrence.

• Business Winstone 98 was run at each individually tested clock speed, if reliable scores were achieved with the first two test runs of the suite an average of the two was taken and recorded as the final score at that clock speed.  If the test system displayed erratic behavior while the tests were running or the results were incredibly low/high the tests were re-run up to 5 times and an average of all the test runs was taken and recorded at the final score at that clock speed

• After each motherboard was tested a complete format of the test hard drive was initiated and the OS/benchmarking software was re-installed afterwards a defragment was initiated using Windows 95's Disk Defragmentation Utility

• Tests using AGP Video cards were run under Winstone 97 and Winstone 98

• No foreign drivers were present in the test system other than those required for the system to function to the best of its ability

• All foreign installation files were moved to a separate partition during the test as to prevent them from effecting the test results

• All tests were conducted at 800 x 600 x 256 colors

The Final Decision

All overclockers should avert their eyes from the direction of this motherboard, however if you happen to be a user that is looking for a stable, fast, reliable, and down-right decent BX motherboard give the P6SBA a try.   It is a bit pricey, but in this business you get what you pay for...a saying that apparently doesn't apply to overclockers for obvious reasons ;)