Cyrix had proved to the hardware community that they can produce a high performing and competitive processor, at a low cost. But which motherboard truly does this processor justice? You can already bet that it isn't a motherboard based on an Intel chipset. However how well do Intel TX based motherboards support the Cyrix 6x86MX? Keep on reading to find out...

After reigning at the top of this comparison for the past 5 months, the MTech Mustang R534F has finally been dethroned as the fastest Cyrix 6x86MX Performer.  By a point differential of 0.2 Winstone points (hardly noticeable to a normal user), the DFI P5XV3, when using an AGP Video card, beats the MTech Mustang R534F coming in at 1st place with the 6x86MX at 150MHz (PR2/200+).  The third place winner is also the DFI P5XV3, however the score of 55.8 was obtained using a PCI Matrox Millennium vs. the AGP Millennium II used in the AGP tests of the P5XV3.   Amazingly enough, the Intel TX based FIC PT-2007 comes in fourth place with an astounding 55.5 Business Winstone 97 score...not bad at all considering the motherboard uses a chipset not designed specifically for use with the Cyrix 6x86MX. 

Closely following the miniscule lead of the PT-2007 is the VIA VP3 based FIC PA-2012 using an AGP Video card for the video subsystem, giving it the performance boost necessary to make the jump from its 7th place home to its 5th place resting area.  Separating the two PA-2012 scores is another TX based motherboard, the Shuttle HOT-565 which still seems to be an excellent performer, in spite of the age of the motherboard. 

In eighth place we see the VP2 based FIC PA-2007, a motherboard which was surrounded by hype upon its release a few months back...however that hype was mostly unjustified since it was about the "immense" cacheable memory area of the PA-2007, which in reality turned out to be a maximum of 128MB due to the lack of a secondary tag RAM on the motherboard itself. 

Holding its place in the top 10 is the SiS 5582 based AOpen AP58, this low cost motherboard is definitely not an old granny when it comes to the Cyrix 6x86MX...the AP58 beat the entire ABIT line of motherboards, along with some other non-Intel chipset based motherboard in this test...looks like the SiS 5582 chipset isn't as bad as people once imagined it would be. 

Holding its place in the top 10 is the SiS 5582 based AOpen AP58, this low cost motherboard is definitely not an old granny when it comes to the Cyrix 6x86MX...the AP58 beat the entire ABIT line of motherboards, along with some other non-Intel chipset based motherboard in this test...looks like the SiS 5582 chipset isn't as bad as people once imagined it would be. 

At 166MHz, the MTech Mustang regains its lead over the DFI P5XV3 (AGP) by a virtually un-noticeable 0.6 point difference.  Most motherboards here perform pretty much equally, the only real difference in speed is noticed when you get down to the lower 5 motherboards on the chart.  There difference between the 9th place Shuttle HOT-603 and the 1st place MTech Mustang is only 1 Winstone point, not much at all. 

For the most part the breakdown of this chart is the same as the comparison at 150MHz, with one major exception, at 166MHz (using the 66MHz bus speed) the TX based motherboards seem to be doing much better than the non-Intel based motherboards.  It makes sense that since Intel officially supports the 66MHz bus speed (and nothing higher as of now) they would make sure that their chipsets would perform to the best of their ability at that bus speed.  The AOpen AP58's SiS 5582 chipset from above does officially support the 75MHz bus speed, which could explain its excellent performance when using it since the motherboard was designed with that in mind.   

With a Cyrix 6x86MX the bottom line is this, if you want the best possible performance you will want to pursue a motherboard using a non-Intel chipset, preferably one that supports the 6x86MX's unique Linear Burst Mode capability which boosts performance approximately 1 - 3% in real world applications.   A motherboard with a decent voltage regulator (preferably a switching voltage regulator system) is also a plus because you eliminate some chances of instability due to large variations in the voltage supplied to your CPU. 

The AMD K6, in spite of a few of its shortcomings, has made itself a very popular item on the internet today. However the question, "What is the best K6 motherboard" is often asked lacking a great and proper response.  So without further adieu let's take a look at the top 40 motherboards out today, and how they pair up with the K6.

Initially, overclocked to 208MHz (83 x 2.5) ABIT takes the early lead with 4 of their 7 motherboards placing in the top 5 spots, an amazing accomplishment on the part of the small Taiwanese based company.  Bringing in a Pentium II - like score of 58.9, the ABIT AX5 (2.2) quickly fades the line between AMD's K6 and Intel's power packed Pentium II.  Coming in a close 2nd place is the HX based ABIT IT5H 1.5, due to the lack of SDRAM support by the Intel HX chipset, the IT5H tests used EDO RAM as opposed to the SDRAM which was used in all other tests.  In theory this factor should penalize the performance of the IT5H, however as you can see by the scores, even in spite of this fact, the IT5H beats some of the "more advanced" TX motherboards. 

Once again the Shuttle HOT-565, coming in 4th place, manages to defeat a great percentage of the newly released TX motherboards as well as the SiS 5582 based AOpen AP58.  Unfortunately none of the VP2/VP3 based motherboards tested supported the 83MHz bus speed (with the exception of the highly unstable Shuttle HOT-603 which failed the Winstone tests) therefore we can't get a wide variety of scores in this particular test...final decision here?  Intel all the way...which is quite interesting since the AMD K6 would be one of the last processors one would expect to shine with an Intel chipset. 

Once again the Shuttle HOT-565, coming in 4th place, manages to defeat a great percentage of the newly released TX motherboards as well as the SiS 5582 based AOpen AP58.  Unfortunately none of the VP2/VP3 based motherboards tested supported the 83MHz bus speed (with the exception of the highly unstable Shuttle HOT-603 which failed the Winstone tests) therefore we can't get a wide variety of scores in this particular test...final decision here?  Intel all the way...which is quite interesting since the AMD K6 would be one of the last processors one would expect to shine with an Intel chipset. 

A few months ago the FIC PA-2007 was the topic of discussion all over the net, however in the hype most people failed to notice the release of a much less prominent motherboard, the FIC PT-2007.  Nearly identical to the PA-2007 with the only real difference being that the PT-2007 is based on the Intel TX chipset as opposed to VIA VP2 chipset found in the PA-2007.  Which is the faster motherboard?  Contrary to popular belief, the TX based PT-2007 is in fact a faster motherboard than the VP2 based PA-2007.  The only real advantage of the PA-2007 is the ability to cache above 64MB of RAM, which is only possible if you purchase the PA-2007 with 1MB of L2 cache, and even then the motherboard will only cache 127MB of RAM.   Although the VIA VP2 chipset has an integrated 10-bit tag RAM comparator, the physical tag RAM used on the PA-2007 is a 32Kx8 module, with a realistic width of 7-bits.   What does this mean?  It means that with 1MB of L2 cache you can still only cache 127MB of RAM with the PA-2007, and with 512KB of L2 cache expect a realistic cacheable memory area of approximately 64MB.  Comparing a PA-2007 (512KB) to a PT-2007 (512KB) now appears to be much easier than originally thought.  Although this may rule the VP2 chipset out of your decision, the VP3 chipset still remains, and it packs a powerful punch. 

In 4th place the FIC PA-2012 (AGP), using the VIA VP3 chipset, proves that Intel doesn't necessarily rule all with the AMD K6 processor, while the point differential between the 1st place FIC PT-2007 and the 14th place Chaintech 5TTM1 is only 1 Winstone point you need to realize that the most important factor in any motherboard purchase is the feature-set the motherboard in question provides you with.  The benchmarks do have some relevance, however they shouldn't be the deciding factor in your purchase.  Naturally you don't want to purchase the slowest motherboard here, however the performance of the top 20 motherboards on this chart are pretty much equal in terms of real world situations.

In 4th place the FIC PA-2012 (AGP), using the VIA VP3 chipset, proves that Intel doesn't necessarily rule all with the AMD K6 processor, while the point differential between the 1st place FIC PT-2007 and the 14th place Chaintech 5TTM1 is only 1 Winstone point you need to realize that the most important factor in any motherboard purchase is the feature-set the motherboard in question provides you with.  The benchmarks do have some relevance, however they shouldn't be the deciding factor in your purchase.  Naturally you don't want to purchase the slowest motherboard here, however the performance of the top 20 motherboards on this chart are pretty much equal in terms of real world situations.

Not an overclocker?  At the top of the K6/233's favorites list is the DFI P5XV3 using an AGP video card which ties for first place with the TX based ASUS TXP4-X.  If you don't plan on overclocking your K6, the final decision hear boils down to which motherboard has the most PCI/ISA slots, the most DIMM/SIMM slots and the features to suit your needs.  In this case it is better to pay the Motherboard Reviews Index a visit and read the individual reviews of these motherboards to help you narrow down your choices to make your final decision much easier.

There are two types of people that normally would chose the Pentium MMX over the K6, die hard Quake fans and die hard Intel fans. The case used to be that the Megatrends HX83 was the clear way to go when buying a Pentium MMX, however with the improvements made to the ABIT AX5, and the outstanding performance of the 20+ newcomers to this comparison the decision has been made a bit more difficult. Let's find out why...

Formerly the winner of the Best TX Based Motherboard award on this site, the Shuttle HOT-569 still rules as the 1st place winner at 208MHz with the Pentium MMX followed by the ABIT AX5 and then the Megatrends HX83.   As history has shown us however, the best performing motherboard on paper isn't necessarily the best motherboard.  At higher bus speeds, particularly 83MHz many motherboards either fail or require a more generous tweaking of the BIOS timings, therefore effectively degrading the overall performance rating of the motherboard.   While a motherboard may be the fastest at an un-overclocked setting, pushing it to the limits can cause it to choke miserably.  In cases like this you have to consider the quality of the motherboard (capacitors, design, PCB, etc...) in addition to any known incompatibilities, particularly with SDRAM.

winner of the Best TX Based Motherboard award on this site, the Shuttle HOT-569 still rules as the 1st place winner at 208MHz with the Pentium MMX followed by the ABIT AX5 and then the Megatrends HX83.   As history has shown us however, the best performing motherboard on paper isn't necessarily the best motherboard.  At higher bus speeds, particularly 83MHz many motherboards either fail or require a more generous tweaking of the BIOS timings, therefore effectively degrading the overall performance rating of the motherboard.   While a motherboard may be the fastest at an un-overclocked setting, pushing it to the limits can cause it to choke miserably.  In cases like this you have to consider the quality of the motherboard (capacitors, design, PCB, etc...) in addition to any known incompatibilities, particularly with SDRAM.

At 225MHz the ABIT PX5 still holds the lead, however it is being threatened by a newcomer to the page, the QDI Titanium 1B.  A jumperless motherboard, arguably one of the first jumperless TX motherboards to hit the market, QDI has always been a competitor of ABIT, however they haven't been receiving the credit they disserve.  Here you can clearly see that the overclocked performance of the Titanium 1B is well beyond entry level, this is mainly because the Titanium 1B worked flawlessly at the 75MHz setting, the BIOS memory timings were set at the fastest possible settings without any problems what-so-ever.  Although it wasn't the fastest performer with the AMD K6 or the Cyrix 6x86MX, the QDI Titanium 1B is a very well designed motherboard which is also a very decent performer.  For these reasons, in addition to the extremely low failure rate, most smaller vendors choose to carry QDI motherboards instead of other more popular ABIT or FIC products.

lways been a competitor of ABIT, however they haven't been receiving the credit they disserve.  Here you can clearly see that the overclocked performance of the Titanium 1B is well beyond entry level, this is mainly because the Titanium 1B worked flawlessly at the 75MHz setting, the BIOS memory timings were set at the fastest possible settings without any problems what-so-ever.  Although it wasn't the fastest performer with the AMD K6 or the Cyrix 6x86MX, the QDI Titanium 1B is a very well designed motherboard which is also a very decent performer.  For these reasons, in addition to the extremely low failure rate, most smaller vendors choose to carry QDI motherboards instead of other more popular ABIT or FIC products.

Once again the ABIT PX5 comes out on top, however the Titanium 1B from QDI drops to a horribly low 23rd place, it is very evident that the highest performing motherboards with the Pentium MMX are those based on Intel chipsets, with the first motherboard using a non-Intel based chipset appearing on this chart in 11th place (Shuttle HOT-603). 

Windows 95 Performance - Business Winstone 97 - Intel Pentium MMX 266 (75MHz x 3.5)