Ever since Intel gave up sole licensing, VIA has been creeping up and has become a popular competitor. VIA started with the Apollo Pro chipset and then continued on to make a chipset that is pin-compatible to Intel's BX: the Apollo Pro Plus. VIA chipsets used to have some AGP problems, but with the latest drivers, it's much more stable. Now, with the recent entrance of the Apollo Pro 133A, it's time to clean up the Apollo Pro 133 motherboards. So, to commence our reviews of the 133's, here is the AOpen AX63Pro.

Even though AOpen made an Apollo Pro Plus board -- the AOpen AX63 -- it's good to see one of the big boys in motherboards continuing to support the third party chipset manufacturers. There are not many competitors to Intel out there, but VIA has done a good job of keeping up with chipset releases. With the addition of Ultra DMA 66 support and the 133MHz memory bus speed, AOpen might have made another winner. Read on to see if AOpen continues the trend of solid, well constructed, non-Intel motherboards with the introduction of the AX63Pro.

New Anand Tech Report Card Rating
90/A-

The Good

As mentioned above, the AOpen AX63 Pro runs on the Apollo Pro 133 chipset and you can add up to 768 MB of SDRAM. If you are looking for an older Apollo Pro Plus AOpen board, the strikingly similar predecessor is the AOpen AX63. While AOpen recently came out with a BX board in the AX6BC Pro II, which has a 6/0/1 (PCI/ISA/AGP) slot configuration, the AX63 Pro features the older 5/2/1 slot configuration with a total of 3 DIMM slots. All but a single PCI slot can take a full length card while neither of the ISA slots is capable of accepting full length cards.

The board is tight fitting to the ATX specification other than the placement of the floppy drive at the top of the board. In terms of fan connectors, there are only two on this board -- one directly next to the chip and the other below the PCI slots at the left front of the board. There were a good number of capacitors both around the chip and a few smaller ones scattered around the board. There are four 2200uF capacitors, nine 1500uF caps around the chip and two near the DIMM slots.

Instead of the standard green heatsink, there is a gold colored one unique to to AOpen's pro line, which is mounted with thermal tape onto the chipset. The advantage of using thermal tape, instead of the ever popular spring clips, is that the tape allows more heat to be transferred to the heatsink. The CPU is held in place by a retention mechanism that folds up from the board but is already in place.

One important thing to note is that the Mobile South Bridge VT82C596B handles UDMA 33 and 66 duties, as opposed to some boards which include a separate UDMA 66 chip. Read AnandTech's Ultra ATA 66 review for more information on UDMA 66. Therefore, both IDE channels support UDMA 66, unlike some other motherboards, which have a separate chip and IDE channels for UDMA 66.

AOpen is not one to skimp on overclocking options and has continued to use the popular jumperless CPU configuration allowing BIOS switching of clock/FSB frequency, CPU multiplier and voltage. AOpen also included two 6-pin jumper blocks that are adjacent to the last DIMM slot, which must be changed in certain overclocking situations; for example, when overclocking a 66MHz FSB clock CPU to 100MHz or higher. There are three ranges other than the auto jumper settings: 66-83MHz, 90-124MHz, and 124-155MHz. If you are trying to overclock a Pentium II 400 to higher than 124MHz, you would need to change the jumpers to the highest category. So, in order to get all FSB speeds, it is necessary to switch these jumpers. When you unpack the board, the FSB selection, by default, is set to auto. The rest of the jumpers are the same as on the AOpen AX63 on the board -- the standard CMOS reset and another jumper for disabling keyboard power on.

There are multiple FSBs to be chosen; a total of 32 reported by AOpen. Here are the FSBs which we found in the bios: 66 / 66.8 / 68 / 75 / 78 / 81 / 83 / 83.3 / 90 / 95 / 100 / 105 / 110 / 112 / 113.5 / 115 / 118.5 / 120 / 122 / 124 / 126 / 133.3 / 135 / 137 / 138.5 / 140 / 142 / 144 / 150 / 155. In order to get see all available FSB speeds, it is necessary to switch the option in the BIOS for spread spectrum (under the Chipset menu and below voltage settings). The most advantageous reason for the 32 different speeds is that they allow fine tweaking for overclocking fans. If your CPU won't quite boot at 120 MHz, it still might at 118.5 MHz. Since the Apollo Pro 133 offers a 1/2 AGP multiplier, bus speeds in the 133 MHz range are safe, unlike a BX board.

Fortunately AOpen has created another workhorse. In comparison to the AX63, the Pro 133 is a much more stable board - more along the lines of AOpen's BX boards. When overclocked, the motherboard remained very stable, as a good AOpen should.

The BIOS is Award 4.60 PGMA based and is full of overclocking options. Thanks to the Apollo Pro 133 chipset, the AOpen AX63 Pro BIOS can set the memory speed at either the FSB speed, FSB +33 MHz or FSB -33MHz. When running the chip at 66 MHz, the -33 MHz setting cannot be used. Similarly, when running the FSB at 133 MHz, running the memory at 166 MHz is not feasible. The only other change from the standard Award fare is that AOpen has also included a "Turbo Default" setting, which is a quick way to optimize the BIOS.

AOpen has also stayed on top of the new features of power management. Both wake on LAN and wake on modem ring headers are options available in the BIOS to allow the system to be powered on remotely by the presence of network activity or by an incoming call. Also, the computer can be ready before you even get into work since the BIOS can be set to turn on the system at a specific time. When the system suspends, the BIOS allows the option of suspending the CPU fan to quiet things down a bit when the system enters suspend mode. Added power management is available via ACPI support built into the BIOS, as long as the OS is ACPI compliant like Windows 98 or Windows 2000. If you are not fond of your case's power button, the system can be configured to power on via hot key or mouse click.

Finally, the AOpen AX63 Pro supports the ability to configure how the system will respond after a power outage when AC power is restored. After power returns, the system can either remain off (default), turn on, or resume the last power state that the computer was in before the outage. This feature is often overlooked after the market included ATX and soft power, but is critical for any users where their system must be on as close to 24/7 as possible. This feature also has a more practical use for the everyday consumer because it allows for users to shut the system on and off from a surge protector.

The Bad

The placement of the floppy drive interface connector at the top of the AX63's PCB requires the user to stretch the floppy cable over the processor in order to reach the motherboard. Imported from the AOpen AX6BC Pro Gold review is a picture of how to run the floppy drive underneath the motherboard to avoid the aforementioned issue.

AOpen's hardware monitoring capabilities have always been weak, and this fault continutes to be the case with the AX63 Pro. The chip for hardware monitoring is the Genesis Logic GL518SM - pretty much an AOpen only chip, used often on AOpen boards, but rarely seen from other manufacturers. There are only four voltages reported by the utility - +3.3V, +5V, +12V, and Vcore. The BIOS itself doesn't report temperature or voltage information - the only way to get such information is via software. There is a single thermistor mounted under the CPU socket which measures the CPU temperature. Unfortunately, this chip does not support reading the CPU temperature directly from the thermal diode included in .25 micron Pentium II/Celeron CPU's. In the past, most shareware/freeware monitoring programs either don't support the Genesys chips or don't support all of its features but recently the trend has changed. There are a variety of shareware/freeware hardware monitoring utilities are available on the web if you don't like AOpen's bundled software, such as Motherboard Monitor and Hardware Monitor, that should support the chip.

It was a little disappointing to not find AOpen's usually excellent manual in the box as has been the case in recent AOpen boards. Here they did cut corners a bit to save some money and have included a Quick Installation Guide, which might be the up-and-coming trend. The manual is included, but only on CD - not much good if you can't get the computer up and running. The Quick Installation Guide is also surprisingly brief with little information about the physical installation of the board. There is just some information on basic jumper settings and CPU setup.

USB Compatibility

• Number of Front Universal Serial Bus Root Ports: 0

• Number of Rear Universal Serial Bus Root Ports: 2

• USB IRQ Enable/Disable in BIOS: Yes

• USB Keyboard Support in BIOS: Yes

Recommended SDRAM

Recommended SDRAM: 1 x 64MB Mushkin SEC Original PC100 SDRAM; 1 x 64MB Memory-Man SEC Original PC100 SDRAM

SDRAM Tested: 1 x 128MB Mushkin SEC Original PC100 SDRAM; 1 x 128MB Memory-Man SEC Original PC100 SDRAM

Manufacturer: The Memory Man
Purchase Web-Site: http://www.memory-man.com

Manufacturer: Mushkin
Purchase Website: http://www.mushkin.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.

Click Here to learn about AnandTech's Motherboard Testing Methodology.

The Final Decision

The AOpen AX63 Pro shows AOpen's excellence, even with the VIA Apollo Pro 133 chipset. The BIOS is very similar to other AOpen Award BIOS's, which have a few added features above the simple Award BIOS, such as "Turbo defaults" and voltage adjustment. The VIA Apollo Pro 133 chipset is not infalliable since it does perform a little slower than Intel's BX. With further VIA Apollo Pro 133 chipsets to be reviewed, it is likely that the AOpen AX63 Pro will be the board to which all others are compared.

How it Rates

Click Here to learn about AnandTech's Motherboard Testing Methodology.