Original Link: https://www.anandtech.com/show/563
Computex 2000 Coverage Day 2: Motherboards
by Anand Lal Shimpi on June 14, 2000 2:36 AM EST- Posted in
- Trade Shows
Two days ago we brought you our first day of coverage from Computex 2000 which dealt with the chipsets that dominated the show (Apollo Pro 133A, KT133, i815E) as well as those that were seemingly absent from the floor (820E). Today the topic of discussion is the motherboard manufacturers and the designs they were showcasing at the convention.
Since Computex is much less of an end-user show than Comdex, manufacturers can get away with showing off tons of motherboards that appeal mainly to OEMs and of course the casual AnandTech reader.
As we mentioned in our Day 1 coverage, motherboard manufacturers were primarily displaying their KT133 and i815/815E motherboard designs in addition to the usual array of Apollo Pro 133A boards.
There weren't any DDR Athlon motherboards on display other than the reference board from ALi that wasn't even functional. But DDR motherboards weren't the only thing that wasn't seen on the show floor, motherboards based on Intel's 820 and 820E chipsets could hardly be seen.
Among the more interesting products we saw from the motherboard manufacturers were a handful of Dual Processor boards based on the VIA Apollo Pro 133A chipset as well as the ServerWorks ServerSet III LE chipset. For those of you that aren't familiar with the ServerSet III LE chipset it supports the 100/133MHz FSB, PC133 SDRAM, 64-bit PCI (66/33MHz), Ultra ATA 66 and 4 USB ports. As far as performance goes, there haven't been any numbers indicating the expected performance of the ServerSet III LE chipset so we can't really judge the boards until they are finally available. Assuming the performance is up to par with the competition, the ServerSet III LE could be a very interesting solution since it does support dual processors as well as PC133 SDRAM.
Another feature that was pretty big around the show was the simple migration from Slot-1 to Socket-370, while we still saw a number of Slot-1 motherboards at Comdex, they were definitely scarce at Computex. The same can be said about Slot-A versus Socket-A, there is a very noticeable trend towards the socketed CPUs from both their manufacturers and the motherboard makers as well.
Without further ado, let's get to the motherboard manufacturers and what they had to show us at this year's Computex.
ABIT
ABIT was the first company to blatantly admit to us that their 820 sales have not been doing so well and they also basically said that they wouldn't be releasing any new 820 products either. Their flagship products have always been their BX based motherboards, at least for the past two years, and although they would like that to continue it isn't going to be entirely possible since the chipset will be phased out in the future. Naturally you would think that they would replace it with the i815/815E, however according to ABIT, Intel is not able or willing to allocate enough chipsets that would allow them to move the i815 to the position of their flagship product.
The first motherboard that caught our eye was the VP-20, pictured above. The reason it caught our attention wasn't because it was a dual processor motherboard based on the Apollo Pro 133A chipset but because it is a microATX motherboard. When the microATX specification became a standard, could you ever imagine having a dual processor motherboard available in such a small footprint form factor?
On the topic of Apollo Pro 133A based motherboards, we have ABIT's VH6 which is basically a Socket-370 version of the BH6 that makes use of the 133A chipset. Hopefully the board will be better than ABIT's first VIA based Pentium II/III solution, the VA6.
We mentioned that ABIT was looking to transition to the i815 chipset instead of depending solely on the BX chipset for their flagship products, the first such transitional board is the SE6 which is based on the i815E chipset. The 'E' denotes the implementation of ICH2 on the motherboard design meaning that it supports ATA 100 as well as 4 USB ports.
In order to help get rid of the remaining ICH parts they have in stock, ABIT basically made an i815 version of the 815E based SE6. The SL6 is no different than the SE6 other than the obvious features it lacks because it uses the regular ICH instead of the newer ICH2.
Since the BX chipset still is far from its death, ABIT did show off their next BX board which they are calling the BX-100. The '100' in its name denotes the support for ATA 100 hard drives as the board features an on-board HPT370 controller from HighPoint. We asked ABIT why they insisted on using HighPoint controllers for Ultra ATA 66/100 support instead of using Promise or CMD parts, their primary reason was because they have an exclusive agreement with HighPoint that allows them to use the controllers on motherboards a couple of months before other manufacturers have access to them.
Other than the fact that the board is a Socket-370 design and features the HPT370 controller it is essentially a BE6-II.
Speaking of which, ABIT will be producing a Revision 1.2 of the BE6-II that has the new HPT370 controller instead of the older HPT366 which only supported ATA 66. Basically the BE6-II Revision 1.2 will be a Slot-1 version of the BX-100.
One of our top picks for Athlon boards was the KA7 and around the launch of the board ABIT mentioned that they would be releasing a version of the board with an on-board HPT370 controller thus adding ATA 100 support to the KA7. Nothing special here, but we have a picture of the aforementioned board, the KA7-100 in the picture above.
The new Athlon entry from ABIT is the KT7 which is basically a Socket-A/KT133 version of the KA7-100. We won't see the KT7 for at least another month or so and there is no word as to whether or not it will have any features that the KA7 lacked. But with the KA7 already claiming the title of most flexible (in terms of BIOS settings) KX133 motherboard, just by sharing that feature set the KT7 should be pretty successful.
AOpen
AOpen was showcasing pretty much what every other motherboard manufacturer had at their booths with a few exceptions, but first let's start with their 815E solution:
The AX3S Pro seems to be your ideal configuration i815E motherboard and there doesn't seem to be anything too special about the board but then again we have not had a chance to test it just yet. We'll be able to tell you more in our upcoming i815E Motherboard Roundup.
AOpen has also jumped on the Dual 133A bandwagon with their DX34 Plus. This board will actually join the ranks of the DX6G Plus and the DX2G Plus as one of only a handful of dual processor AOpen motherboards. Hopefully the DX34 Plus will enjoy a greater success than the latter two as they never really gained the popularity of some of AOpen's single processor motherboards.
The only other dual processor solution AOpen had on display was the DX3R Plus which made use of the ServerWorks ServerSet III LE chipset (formerly known as the RCC Champion III LE chipset). Note the four 64-bit PCI slots and the remaining 2 32-bit PCI slots, this is definitely a motherboard that's geared towards the high end workstation/server market and not simply a dual processor desktop board.
Our AOpen coverage would not be complete without any mention of their upcoming Socket-A/KT133 products including the microATX MK33. We weren't overly impressed with their KX133 motherboard not because of anything regarding stability (it was just as stable as the competition) but because it was essentially a reference board with nothing to differentiate it from the rest of the pack. Let's hope the MK33 and its ATX sibling, the AK33, aren't the same way.
We just mentioned the AK33 above, it is the ATX version of their Socket-A/KT133 MK33.
ASUS
Another big stop for us was the ASUS booth. While they weren't showing anything too out of the ordinary in the booth, rumor has it that they were giving private showings of a Willamette in an unnamed Hotel suite.
For starters we have ASUS' i815E based solution, the CUSL2. The board actually features two CNR slots and what appears to be an unusually thin PCI slot in order to make room for the two CNR slots. The two CNR slots are actually shared with the last two PCI slots thus letting you only occupy one or the other (CNR or PCI) at any given time.
And then we have the microATX version.
The successor to the impressive K7V, ASUS' Socket-A/KT133 A7V features the standard ASUS AGP Pro slot as well as an on-board Promise controller that adds ATA 100 support.
The CUA was one of a limited few motherboards we managed to see that featured the Aladdin TNT2 chipset which is basically their 133MHz FSB chipset for the Pentium II/III & Celeron but with and integrated TNT2 graphics core.
Just like AOpen, ASUS was demoing a dual Socket-370 board based on the ServerWorks ServerSet III LE chipset. The CUR-DLS features only two 64-bit PCI slots and five 32-bit PCI slots unlike the AOpen board which is predominantly a 64-bit PCI slot board.
Chaintech
Chaintech has been enjoying a pretty large increase in sales recently, mostly because of their brand new management team. Needless to say that the entire team over there is pretty excited, and while they didn't have too much to show they did introduce a few new products of interest to us.
Chaintech's latest feature is something like like to call "3 BIOS" but contrary to what the name may sound like it doesn't mean that there are physically three BIOS chips on your motherboard. Instead it is much like Gigabyte's Dual BIOS and AOpen's Die-Hard BIOS where there are physically two chips. The name 3 BIOS comes from the three different methods of protection it offers you against BIOS corruption.
The only i815E board we saw from Chaintech was this microATX board but depending on the demand we may see a regular ATX version as well. Chaintech also expressed to us a lack of enough i815 chipsets for them to make their 815 board the flagship for the company.
The last thing of interest from Chaintech was their PM133 based which wasn't anything truly special other than that it was a working implementation of VIA's new integrated chipset.
FIC
A new set of features FIC was boasting at this year's Computex was something they call NOVUS which is basically a collection of utilities FIC will be bundling with their motherboards. Among the utilities included is a Win32 overclocking utility called Clockometer which we took a quick look at below:
Quite a few motherboard manufacturers are actually providing users with products such as Clockometer, but one of the more unique features of NOVUS is its AudioAlert feature which is basically an extension of the diagnostic LEDs that are on some motherboards today (i.e. MSI). AudioAlert is basically a voice that tells you what's wrong with the system instead of simply flashing lights. Unfortunately we weren't able to see it in action on the floor.
Genesis 2000 is FIC's attempt to get into the IA market, it is basically a sealed box running the IA version of BeOS. As you can see, FIC is definitely trying to broaden their horizons.
FIC also had a Bluetooth demonstration using the two above computers to transfer data, the leftmost computer being the server and the one on the right being the client connecting to it. Unfortunately because of the interference caused by everything around the two systems sustaining a connection wasn't as quick as it would be in a normal operating environment.
A couple of months ago Transmeta was definitely a hot topic around the web, and while some of the hype has slowed down because of a lack of Transmeta based devices in the public eye FIC was attempting to change that somewhat by showing not only the reference design Crusoe web pad but also a mockup of their upcoming Crusoe based solution called Aqua which can be seen below:
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