Thursday, April 15, 1999

Introduction

The ECS P6BXT-A+ motherboard is very particular in a sense that it actually is the only motherboard on the market that support two family of processors that are totally different. The P6BXT-A+ has a slot1 socket for Pentium II and III processors and it also has a socket 370 for the Celeron PPGA (Plastic Pins Grid Array) processors brand. The ECS P6BXT-A+ use an Intel 440BX Chipset which is out of the common trend for the motherboard using the socket 370 because the majority of the motherboard maker that use that type of processor normally choose to use the 440ZX Chipset which is less expensive but also less versatile . Finally, another function that does stand out on this board is that it also includes a built in AudioPCI soundcard which support the A3D effects rendered by the CMI8338 audio Chipset which appear to have been developed by Aureal.

The features

The expansion slots are 4 PCI slots, 2 ISA slot, 1 AGP port and 3 memory banks. The P6BXT-A+ supports system memory up to 768 MBytes, Power-on by modem, Wake On Lan or alarm, power-on by keyboard, Supports onboard hardware monitoring, and a Creative SB-LINK ™ (PC-PCI) connector for AudioPCI soundcards.                                   

The P6BXT-A+ system clock frequency can be selected from a choice of frequencies ranging from 66Mhz to 133Mhz including: 66Mhz, 75Mhz, 83Mhz, 100Mhz, 103Mhz, 105Mhz, 112Mhz,and 133Mhz. The clock multipliers can be selected from a choice ranging from 2.5X to 8X in steps of .5X.

Unfortunately, there are no possibility to adjust the processor core voltage.

To my belief, the P6BXT-A+ appears to be a bit restrictive and not really versatile. As I see it , even if there is an onboard AudioPCI soundcard and that in a sense its worth an additional PCI slot, this saying will become totally worthless when you will use your own soundcard for the reason you choose fit. At this moment, you will only be able to use 3 PCI slots, which is not much if you agree with me. Also, the choice of clock frequencies that you can choose from are in my opinion not sufficient and a wider choice would have been realy welcome. For instance, the clock frequencies of 105Mhz, 108Mhz, 115Mhz, 120Mhz, and 124Mhz would have add a sure advantage to be included in the setup menu. Finally, why bother to put in a 440BX Chipset if the motherboard only as 3 memory banks... to my opinion, a fourth memory banks would have add a positive effect on the versatility of the ensemble.

Below, the picture of the ECS P6BXT-A+;

Installation

The installation of this motherboard is not complicated at all. The fact that there is only one jumper to set facilitates the installation procedure. There is not much to be said here as the installation of this mobo will go like a breeze to anyone who as a little experience in that area.

The software bundle

The software bundle included with the motherboard is not bad at all and includes: the soundcard drivers, the IDE Bus Master, a system health monitor, a FLASHBIOS software to update your BIOS, directX5 (sic...), Intel LCDM which is a local network adaptor and at last PC-Sillin which is an antivirus program.

Continued on next page with: The performance test results