Introduction
Half a year has passed since our last Socket7 motherboard review and a lot has changed in the last months once again. This report is meant to give you an overview on the most important products, facts and improvements. If you want to skip the ‘basics’.
Recently I stumbled across a motherboard review in a German publication, which painted a pretty bad picture of the current Super7 motherboards, particularly in terms of quality and reliability. I now have to draw a preliminary finish line to give you my opinion about the current state. Compared to the big socket 7 review I did last year I have to say that I didn’t have more troubles this time than I had back then. The majority of the tested boards runs reliably at 100 MHz front side bus clock with PC-100 SDRAM. Nevertheless I can only recommend boards I’ve tested. Avoid buying a 100 MHz motherboard that has not proved its stability in an elaborately test. As Tom has been saying for months, you shouldn’t always go for the fastest board, because stability is a very delicate topic with 100 MHz systems still. That the tested motherboards run reliably doesn’t have to mean that other will also work that well
The CPUs
The most important fact for choosing a certain system architecture has always been a fast CPU. Fresh air has blown in the market with AMD’s K6-2 for game and multimedia computers. The new CPU with its 3DNow! instruction set and Microsoft’s DirectX6 substantially provides 3D gaming performance you can directly compare to a Pentium II at the same clock speed – at a much smaller price.
The second alternative is the 6x86MX CPU, now at PR300 and PR333 also officially called MII. This processor has always impressed with an excellent relation between price and business performance. As you know this CPU can only be recommended for people who work (!) with their computer, since the FPU is ghastly slow as ever for all 3D gamers …
Last but not least you could also go for a good old Pentium MMX CPU with its steadily decreasing advantages: Quite good FPU performance and suited for overclocking: 250 MHz (83×3) or 262 MHz (75×3.5) should be no problem. In my opinion the ‘original’ has become rather unattractive since the 266 MHz K6-2 is costing about the same now and consumes much less power as well.
The Chipsets
At the moment the only two officially 100 MHz capable chipsets are the ALi Aladdin V and VIA’s Apollo MVP3. To ensure a stable 100 MHz operation, 5 ns 2nd level cache chips are required which still are more expensive than the 6 or 7 ns types. Therefore some manufacturers use selected 6 ns chips. But be careful: The system won’t have any tolerances in case you plan to overclock it!
ALi Aladdin V:
- Host Bridge M1541 and PCI-to-ISA bridge M1543.
- PCI and AGP bus run pseudo-synchroneous:
external clock
divided by
PCI clock
AGP clock
66 MHz 2 33 MHz 66 MHz 75 MHz 2.5 30 MHz 60 MHz 83 MHz 2.5 33 MHz 66 MHz 100 MHz 3 33 MHz 66 MHz - L2 cache size 256 KB, 512 KB or 1 MB.
- Valid- and Dirty-Bits (16Kx2) as well as 16Kx10 bits TAGRAM integrated! This enables a cacheable area of 256 MB with 256 KB cache and according 512 MB with 512 KB cache. To cache up to 4 GB (physical adress space), you will need an external TAGRAM of 32Kx10 (9 ns) and 1 MB L2 cache. The chipset supports this at max. 83 MHz.
- Full ECC and parity support.
- Up to 5 PCI busmaster slots, AGP x2 support.
- Linear burst mode support for Cyrix/IBM CPUs.
VIA Apollo MVP3:
- Host Bridge VT82C598 and PCI-to-ISA bridge VT82C586
- L2 Cache size 512 KB, 1 MB or 2 MB
- PCI and AGP bus run synchronously and are overclocked at 75 or 83 MHz bus speed.
- Full ECC and parity support.
- Up to 5 PCI busmaster slots, AGP x2 support.
- Linear burst mode support for Cyrix/IBM CPUs.
VIA’s MVP3 chipset allows you to use a synchronous or asynchronous mode for your memory, which means that the main memory runs at a lower bus speed than the CPU and the important L2 cache. You can run your PC-66 SDRAM or EDO at 66 MHz while the 2nd level cache and CPU runs at 100 MHz (memory asynchronously) or run the memory synchronously at 83 or 75 MHz. This is particularly interesting for all users who want to upgrade, but don’t want to buy new memory again. In case of asynchronously running 66 MHz EDO RAM you will see about 80-90%, whilst 66 MHz PC66 SDRAM will offer you 85-97% of the performance achieved with PC100 SDRAM running synchronously at 100 MHz. I’m currently working on a dedicated article addressing this issue. Check out Tom ‘s Hardware Guide again for this soon.
Luckily I can say that the asynchronous memory mode runs without problems in all VIA chipset boards. I used 2x 32 MB EDO memory with Hyunday chips and 2K refresh mode or the Toshiba PC-100 SDRAM. I accepted the test as passed if the board boots up correctly and runs a Quake II Massive1 benchmark.
Summary
The ALI Aladdin V chipset is around now for quite a while, whilst the VIA’s MVP3 chipset turned up a few months later. ALI had a lot of problems with bugs in the chipset, resulting in a tremendous amount of new revisions. It is certainly important to be aware of the fact that still most ALI Aladdin V motherboards are using chipset revision ‘E’, although ALI now ships revision ‘F’. It is still not yet clear if ‘F’ will eventually be the final revision. The MVP3 has two other advantages, it offers a better upgradeability by enabling the usage of older EDO RAM or PC66 SDRAM running in asynchronous mode and it supports a larger 2nd level cache of up to 2 MB.
The Boards
- To get an overview about the memory tolerances I ran the boards with four different types of SDRAM:
- Toshiba 64 MB PC-100 DIMM (8 ns, 8 chip version)
- Toshiba 32 MB PC-66 DIMM (10 ns, 16 chip version)
- Siemens 32 MB PC-66 DIMM (8 ns, 16 chip version)
- LG Semicon 64 MB PC-66 DIMM (10 ns, 32 chip version)
- Matrox Millennium II 8 MB (MGA-2164W)
- Asus AGP-V3000 4 MB (Riva128)
- Diamond Fire GL1000 Pro 8 MB (Permedia 2)
- ATI XPert@Play 4 MB (ATI Rage Pro)
The Pentium II reference system consists of a Soyo 6BA motherboard.
AOpen AX59Pro
ATX motherboard, VIA Apollo MVP3 chipset, 512 KB L2 cache, 2x ISA, 4x PCI, AGP slot, 2x SIMM, 3x DIMM. Voltages: 3.52, 3.45, 3.2, 2.9, 2.8, 2.5, 2.2, 2.1, 2.0, 1.0V.
As with the AX6L Pentium II motherboard, the FDD connector is placed behind the memory slots at the other side of the board and no one knows why. The Siemens 8 ns SDRAM memory ran fine at 100 MHz in this motherboard and all CPUs worked properly at their nominal settings, only the MII didn’t want to work at 100 MHz front side bus speed.
Interesting for all upgraders may be the two SIMM sockets. This way you can still use your good old EDO of FPM memory. The cacheable area of 128 MB ensures the fitness for most applications as well. In case you should consider larger amounts of RAM think about the 1 MB cache version of the AX59Pro, it doubles the cacheable area to 256 MB.
Even with only 512 KB L2 cache this board is one of my favorites in this test since it ran very stable and reliably during the benchmarks and allowed it to use non-PC-100 SDRAM as well. Overclockers may be interested to hear that the 112 MHz bus speed was running, but not reliably (280 MHz: x2.5). Maybe it works better with 7 or 6 ns SDRAM.
Homepage: http://www.aopen.com.tw
A-Trend ATC-5220
ATX motherboard; VIA Apollo MVP3 chipset; 512 KB L2 cache; 2x ISA, 4x PCI; AGP slot; 3x DIMM voltges: 3.5V, 3.3V, 3.2V, 2.9V, 2.8V, 2.2V.
A-Trend sent us their actual ATX socket 7 motherboard. The most important settings are done with two dip switch blocks. The one for the bus clock is placed behind the AGP slot which means that you will have to remove the AGP card in case you wish to change the settings.
This board is only equipped with 512 KB 2nd level cache. This prevents this board to reach a very top performance; nevertheless it is one of the fastest among the 512 KB boards. I was able to run the Toshiba PC-66 SDRAM memory at 100 MHz; for a stable operation I had to reduce the memory timings, but a board running with memory clocked at 100 MHz and slow settings is normally faster than a 66 MHz memory system with fastest timings.
As with the Tyan motherboard the BIOS does not let you disable the power management completely.
Asus P5A
ATX motheboard, ALi Aladdin V Chipset (Rev. E), 512 KB L2 Cache, 5x PCI, 2x ISA, AGP slot; voltages: 2.0 – 3.5V.
We have been waiting some weeks for the Asus super 7 board, but finally it is here exclusively for you. Asus decided to use the Aladdin chipset and 512 KB cache. The board is equipped with 5 PCI and 2 ISA slots as well as 3 DIMM sockets, that should be enough for most systems.
I was surprised to see that this board is the fastest in Business Winstone 98, even faster than the DFI motherboard with its 1 MB cache. But strangely it was the slowest in Quake II, clearly slower than the all other competitors. Besides, first the textures did not appear correctly with the Direct3D games Incoming and Forsaken – after reinstalling the ALi AGP drivers it worked fine. Asus reacted quickly: After one week we got an updated BIOS which enables more PCI and AGP performance. Thanks to those optimizations Asus has the crown not only among slot 1 boards but now also offers one of the very best socket 7 mainboards.
Unlike the other ALi chipset motherboards the Asus model is suited very well for overclocking: Except the standard bus speeds of up to 100 MHz the board is capable of running at 105, 110, 115 or 120 MHz as well. Also 95 MHz bus speed is supported for the K6-2 333. The 120 MHz setting provoked some hang ups, but all other settings seem to work properly.
Another speciality may be the option to change the I/O voltage: 3.5, 3.6, 3.8 or 4.0 Volts are the options. This is becoming more and more important since overclocking the system bus by more than only some per cent may also require higher voltages. Here you get the chance for to do it.
The missing option of the Aladdin V chipset to run the memory asynchronously forbids to recommend this board for upgraders. You will need PC-100 memory for 100 MHz CPUs. For all others the P5A can be considered as the most flexible motherboard regarding CPUs and overclocking.
After improving the I/O performance the P5A is now one of the best motherboards: It’s fast, suited for overclocking, it has 5 PCI slots, supports all voltages and runs absolutely stable. And for all of you who don’t want to lose an ISA slot for your soundcard, this board is also available with integrated ESS soundchip.
Chaintech 5RTA2
ALI Aladdin V chipset, 512 KB L2 cache, 2x ISA, 2x PCI, AGP slot, 2x DIMM, ESS 16 bit soundsystem with gameport on board. Voltages: 3.5 to 2.0V and 1.95 to 1.70V.
This micro ATX board seems to be designed for cheap game and multimedia computers. 2 PCI and 2 ISA slots are minimum and a 16 bit sound chip (ESS) has already been integrated, so you won’t need another PCI or ISA slot for a that at least. The DIMM sockets are of excellent quality here, the swivels really help to lock the memory into the socket. By the way, the jumper setting descriptions on the board are ‘not entirely accurate’, so they should be reviewed.
Since there is no BIOS update available on the Chaintech website so far (July 12) I didn’t get the chance to see if newer versions would recognize the 0.25 µm Cyrix CPU as ‘MII’ or improve performance. This early revision lead to complete hang ups if the sound system was recognized by Windows 95 and you wouldn’t have installed the drivers instantly.
The only memory that worked properly at 100 MHz bus speed was the PC-100 DIMM. All other memories dropped off at this clock speed. I suppose the price for this little board will be quite interesting; if you take this into account the final board can be carefully recommended except for the new MII CPU so far; I hope that performance will also be better with the final version.
Chaintech 5AGM2
Baby AT motherboard; VIA Apollo MVP3 chipset; 512 KB L2 cache; 3x ISA, 3x PCI, AGP slot; 3x DIMM; voltages: 3.5V, 3.3V, 3.2V, 2.9V, 2.8V, 2.2V.
The little Chaintech AT motherboard comes with only 3 PCI slots; and only one of them can be used for a full size expansion card. So you cannot use two VoodooІ cards, for example.
Two SIMM sockets would have been nice for all upgraders, at least the board comes with 3 DIMM sockets instead of the common two. The 32 MB Toshiba memory seemed to run fine at 100 MHz, but later hang ups occured. Of course you may use the asynchronous memory mode instead. With the PC-100 memory from Toshiba or LGS the board ran absolutely reliable.
In the system BIOS there’s an item to switch between L2 write through or write back mode. Write back is supposed to be faster, but I couldn’t measure hardly a difference. There was one difference: All games based on DirectX showed quite a corrupted picture. I could get rid of this by switching back to write through mode, which also has the benefit that the cacheable area covers 128 MB instead of only 64 MB with write back mode.
The retail package I got is very well equipped, there is also an USB/ PS2/IR adapter inside. But there is still one thing I don’t understand: Why are motherboards equipped with all necessary cables and adapters (I really like it) whilse the users still have to fiddle around with jumpers?
Homepage: http://www.chaintech.com.tw
DFI P5BV3+
Baby-AT board, VIA Apollo MVP3 chipset, 1 MB L2 cache, 3x ISA, 4x PCI, AGP slot, 2x DIMM, 2x SIMM, ATX and AT power connector. Voltages: 3.2V, 2.9V, 2.8V, 2.5V, 2.2V, 2.1V.
The DIMM sockets are of good quality, the memory modules snap in easily and can be removed without the application of brute force. 100 MHz external clock speed ran only stable with the PC-100 DIMM, Windows 95 decided to come off with spectacular exception errors and blue screens with the PC-66 memory. The MII CPU was logged in correctly and worked properly.
Afterwards I started trying out the graphic cards, they all ran wonderful except the Diamond Fire. Having the system boot up with the drivers installed Windows 95 hang after the splash screen. I updated the Fire’s BIOS and voilá, Winstone 98 certifies this board as having the highest performance in this test.
DFI has a very good performer thanks to 1 MB L2 cache. If you decide to get one don’t forget to buy PC-100 memory as well.
Elitegroup P5SD-B+
Baby AT motherboard, VIA Apollo MVP3 Chipset, 512 KB L2 Cache, AT and ATX power supply, 4 PCI, 2 ISA, AGP slot; 2 DIMM, 2 SIMM sockets. Voltages: 3.5 – 2.0V.
The BAT format is not dead at all – ECS also has an actual product based on the older form factor. The package contains a PS/2 mouse adapter and two driver discs instead of a CD. At least one of the four PCI slots can be equipped with a large PCI expansion card and both ISA slots as well. Its performance is quite well, under Quake II it is even one of the fastest – please consider that the board is “only” equipped with 512 KB L2 cache.
This is another board which does not allow the user to directly disable the power management in the BIOS. This revision lacks the 95 MHz which you would need for the K6-2 333 MHz.
The Elitegroup motherboard proved to run fast and stable. At the right price this board is a good investment.
EPoX EP-51 MVP3E
ATX motherboard, VIA Apollo MVP3 chipset, 1 MB L2 cache, 3x ISA, 4x PCI, AGP slot, 2x SIMM, 3x DIMM. Voltages: 3.2, 2.9, 2.8, 2.2, 2.1V.
As with the IWill board the clock setting are made by jumpers arranged excellent in a line. The board fulfilled my expectations very well. Everything worked without errors or hang ups (particularly the Siemens memory…). The non PC-100 memory did not run at 100 MHz with the fastest memory timings as with many other boards as well, but you may also run them asynchronously at 66 MHz.
Winstone performance is not the best, but considering the easy setup procedure (via excellent labeled jumpers) and the exemplary stability I don’t know why I shouldn’t recommend this board.
FIC PA-2013
ATX motherboard, VIA Apollo MVP3 Chipset, 1 MB L2 Cache, 4 PCI, 2 ISA, AG Slot, 3 DIMM sockets. Voltages: 3.5 – 1.8V.
Many of you have asked us to review the ATX version of the VA-503+. Okay, here we go now. As FIC’s BAT motherboard was one of the very fastest it is only logical to suppose it should reach similar performance. And you won’t be disappointed: The board fulfils most performance expectation; it’s even the clear Quake II hotshot.
FIC equippes the board with 4x 2 MBit Cache chips. This would allow it to be equipped with 2 MB L2 cache as well. But so far I regret we didn’t get any 2 MB board for a review.
2 ISA slots are standard, 4 PCI slots are common and should be enought for most multimedia boards. FIC doesn’t provide SIMM sockets, so this board is merely useful for new systems, not for upgraders. At least the asynchronous memory mode option is present. So you are not forced to buy PC-100 SDRAM immediately.
The board supports 112 and 124 MHz external clock speed which both seems to run very stable. However neither FIC nor we do guarantee its stability over 100 MHz of course.
The board has all modern motherboard features and also proved to run totally stable. Thus it is the second ATX motherboard best suited for overclockers besides the Asus P5A. Both are fast, reliable and very flexible regarding the bus frequency settings.
FIC VA-503+
Baby-AT board, VIA Apollo MVP3 chipset, 1 MB L2 cache, 3x ISA, 3x PCI, AGP slot, 2x DIMM, 4x SIMM. Voltages: 3.2V to 2.0V
The only motherboard with 2 SIMM banks is the VA-503+ from First International Computer. Due to this it has only 3 instead of the normal 4 PCI slots, but the advantage that you may use 2 or 4 SIMM modules. Memory is a strength of this board: The cacheable area of 256 MB and 1 MB L2 cache make it possible to use almost all applications you may want.
Moreover its performance is excellent: 17,4 fps in Quake II is clearly faster than any other socket 7 of this review, and the Windows performance is also at a top level.
The only thing FIC could allow the next revision is an ATX power connector. The VA-503+ also offers 112 and 124 MHz external clock speeds; I’m working on an article to solve the question if this makes sense and in which kind of memory configuration. At least the board is equipped with 5 ns cache chips, which could make such an overclocking possible. We’ll see next month.
FIC obviously was working some time on this product; it’s a proof for the Super-7 architecture being matured and ready for challenging the Pentium II.
Gigabyte GA-5AX
ATX motheboard, ALi Aladdin V Chipset (Rev. E), 512 KB L2 Cache, 4x PCI, 3x ISA, AGP slot; voltages: 2.0 – 3.5V.
Many of you wanted us to review this board; if some product is missing in our reviews it’s not because we don’t want to review it, but just because we haven’t got it so far. Now here we go…
Today it’s a habit of Gigabyte to use dip switches for setting up the CPU. Many users – me included – do really appreciate this, but a software setup in the BIOS would be even better. The board has 4 PCI and 3 ISA slots as well as three DIMM sockets and uses the Award BIOS. You can chose three memory timing settings: slow, normal and fast. The fast setting provoked hangups with the Diamond Fire card running Business Winstone 98. As with all other boards the game benchmarks ran with the ATI Xpert card (Rage Pro chipset); here the memory could be clocked “fast” without difficulties.
The board is very memory tolerant. Excpt the 10 ns Toshiba memory, every of my SDRAM types worked fine at 100 MHz bus: The Samsung 10 ns, LGS 10 and 7 ns and the big 32 chip module as well. The price of this compatibility seem to be average benchmark results. Some game benchmarks are even the slowest in this review now. The pricing of the Gigabyte boards is usually very human; so if you already used Gigabyte boards and like them: This board ist reliable and of good quality as we are used it.
IWill XA-100
ATX motherboard, ALi Aladdin V chipset, 512 KB L2 cache, 3x ISA, 4x PCI, AGP slot, 3x DIMM. Voltages: 3.5, 3.2, 2.9, 2.8, 2.7, 2.2, 1.8V.
As the mainboard package says, the CPU settings can be done easily by well-described jumpers. The K6 ran fine at its nominal bus speed of 100 MHz; strangely the MII did not run correctly. It produced wrong colors already in the BIOS screen. And another strange thing happened: Our noname standard 64 MB DIMM with 32 chips ran fine even at 100 MHz, the other 10 ns types didn’t bear more than 83 MHz. I’m impressed!
The new revision I got now is definitely better than the first one, even the package has changed… If you’re considering to take the IWill board, be sure to get rev. 1.2. The problems I had with the earlier revision 1.1 were mainly provoked by the DirectX6 beta, but even with DirectX5 I had two crashes during Business Winstone 98, which only happened with the Diamond Fire card. Both the Asus and the ATI card ran fine, thus I don’t want to blame the board more than necessary. Only one fact should count for you now: The actual revision runs fast and reliable now.
Soyo SY-5EH
Baby-AT board, VIA Apollo MVP3 chipset (ETEQ), 1 MB L2 cache, 3x ISA, 3x PCI, AGP slot, 2x DIMM, 2x SIMM, ATX and AT power connector. Voltages: 3.52, 3.3, 3.2, 2.9, 2.8, 2.2V.
Soyo’s small AT board uses the new ETEQ EQ82C6638 chipset which is nothing else than the VIA MVP3. The CPU settings are done via DIPswitches and jumpers.
The board also features two SIMM sockets to allow the usage of EDO or FPM memory. This is particularly suggestive for a baby AT board, which will find its placements in older systems for upgrade reasons. Thanks to 1 MB L2 cache the Business WinStone performance is very satisfactory. The chipset features item “DRAM read pipeline” should be disabled in case you are a 3D gamer, it produced a corrupted picture in Forsaken and Incoming. Luckily I don’t have to write about other troubles so this comment can be short.
Homepage: http://www.soyo.com.tw
TMC AI5VG+
Baby-AT board, VIA Apollo MVP3 chipset, 1 MB L2 cache, 2x ISA, 4x PCI, AGP slot, 3x DIMM, 2x SIMM, ATX and AT power connector. Voltages: 3.5 to 2.0V.
TMC’s baby AT motherboard comes with the VIA Apollo MVP3 chipset and 1 MB L2 cache. As you can imagine its performance is quite good. But the environment is fine as well: Three DIMM sockets on a baby AT board are rather unusual, particularly if two SIMM sockets are available, too. Thanks to the good motherboard design TMC didn’t have to reduce the amount of PCI slots. DIPswitches make the CPU configuration pretty easy.
All memory ran fine at 83 MHz, for 100 MHz operation it should be PC-100. The Toshiba PC-66 SDRAM seemed to run properly, but after approximately 15 minutes hang ups occurred.
The TMC board can also be recommended for upgraders who don’t want to make compromises neither in performance nor regarding flexibility and features.
TMC TI5VG+
ATX board, VIA Apollo MVP3 chipset, 1 MB L2 cache, 2x ISA, 5x PCI, AGP slot, 3x DIMM, 2x SIMM, ATX and AT power connector. Voltages: 3.5 to 2.0V.
The second board we got from TMC is also equipped very well. On the picture you may see only one cache chip. The other is placed on the backside of the motherboard, as it is becoming common with graphic cards as well. The features correspond to those of the baby AT board: DIP switches, 100 MHz only with PC-100 memory and excellent stability. Only one annoying fault bedims the fine image this board has created so far: The Diamond Fire didn’t want to run at all. Strangely it works on the baby AT version.
Frustrated I ran Winstone 98 with the ATI card on this board (22.3), the baby AT version AI5VG+ (22.2) and the Soyo board as well (23.0). Another benchmark run with the Asus card verifies the results, but saying the ATX version is faster by 0.1 Winstone points would be small minded in my opinion.
Homepage: http://www.mycomp-tmc.com
MSI MS5169
ATX board, ALi Aladdin V chipset, 512 KB L2 cache, 3x ISA, 4x PCI, AGP slot, 3x DIMM, PC speaker on board. Voltages: 3.5, 3.3, 3.2, 2.9, 2.8, 2.5, 2.2V.
Our MSI board uses the quite old revision C of the Aladdin chipset. This may be the mayor source for the problems I had during the tests: The picture in Windows 95 was a bit corrupted and showed wrong colors with the Fire GL1000 Pro. This got fixed after I updated the Fire’s BIOS. The MII did run with the latest BIOS. The only memory module that ran at 100 MHz was the PC-100 type, all others gave up at 83 MHz.
Configuration is easy: MSI uses DIP switches which are well described on the motherboard. One of the crucial things for hardware testers are the DIMM sockets. I have to certify excellent locks and few needed force to put the memory in. MSI integrated the PC speaker onto the motherboard; in my opinion this is very suggestive since this shortens the fabrication time of a PC system.
Summarized the MSI board is a quite matured Aladdin V board (the E or F chipset revisions should fix the troubles I had) with good performance for all who don’t want to overclock beyond 100 MHz bus speed.
Homepage: http://www.msi.com.tw
Shuttle HOT-591P
Baby AT motherboard, VIA Apollo MVP3 Chipset, 512 KB L2 Cache, AT and ATX power supply, 3 PCI, 3 ISA, AGP Slot; 2 DIMM, 2 SIMM sockets. Voltages: 3.5 – 2.0V.
First the bad news: The little Shuttle board ist the slowest in our benchmarks. But it is also the only baby AT motherboard which came with the USB connector cable and a PS/2 cable as well. Besides it offers the possibility of clocking the main memory asynchonously and two SIMM sockets. That’s not particularly much, but considering the board’s size it’s surprising that there was still room for them.
The three ISA slots can be equipped with full size cards, but it’s impossible to use larger PCI cards (e.g. VoodooІ card, see picture). Shuttle provides only a very short installation guide containing all important settings. But it does not explain anything; that could become a serious problem for beginners. As most other boards, the 591P has to be configured by jumpers which gradually becomes nerve-wracking. This archaic way of setting up a motherboard is a deficit with others, too (also the winner of this review). I hope I will live long enough to experience motherboards which will be easy to set up…
In my eyes the board has too many performance deficits, even with the USB and PS/2 cable and 95 MHz bus speed support it cannot be recommended except for low end windows workstations. It runs perfectly stable, but the overall performance should be better – even for a low end product.
Tekram P5MVP-A4
ATX motherboard, VIA Apollo MVP3 Chipset, 512 KB L2 Cache, 4 PCI, 2 ISA, AGP Slot. 2 DIMM, 4 SIMM sockets. Voltages: 3.5 – 2.0V.
The first thing I noticed is that the power management cannot be disabled like with the Elitegroup and the Tyan motherboard. Power management is fine, but I always want to disable it whenever I want. Everything else works as expected: without difficulties.
The board’s performance can be called normal. With 1 MB L2 cache it would be one of the faster candidates, but Tekram doesn’t destine this board for a larger cache. For upgraders the board has four SIMM sockets which can be equipped with FPM or EDO memory.
The board is reliable and all but slow, if you don’t care about the power management stuff or get a cheap offer, there’s no reason for declining it.
Soltek SL54U1
Baby AT motherboard; VIA Apollo MVP3 chipset; 512 KB L2 cache; 3 PCI, 3 ISA slots, AGP slot; Voltages: 3.5, 3.2, 2.9, 2.8, 2.2 Volts.
This little board comes with 4 ns cache chips which should make overclocking very easy, but no higher clock than 100 MHz is supported – what a pity. All jumper and dip settings are described directly on the board. Nevertheless a CPU soft menu would have been much better.
As many other new BAT motherboards the Soltek also has an ATX power connector. The IDE connectors are placed (ATX like) at the right side of the board, which reduces the usual cable chaos. Unfortunately there are only two DIMM sockets on this board. Instead of a third one Soltek decided to integrate a SIMM bank. Also the option to clock the memory at AGP speed asynchronously has been integrated.
The board’s performance is not particularly good. 1 MB L2 cache would have helped to improve the benchmark results. Voodoo2 users will be disappointed: Only one PCI slot, two ISA slots and the AGP slot can be equipped with large size cards. Today a PS/2 mouse connector cable should be inside a board’s package, but I have to complain that it’s missing. All in all the soltek board is a stable, but only average socket 7 board.
Superpower SP-A586B
Baby AT motherboard; ALi Aladdin V chipset; 512 KB L2 cache; 3 PCI, 2 ISA slots, AGP slot; Voltages: 3.5 – 2.0 Volts.
The south bridge of the ALi chipset has been placed behind the PCI slots. This is possible since the keyboard controller is integrated into this chip and doesn’t require extra space any more. But it also reduces the distance between the PCI slots and the CPU socket. So you will have problems with all PCI cards which are more than two inches longer than the slot itself.
The Winstone performance is quite good, but for some reason this board is the slowest in Incoming using an AGP video card. The Forsaken and Quake II benchmarks are better again. Overclockers won’t be content with this board: 100 MHz is maximum; but at least also 95 MHz are supported and you can freely chose the CPU core voltage.
The Superpower board is also the only new socket 7 board I reviewed which does not merely use switching voltage regulators. The secondary on board connectors (IDE2 and COM2) habe yellow instead of white frames. I made the experience that this is very helpful if you have to run several different motherboards with different drives. If you quickly want to plug in a flat cable, you don’t have to waste time searching for the right connector. Take the white and your device will use the primary IDE controller, for example.
The jumper settings can be done relatively fast, but what applies to many other boards can also be said here: Why does the user not get dip switches or a software setup? This would even save some costs for the manufacturer.
Tyan S1590S “Trinity”
Baby-AT board, VIA Apollo MVP3 chipset, 1 MB L2 cache, 4x ISA, 4x PCI, AGP slot, 3x DIMM, 2x SIMM, ATX and AT power connector. Voltages: 3.3, 3.2, 2.9, 2.8, 2.7, 2.2, 2.1, 2.0V.
I thought the TMC baby AT board was really good equipped, but Tyan even outfeatures it: 4 PCI slots, 4 ISA slots, the obligatory AGP slot, 3 DIMM sockets and two SIMM sockets are almost high end level. Besides you may use 6 full size cards (AGP, 3 PCI and 2 ISA) if needed. Tyan did really good work and placed an ATX power connector and 1 MB L2 cache on the board as well what makes this board the features winner of this review.
In my eyes only one thing has to be chalked up, the power management cannot be disabled in the BIOS setup.
Benchmarks
The benchmarks were run under the following conditions:
- Diamond Fire GL1000 Pro 8MB AGP with driver version 4.10.01.2348 for Business WinStone 98
- ATI XPert@Play 4 MB AG with driver version 5.20 for game benchmarks
- 1024×768 in high color and 85 Hz refresh rate
- 64 MB PC-100 SDRAM (Toshiba)
Other drivers and components as described above.
Recommendations
ATX: Asus P5A, AOpen AX59Pro and MSI MS5169
Baby AT: DFI P5BV3+, FIC VA-503+ and Tyan S1590S
- As mentioned in the board evaluation, the Tyan board is the plain winner by features. The only spot to criticize is the power management, which cannot be disabled in the BIOS. I’m sure there are more users like me who simply don’t want any kind of power management; there’s also the problem that many boards are able to enter a sleep mode (via ACPI) but cannot be ‘revitalized’ again. That’s why I cannot recommend ACPI right now. APM has proved to be a stable system and works with all tested motherboards.
- I expect the DFI motherboard to be available at a very good price, it runs very reliable and fast – my choice for small budgets. Tyan’s offer may be more expensive – but you also get much more connectivity options; and although you will have to accept long winded jumper settings, most pretentious users should become content.
- The FIC board came quite late to the test; luckily it took part in the benchmarks, since the results are very delightful. No problems, excellent performance and 4 SIMM sockets may be a buying argument for many of you. And this board seems to be the overclocker’s dream; I am working for an article which will deal with memory and overclocking questions of modern socket 7 systems to give you more information about this topic.
As soon as we will get other motherboards we will add the reviews immediately, so check out this page again.
In case of questions about this review please send your email directly to patrick@tomshardware.com.
