Abit VP6 Motherboard
Jan 18th, 2001 | By Archive
Abit VP6 Motherboard
Date
: 01/18/01 – 11:41:19 PM
Author
:
Category
: Motherboard
Manufactor: Abit
Price: $220
with the Abit VP6!
Introduction
It has been a while since we saw a good dual cpu motherboard with a good price tag on it. The last board that caught my attention was MSI’s 694D (MSI-6321) which featured dual socket 370, 5 PCI and 1 AGP slot. Overclocking was not the best feature of the MSI and there were also a lot of problems with the first boards beiing prerelease models (I have one like that) and other problems with the jumpers on it. Once you got the board up and running it proved nice and stable, but still a lot of features were missing like memory tweaks in the BIOS.
Abit, manufacturor of one of the first affordable dual cpu motherboards – the BP6 – also noticed that there are people like me looking for a stable AND overclockable dual cpu motherboard with as many features as possible.
They knew it wouldn’t be easy to pull another successful stunt like they did with the BP6, but if you don’t take a risk you won’t get wealthy, or so someone says. So the VP6 was born, and today Overclockers Online takes a look at this new duallie.
Specifications
Before I share the experiences I had with the VP6 with you, let us take a look at the features this board has to offer.
[ Dual FC-PGA Socket Based Mainboard Supporting 133 MHz FSB & 4X AGP With Ultra DMA 66/100 , SoftMenuTM III & RAID 0/1 Technology ]
The VP6 is the next generation of ABIT’s famous dual processor motherboards. The VP6 includes the High Point 370 Controller. This allows for UDMA 100 support as well as for RAID. The VP6 utilises the latest SoftMenuTM III technology. SoftMenuTM III in conjunction with dual processing power ensures the ultimate in performance, the ultimate in stability.
[ Specifications ]
CPU
1. Supports Pentium III Coppermine FC-PGA 370 processor (Based on 66/100/133MHz clock)
Chipset
1. VIA chipset (VT82C694X and VT82C686B)
2. Supports Advanced Configuration and Power Management Interface (ACPI)
3. Supports AGP 1X/2X/4X (Sideband) 3.3V device
Ultra DMA 100
1. High Point HTP370 IDE Controller
2. Ultra DMA 100MB/Sec data transfer rate
3. RAID 0(stripping mode for boosting performance)
4. RAID 1 (mirroring mode for data security)
5. RAID 0 +1(stripping and mirroring)
Memory
1. Four 168-pin DIMM sockets support SDRAM module
2. Supports up to 2 GB MAX. (8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256,512MB SDRAM)
3. Supports ECC
System BIOS
1. SoftMenuTM III to set CPU parameters
2. Award Plug and Play BIOS supports APM and DMI
3. Write-Protect Anti-Virus function by AWARD BIOS
4. Year 2000 Compliant
Multi I/O Functions
1. 2 Channels of Bus Master IDE Ports support Ultra DMA 33/66/100(up to 4 HDD devices)
2. 2 Channels of Bus Master IDE Ports supporting Ultra DMA 33/66/100
3. PS/2 Keyboard and PS/2 Mouse Connectors
4. 1x Floppy Port (up to 2.88MB)
5. 1x Parallel Port (EPP/ECP)
6. 2x Serial Ports
7. 2x USB Connectors
8. On board USB header for two extra USB channels
Miscellaneous
1. ATX form factor
2.1 AGP slot, 5 PCI slots
3. Hardware monitoring Including Fan speed, Voltages, System environment temperature and one Thermal header for CPU or other temperature monitoring.
4. Built-in Wake on LAN/Wake on Ring header
It’s clear that Abit pulled out all the stops to deliver us one of the most feature-rich motherboards available! The VP6 has the very nice Soft Menu III BIOS, which lets you up the core voltage in 0.5v steps, tweak your memory settings to improve memory scores, etc. SM III also lets you move up the
front side bus all the way to 178MHz! Chances of reaching a 178MHz front side bus are pretty small unless you really know what you’re doing.
The board also comes with an onboard RAID controller made by Highpoint. This is the same HPT 370 controller we are seeing on other Abit boards like the href='/index.php?page=articles&num=40' target='resource window'>SA6-R and the KT7(A)-RAID. As you’ve seen with the two previous boards, the onboard RAID performs very good and is a good alternative to an expensive SCSI setup.
Aside from the above features, Abit also includes 2 additional USB ports making a total of 4 USB ports. Since most accesories are being built with an USB interface lately (printers, scanners, mice, joysticks) this is a very welcome feature.
Please note that there are 4 DIMM sockets on the VP6, resulting in a total amount of 2GB ram! You can not use 1GB sticks on this baby (at least no more than 2, but if you need 1GB>, you can afford more than this board).
Lucky for us hardcore computerfreaks, Abit did NOT include onboard audio/video on the VP6! These things only add to the price and to be honest, who uses them? I rest my case …
Overclocking
Since the VP6 has everything an overclocker could ask for, we threw some retail PIII 800E cpu’s in the sockets and tested how far we could push these babies. Both cpu’s were from the same batch, which is preferable if you want 100% stability. Both cpu’s are made in the Philippines. Both cpu’s are SL463
chips, meaning it are both cBo versions with a default voltage of 1.65v.
To cool down both processors I installed a couple of Golden Orb’s kindly supplied by 2Cool onto them, and as expected they performed great.
Now what did I achieve with these cpu’s and the VP6? Well I got the system rockstable at 8x125MHz which equals in a dual 1GHz system :p. To reach these speeds I needed to use a core voltage of 1.85v, but since the cpu’s are cooled well this was not a problem.
The only downside of this setup is the front side bus of 125MHz. It is no secret that the VIA chipset is a tad slow compared to the good old BX, but also compared to the 815e chipset from Intel. Of course Abit included a lot of memory tweakage into the BIOS but still a high fsb would help getting close to BX performance!
Enough talking … time to check out the scores this setup can deliver!
Benchmarking
System Setup
- Abit VP6 Motherboard
- 2x PIII 800E @ 1GHz
- 384MB PC133 RAM
- Western Digital 20GB IDE 7200rpm UDMA100 hard drive (in RAID 0 setup)
- Hercules Geforce GTS
- Windows 2000 + SP1 + VIA 4in1 4.25a + Detonator 6.49 drivers
Of course it is essential you use a operating system that supports more then one cpu! Win9x or Win ME are not qualified for this, so I decided to use Windows 2000 Pro which proved to be a very stable and fast OS. If you are not into Microsoft products, you could also run Linux or some other OS on this
system.
Sisoft Sandra Pro
CPU Benchmark
Multimedia CPU Benchmark
Memory Benchmark
Hard Drive Benchmark
As you can see from the above graphics, the VP6 kicks some major arse! The board proved to be rockstable in every benchmark I ran on it!
To test the overall stability of the VP6 I let an instance of Prime95 run on each cpu for more then 12 hours. Maybe you know the Prime program, but in case you don’t I suggest you take a look at it. This small exe file is very good at testing your rig for stability. I remember times that a system ran extremely
stable in Windows, played loops of Q3 and UT dor hours but still would lock up in Prime after 4 hours of running the program! If you want it, you can download it in our downloads section.
Conclusion
Abit has done a hell of a job delivering one of the finest dual Pentium III motherboards available! The VP6 has all the features you could possibly ask for and it is very tweakable thanks to the superb Soft Menu III.
In case you’re looking for a fast, stable and well overclockable dual socket 370 motherboard, then do not look any further and buy a VP6 now.
Good
- Dual CPU
- Not too expensive
- Soft Menu III
- Stability and overclockability
- Onboard RAID
Bad
- Only 5 PCI slots
- No onboard SCSI (although this would make the board more expensive)