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Aopen
Aopen AX6B plus motherboard 12.01.98
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Before digging into the meat of this review, I'll pose a simple question/answer that will give an overview of where this review is headed. What factors to consider when purchasing a BX motherboard ? Performance ? Yes, but not really. The current crop of motherboards on the market today gives pretty much the same benchmarking results, with a couple of percentage point variations, given all other factors, CPU, memory, harddrive, etc … are the same. Reliability ? Definitely a factor, and I'll just straight out say that the Aopen AX6B Plus has been a rock-stable performer. I've gone through various hardware configurations - PII 300 & 400, Celeron 300A, an additional Adaptec 2940 SCSI controller, various video cards, network cards, a TV Tuner, 56K modems, and the board performed flawlessly. But this coming from a manufacturer like Aopen, is not so surprising. So then, what differentiates the AX6B Plus and all the rest on the playing field ? Features and configurability - and in these departments, the AX6B Plus really shines with its jumperless configuration and some cool power management features. |
Specs:
Processor: |
Single Slot 1 for Pentium II processors (233 Mhz - 450 Mhz) |
Chipset: |
Intel 82440BX AGPset |
Form Factor: |
ATX |
Board size: |
244 mm x 305 mm |
System Memory: |
4 x 168-pin DIMM sockets. SDRAM or Registered SDRAM. Maximum 1GB |
Expansion Slots: |
4 x PCI |
Cache: |
L2 Cache Built-In on the Processor |
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On Board I/O |
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Serial Ports: |
2 Serial Ports UART 16C550 compatible, and the 3rd UART for Infrared functions |
Parallel Port: |
1 Parallel port - supports standard (SPP), enhanced (EPP), or extended (ECP) parallel ports |
USB Interface: |
2 USB ports |
IDE Interface: |
Ultra DMA/33. Supports up to 4 disks or CDROM, mode 4 |
SCSI: |
On-board Adaptec AIC-7880, Ultra-Wide controller |
BIOS: |
2M bit Flash ROM upgradeable. Award Plug-and-play BIOS |
The physical size of this board is your typical ATX and will fit in your garden variety mid-size and full-size towers. Because of the on-board SCSI connectors I suggest that you get the wider type of cases, else the drive bays will get in the way of the SCSI cable connectors. There are 2 fan connectors; one for the CPU and the other for an extra case fan - a real plus to ensure proper cooling when overclocking. The AX6B Plus also implements system monitoring features such as CPU thermal protection - monitors CPU temperature, and System Voltage Monitoring - warns if any of the system's voltage is over the standard.
The number of expansion slots and memory sockets available on the AX6B Plus should provide ample upgrade paths.
Expansion Slots - The AX6B Plus comes with 4 PCI, 3 ISA, and 1 AGP slots, with one shared. This is plenty. It should cover most of your expansion needs since the SCSI is on-board. Even if you should get 2 Voodoo2s and run SLI, you'll still have 2 slots left - one for a sound card, and if you're lucky enough to live in an area that offers cable-access to the net then the other slot can be used by a network card. That will still leave you with 2 ISA slots.
Memory Slots - As a big plus, the AX6B Plus gives you 4 DIMM slots, for a maximum of 1GB RAM. At the rate that memory prices are dropping and applications are growing, 1GB of RAM may not seem farfetched and may even be a standard in the near future.
You may noticed the 'Plus' at the end of the AX6B name. This indicates an on-board SCSI controller. Aopen uses the Adaptec 7880 Ultra-Wide implementation. There are 2 SCSI connectors available, a 50-pin SCSI-2, and a 68-pin Ultra-Wide SCSI. While this is a great feature in that it saves you a PCI slot on your board, and Aopen's implementation of the Adaptec chipset gives you excellent and solid disk performance, there is one issue to consider. This SCSI implementation will not allow you to connect devices to both connectors. I have been successful with having an ultra-wide on one and an Ultra on the other. However, it is not possible to add a SCSI-2 CDROM onto the 50-pin - the system will not even POST - and as you know, all SCSI CDROMs out there are SCSI-2. So what are your options if you want to connect both wide and non-wide devices ?
Get an IDE CDROM - but then you'll lose performance as well as the ability to do disc-to-disc backup copy of your favorite games using a SCSI CD-R.
Get 50-pin to 68-pin adapters so that you can connect all your SCSI devices to one chain, to one connector.
I believe that the only thing Aopen should change on this board is to use the Adaptec 7890 Ultra2Wide implementation instead, though this will increase the board's price, but worth it.
Power Management - The AX6B Plus offers all of the Power Management features plus a really cool "Suspend to hard drive" option that works just like your notebook:
Zero Voltage Modem Wake Up - Your system can be totally power off and wakeup to automatically answer a phone call or receive a fax.
LAN Wake Up - Same as the modem wake up, but monitors network activity.
RTC Wake Up Timer - Wakes up and power on your system at a specific time/date.
Suspend To Hard Drive - Saves your current work (system status, memory image) into hard disk. "Immediately" turns on the system and goes back to the original screen before power down, so you won't have to go through the entire Win95/98 booting process. Very fast, very cool.
I saved the best for last, and that is the JUMPERLESS BIOS setup. This should be a standard on all new motherboards. No more having to open your case, plow through the maze of cables, and mess with jumpers to configure your CPU speed, bus speed and CPU internal voltage, whenever you change CPUs (and given Intel's pricing structure, you'll do this more often than not.). Everything is in the BIOS. You have the options to select from a list of predefined speeds from 233 Mhz to 450 Mhz. But this board also lets you manually tweak the bus clock/CPU clock ratio (multiplier) to achieve the same goal. I'm sure Aopen does not officially advocate overclocking, but this gem of a feature is just made for it. Again, very slick, very cool.
In summary, the AX6B Plus reiterates the quality and innovative technology that Aopen exhibits in their products. It is an extremely easy to configure motherboard and a rock-stable performer. I have upgraded many systems in the past (I'm sure a lot of you have done the same) and can't begin to tell you how much time and hassle this board's jumperless design has saved. Kudos to Aopen.
A side note to all you overclockers with Celeron 300As: The AX6B Plus auto-detects CPU voltage so if you got one of those CeleronAs that won't go to 450 without upping the voltage, the only way you can do that with this board is to mess with masking off a few pins on the CPU itself. That's the only thing missing in the BIOS configuration - the internal CPU voltage setting If Aopen were to add this little gem of a feature, the AX6B would undoubtedly be the best BX board on the market today. But then, we can't really ask Aopen to do this … can we ?