Abit BF6 Motherboard Review Wichita KS

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Originally published at Internet.com

Click image to see blow-up of board.

Abit has always been an overclocking innovator - with the BH6, the first Slot 1 motherboard with a 124 MHz FSB, the BX6 II, which offered the most FSBs of its time, and the BE6, the first BX-based motherboard to include onboard ATA-66 ports. Now, with the latest offering of the BF6, Abit aims to do what no other manufacuturer has yet done - offer a 200 MHz FSB option as well as give users the choice of 1 MHz increments between 83 and 200 MHz FSBs. Clearly, they've taken overclocking to the next level.

But what about everyone else? What does the BF6 offer for those who don't drool over FSB options? ---------------------------------------------------------------------

Features

Top MHz supported: 1600 MHz (200*8) Clock Multipliers 2x to 8x (.5x increments) Bus Speeds 66, 75, 83-200 (1 MHz increments) CPU voltage settings Switching Voltage Regulator supporting 1.8~3.5V compliant with Intel VRM Spec. 8.2 System Memory 3 168-pin DIMM sockets supporting SDRAM, 768MB max. (8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256 MB) - ECC also supported Expansion Slots 1 AGP 2x, 5 PCI, 1 PC/ISA shared (all full-length) Internal/External I/O * Floppy port supports up to 2.88MB and mode 3 floppies * Ultra DMA/33 IDE supports up to 4 devices * Two USB connectors on back panel * Two 16550 fast UART serial ports * Built-in Standard/ECP/EPP parallel port * PS/2 mouse and keyboard connectors * IrDA Infrared port header (not external) * Wake-On-LAN header * Wake-On-Ring header * SB-Link Header * 2 SMBus headers Form Factor ATX: 305mm x 200mm (12" x 7.87") Miscellaneous * Intel BX chipset * Soft Menu III * Award BIOS 6.0 * Year 2000 compliant * Supports ACPI and Soft-OFF functions * Keyboard and/or Mouse Power-on * Motherboard temp, CPU temp, system and CPU fan speed, and voltages monitoring * Included thermal sensor cable Boot Options The following can be in any order for three available boot devices: Floppy LS/Zip HDD - 0 (IDE 0, Drive 0) HDD - 1 HDD - 2 HDD - 3 SCSI CDROM LAN UDMA/66 Summary --------------------------------------------------------------------- PriceStreet: $105+ The Best Stability Excellent Compatibility A truely AWESOME selection of FSBs - One ISA slot might not be enough for some. Overall The Abit BF6 is a truely incredible board. With its relatively low price, it'll be in high demand for all users, but a must-buy for overclockers. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Setup as tested: PentiumIII 450 @ 571 MHz 128MB Corsair PC100 SDRAM Diamond Viper V550 16MB AGP 13GB Quantum Fireball EX 12x CD-ROM Turtle Beach Montego A3DXtreme 19" Viewsonic PS790 Windows 98

So what came with it?

The BF6 includes Abit's usual stack of stuff - dual IDE cable, dual floppy cable, driver/utility CD, manual, and a thermal sensor cable. It should be noted from the start that this is a pre-production motherboard and some things were not the same as the final production form. For instance, the only manual included was a printout of the first couple of chapters. Also, the CD only included manuals for the BH6, BM6 BX6, and BX6 II, but not the BF6. However, the manual is available for download from Abit's web site. The manual is quite excellent as usual.

Installation

Installation no longer seems to be a distinguishing factor for most new motherboards. Installing the BF6 was a breeze: simply swapping out the Shuttle HOT-641 that was in the system and plugging in the BF6. It had no problems with any of the hardware installed in it.

Stability and Overclockability

The BF6 is, far and away, the most stable board we've seen at SysOpt. At the default speeds, it just wouldn't crash. That's not to say that Windows didn't occasionally crash, but you can't take the blame off Microsoft's programmers. The distributed.net client and Quake II timedemo2 looped for 9-12 hours on the Pentium III 450 without any slowdowns or crashes.

Okay, the idea of going to 200 MHz is just nuts - the AGP speed would be 133 MHz, twice the default. The PCI bus would be running at 50 MHz as well (1/4 PCI divider is as small as the board goes). Still, the simple thought of going from 83 to 200 MHz FSB in 1 MHz increments is just unbelievable. Yes, it really does work. Not only do you have the 83-200 MHz choices, but with the new Soft Menu III, you also can select the PCI divider at will - from among 1/2, 1/3, 1/4 at any FSB you want. You can even change the I/O voltage (chipset, DRAM, and AGP voltage)--not that you'd actually want to.

The same stability tests as before were run, except this time at 571 MHz (4.5x127) with the voltage upped to 2.2v. Amazingly, it was just as stable as before. The same CPU has been stable at 583 MHz (4.5x129) using 2.2v with the BX6 II. However, that high result could not be duplicated, most likely because the room temperature was 5-8 degrees Farenheit higher.

Comments

There are two SMBus (System Management Bus) headers on the motherboard. SMBus has been around for a little while now, having been implemented on the BE6 as well. It is most handy for analyzing the inner workings of the motherboard, making sure bits are going to the right places and helping to enhance fault tolerance, though it's not something that the end user, even the power user, is going to use or need.

It ought to be noted that the BF6 has six PCI slots and only one ISA slot (as if the picture isn't obvious). We are slowly seeing the death of the ISA bus in the PC. If peripherals and upgrade cards weren't so cheap, more people would be complaining, but with second, third, and even fourth generation PCI devices for every product category, very few will be moaning over the loss. Doing a quick check across the six systems here showed that only one has an ISA card. It's not that all the systems have all the hottest, latest hardware but the PCI equivalents have been around for quite awhile.

One thing to be aware of with the extra PCI slot is that the 6th slot (the shared one) cannot accept a bus master PCI card. Cards like the Voodoo1 or Vooodoo2 will work fine, but many other cards expect the ability to be the bus master and so won't work in the 6th slot.

Something new for Abit is the return to something old. The BF6 offers the ability to set the CPU clock speed using DIP switches instead of the CPU Soft Menu, if you so desire. Many of us find DIP switches much easier and quicker to use than jumpers, but of course the CPU Soft Menu is the easier way. Still, if you want or need a hardware solution, then Abit now offers it.

Good Stuff

FSBs, FSBs, FSBs. The BF6 is an excellent board with excellent stability and solid compatibility. The included thermal sensor is a nice addition (and the board actually can use it this time, unlike the BE6). For those with a lot of PCI devices, the extra PCI slot is a godsend. It also has a very attractive price for such a fully-loaded motherboard. The ever-popular folding universal retention module is an excellent addition to the Abit line.

Bad Stuff

Just like the 6th PCI slot can be a good thing, it might also be a problem for users with more than one ISA card. It also doesn't include onboard ATA-66 support, which is becoming far more prevalent these days.

Conclusion

To put this board on the top of your new PC wish list is an obvious move. However, a tougher decision might be whether to upgrade. For an ovverclocking fanatic, buying the BF6 is a no-brainer. However, for everyone else, upgrading isn't nearly as mandatory. In fact, if you find that you're starting to run out of PCI slots, consider this board, but if not, sticking to your current board is probably the better decision. One way or the other, don't buy a motherboard without taking a long hard look at the Abit BF6.