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Originally published at Internet.com 
This is the overclockers dream board. With Abits Soft Menu, a plethora of bus speeds to choose from, selectable voltages and hardware monitoring, the BX6 II is placed at the top of the pack. ---------------------------------------------------------------------
Features
CPUs Supported Intel Pentium II, 233 - 450+ Mhz Intel Pentium III, 450 - 500+ Mhz Intel Celeron Slot 1, 266 - 400+ Mhz
Top MHz supported: 1224 MHz (8*153) Clock Multipliers 2 to 8 (.5 increments) Bus Speeds 66, 75, 83, 100, 103, 112, 117, 124, 129, 133, 138, 143, 148, 153Mhz CPU voltage settings 1.30-2.1v (.5v increments), 2.2v, 2.3v System Memory Four 168-pin DIMM sockets supporting SDRAM, 1024 MB max. (8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256 MB) Expansion Slots 1 AGP 2x, 5 PCI, 2 ISA (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 (Including LS-120) * Two USB connectors * 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 Form Factor ATX (12" x 8.5") Miscellaneous * Intel 440BX chipset * CPU SOFT MENU II * Award BIOS * Supports ACPI and Soft-OFF functions * Motherboard temp, CPU temp, system and CPU fan speed, and voltages monitoring * Keyboard and Mouse wake-up * Y2k compliant > Boot Options A, C, SCSI C, A, SCSI C, CD-ROM, A CD-ROM, C, A D, A, SCSI (At least 2 IDE HDD can be used) E, A, SCSI (At least 2 IDE HDD can be used) F, A, SCSI (At least 2 IDE HDD can be used) SCSI, A, C SCSI, C, A A, SCSI, C LS/ZIP, C
Summary
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Price Street $110 (about) + Stability & Compatibility Feature Variety CPU/System temp. Voltage Control
- Still a little high in price but this should change over time.
Overall One of the better, if not best overclocking board. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Setup as tested:See below
History of the BX6 II
Abit really started to draw attention in the motherboard world with their introduction of the LX6, which included Soft Menu and a pseudo 100MHz bus setting. This board quickly became popular was an extremely stable 75 and 83.3 Mhz setting. They improved on the LX6 with the introduction of the BX6 version 1. Based off of Intels BX chipset, it brought even more light and credibility to Abits engineering capabilities. This was just the beginning; next the BH6 rolled out and became probably the top board for overclocking. Coupled with a Celeron 300a and the boards abilities to up the CPU core voltage in .1 volt increments placed Abit at the forefront of the overclockers dream. Most companies would have been happy with this standing, not Abit
Setup
There have been reports that the BX6 II is not stable above 133MHz or 138MHz; not true. The problem is memory and so I tried many combinations to find the right mix. CPU Celeron 300a OEM (Costa Rica) Celeron 300a Retail (Malaya) Pentium II 266 OEM Pentium II 266 Retail Video ATI Rage PCI Ram Mushkin PC100 128meg Crucial PC100 128meg Corsair PC100 128meg Viking PC100 128meg LGS PC100 64meg
This is the overclockers dream board. With Abits Soft Menu, a plethora of bus speeds to choose from, selectable voltages and hardware monitoring, the BX6 II is placed at the top of the pack. ---------------------------------------------------------------------
Features
CPUs Supported Intel Pentium II, 233 - 450+ Mhz Intel Pentium III, 450 - 500+ Mhz Intel Celeron Slot 1, 266 - 400+ Mhz
Top MHz supported: 1224 MHz (8*153) Clock Multipliers 2 to 8 (.5 increments) Bus Speeds 66, 75, 83, 100, 103, 112, 117, 124, 129, 133, 138, 143, 148, 153Mhz CPU voltage settings 1.30-2.1v (.5v increments), 2.2v, 2.3v System Memory Four 168-pin DIMM sockets supporting SDRAM, 1024 MB max. (8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256 MB) Expansion Slots 1 AGP 2x, 5 PCI, 2 ISA (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 (Including LS-120) * Two USB connectors * 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 Form Factor ATX (12" x 8.5") Miscellaneous * Intel 440BX chipset * CPU SOFT MENU II * Award BIOS * Supports ACPI and Soft-OFF functions * Motherboard temp, CPU temp, system and CPU fan speed, and voltages monitoring * Keyboard and Mouse wake-up * Y2k compliant > Boot Options A, C, SCSI C, A, SCSI C, CD-ROM, A CD-ROM, C, A D, A, SCSI (At least 2 IDE HDD can be used) E, A, SCSI (At least 2 IDE HDD can be used) F, A, SCSI (At least 2 IDE HDD can be used) SCSI, A, C SCSI, C, A A, SCSI, C LS/ZIP, C
Summary
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Price Street $110 (about) + Stability & Compatibility Feature Variety CPU/System temp. Voltage Control
- Still a little high in price but this should change over time.
Overall One of the better, if not best overclocking board. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Setup as tested:See below
History of the BX6 II
Abit really started to draw attention in the motherboard world with their introduction of the LX6, which included Soft Menu and a pseudo 100MHz bus setting. This board quickly became popular was an extremely stable 75 and 83.3 Mhz setting. They improved on the LX6 with the introduction of the BX6 version 1. Based off of Intels BX chipset, it brought even more light and credibility to Abits engineering capabilities. This was just the beginning; next the BH6 rolled out and became probably the top board for overclocking. Coupled with a Celeron 300a and the boards abilities to up the CPU core voltage in .1 volt increments placed Abit at the forefront of the overclockers dream. Most companies would have been happy with this standing, not Abit
Setup
There have been reports that the BX6 II is not stable above 133MHz or 138MHz; not true. The problem is memory and so I tried many combinations to find the right mix. CPU Celeron 300a OEM (Costa Rica) Celeron 300a Retail (Malaya) Pentium II 266 OEM Pentium II 266 Retail Video ATI Rage PCI Ram Mushkin PC100 128meg Crucial PC100 128meg Corsair PC100 128meg Viking PC100 128meg LGS PC100 64meg
Stability and Overclockability
Stability was our main concern when reviewing this board. Since most BX boards perform within one to two percent of each other, we hammered on the boards extra ablities. We put it through the ringer, testing four different CPU and five memory types. Overall, the board ran great.
To our surprise, 138MHz was stable with no hiccups. With the Corsair memory, 143MHz ran most of the time. It was by no means stable but I would definitely attribute the stability issues to the RAM. Running at 143MHz is well out of the RAMs specifications. The PII processor was running at a 2x clock multiplier (2x143=286MHz) and I have tested this one up to 360+ MHz. The level of quality clearly shows in the scarcity of capacitors on the board. This means that each one is placed exactly where it needs to be and the design scheme proves itself competent, as it has the ability to reach 143MHz. I am fairly confident that the 152MHz setting would work if we had RAM that would work at that speed.
Celeron owners. Both Celerons were rock solid at 450MHz with the retail version needing a bump up to 2.20 Volts. With the ability to up the core voltage, almost all 300a Celerons will reach 450MHz.
Good Stuff
Abit includes CPU and motherboard temperature monitoring coupled with the ability to set alarms. While not as crucial today with .25 micron processors, it is still fun to play with and critical for those still with the PII 233 300s.
The AGP, PCI and ISA cards are forced to run out of spec when running a board at higher bus speeds. To assist in your perhpherals running at much higher speed, Abit placed in their Soft Menu various PCI clock fractions for different front side bus speeds. The clock fractions allow downsteping the boards front side bus speed so your PCI cards can run within or closer to specs. From the Abit BX6 II user manual, "For example, when you select 117MHz (1/3), it means the PCI clock is 39MHz. If you set to 117MHz (1/4), the PCI clock is 29MHz." The down fall to running at these speeds is there is no down stepper for the AGP speed and thus it has potential to fail. I believe this might be a limitation in the BX chipset. Many AGP devices will not run at these speeds.
There are a couple of really handy features of this board that aren't often talked about. If you happen to select a setting in the BIOS that won't allow the machine to boot, you can hold Insert to boot with the default BIOS values. This was extremely handy when testing the various RAM types and reaching the points where the system would not post.
One very nice thing was that Abit added support for full IRQ control of the first 4 PCI slots. However, because the last PCI slot, the one that's shared, cannot be bus mastered, there is no such control for it. The IRQs allowed to be selected are 3 through 15.
Bad Stuff
Price. Since the board was just released, it is a little more pricey over its smaller but just as capable cousin the BH6.
In the BIOS version that came with my board, whenever I set up a strange CPU setting like 2x124MHz, before loading Win98 it would always scream (paraphrasing) The CPU has been changed or is unworkable. and I would be forced to hit F1. This quickly became extremely annoying when I was testing for RAM stability.
Just like the BM6, there are voltage settings in .5v increments from 1.3-2.1, 2.20 and 2.30v, but no 2.15v or 2.25v settings. This is a case of never being satisfied.
Conclusion
This is probably the best board for overclocking released to date. WWith, at the very least a workable 143MHz setting, I am blown away by the options and abilities that allow for endless tweaking and playing. It is definitely a step above the older BX6 and BH6 but is it worth the extra price?
Special thanks goes out to PCNut for the Harddrive, and to AccessMicro.com for a rock solid OEM Celeron 300a that overclocks to 450MHz without any voltage increases and a few other necessary components that made this review possible. Please check them out.
--------------------------------------------------------------------- More reviews of the BX6 II by your fellow SysOpt.com users:
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Stability and Overclockability
Stability was our main concern when reviewing this board. Since most BX boards perform within one to two percent of each other, we hammered on the boards extra ablities. We put it through the ringer, testing four different CPU and five memory types. Overall, the board ran great.
To our surprise, 138MHz was stable with no hiccups. With the Corsair memory, 143MHz ran most of the time. It was by no means stable but I would definitely attribute the stability issues to the RAM. Running at 143MHz is well out of the RAMs specifications. The PII processor was running at a 2x clock multiplier (2x143=286MHz) and I have tested this one up to 360+ MHz. The level of quality clearly shows in the scarcity of capacitors on the board. This means that each one is placed exactly where it needs to be and the design scheme proves itself competent, as it has the ability to reach 143MHz. I am fairly confident that the 152MHz setting would work if we had RAM that would work at that speed.
Celeron owners. Both Celerons were rock solid at 450MHz with the retail version needing a bump up to 2.20 Volts. With the ability to up the core voltage, almost all 300a Celerons will reach 450MHz.
Good Stuff
Abit includes CPU and motherboard temperature monitoring coupled with the ability to set alarms. While not as crucial today with .25 micron processors, it is still fun to play with and critical for those still with the PII 233 300s.
The AGP, PCI and ISA cards are forced to run out of spec when running a board at higher bus speeds. To assist in your perhpherals running at much higher speed, Abit placed in their Soft Menu various PCI clock fractions for different front side bus speeds. The clock fractions allow downsteping the boards front side bus speed so your PCI cards can run within or closer to specs. From the Abit BX6 II user manual, "For example, when you select 117MHz (1/3), it means the PCI clock is 39MHz. If you set to 117MHz (1/4), the PCI clock is 29MHz." The down fall to running at these speeds is there is no down stepper for the AGP speed and thus it has potential to fail. I believe this might be a limitation in the BX chipset. Many AGP devices will not run at these speeds.
There are a couple of really handy features of this board that aren't often talked about. If you happen to select a setting in the BIOS that won't allow the machine to boot, you can hold Insert to boot with the default BIOS values. This was extremely handy when testing the various RAM types and reaching the points where the system would not post.
One very nice thing was that Abit added support for full IRQ control of the first 4 PCI slots. However, because the last PCI slot, the one that's shared, cannot be bus mastered, there is no such control for it. The IRQs allowed to be selected are 3 through 15.
Bad Stuff
Price. Since the board was just released, it is a little more pricey over its smaller but just as capable cousin the BH6.
In the BIOS version that came with my board, whenever I set up a strange CPU setting like 2x124MHz, before loading Win98 it would always scream (paraphrasing) The CPU has been changed or is unworkable. and I would be forced to hit F1. This quickly became extremely annoying when I was testing for RAM stability.
Just like the BM6, there are voltage settings in .5v increments from 1.3-2.1, 2.20 and 2.30v, but no 2.15v or 2.25v settings. This is a case of never being satisfied.
Conclusion
This is probably the best board for overclocking released to date. WWith, at the very least a workable 143MHz setting, I am blown away by the options and abilities that allow for endless tweaking and playing. It is definitely a step above the older BX6 and BH6 but is it worth the extra price?
Special thanks goes out to PCNut for the Harddrive, and to AccessMicro.com for a rock solid OEM Celeron 300a that overclocks to 450MHz without any voltage increases and a few other necessary components that made this review possible. Please check them out.
--------------------------------------------------------------------- More reviews of the BX6 II by your fellow SysOpt.com users:
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Author: Scott Mahaney
Read article at Internet.com site