The Test

In recent times, choosing a motherboard cannot be completely determined by a Winstone score. Now, many boards come within one Winstone point of each other and therefore the need to benchmark boards against each other falls. Therefore you shouldn't base your decision entirely on the benchmarks you see here, but also on the technical features and advantages of this particular board, seeing as that will probably make the greatest difference in your overall experience.

Click Here to learn about AnandTech's Motherboard Testing Methodology.

Test Configuration

Processor(s): Intel PPGA Celeron 433
RAM: 1 x 128MB Mushkin PC100 SDRAM
1 x 128MB Memory-Man PC100 SDRAM
Hard Drive(s): IBM Deskstar 22GB Ultra ATA 66
Video Card(s): Matrox Millennium G200 (8MB SGRAM - AGP)
Video Drivers: MGA Millennium G200 Release 1677-411
Operation System(s): Windows NT4 Service Pack 4
Motherboard Revision: ABIT BP6 Revision 1.0

 

Windows NT Performance

  Winstone
Business 99 High End 99 Multiprocessor
Intel Celeron 433 x 2 (66MHz x 6.5) 24 19.3 2.18

The Final Decision

Quake 3 is on its way, with SMP support as is Windows 2000. Generally speaking, dual processors under NT/2000 does improve multitasking performance to a noticeable extent, and in that case, dual Celerons will be worth it. Remember that NT isn't a reliable gaming platform yet (no AGP texturing support) and Windows 2000 is still a few months away, so you'll be wasting your money if you plan on using dual Celerons under Windows 98 expecting to see a gaming performance increase in Quake 3 or even a general performance increase at that (98 has no SMP support). If you are a NT user, and are looking for a cheap way to boost performance, or if you dual boot between 98 and NT, dual Celerons may be just what you're looking for.

The BP6 is not a solution for high end workstations or servers, rather a solution that tailors to the wants of the same users that put ABIT on the planet, the overclockers and the tweakers, the users that are constantly looking for ways to squeeze even more performance out of their systems. And the BP6 offers just that, at a very affordable price.

For everyone else, you can look at the BP6 as a very original idea, but as we all know, originality does not sell motherboards.


How it Rates

AnandTech Motherboard Rating

  Business
Performance 85%
Price 95%
Ease of Use 94%
Overclocked Stability 96%
General Stability 78%
Quality 80%
Documentation 95%
Reliability 78%
Overall Rating 88%

Click Here to learn about AnandTech's Motherboard Testing Methodology.

The Bad
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