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Original Link: https://www.anandtech.com/show/475
ABIT VA6 Apollo Pro 133 Slot-1 ATX
by Anand Lal Shimpi on February 8, 2000 2:11 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Since 1989 ABIT has been working at separating themselves from the increasingly saturated motherboard market, either by being the first to produce a product like they did in 1993 with the first VLB SCSI Controller at Fall Comdex or by introducing an innovative new feature such as SoftMenu, their jumperless CPU setup utility back in 1996.
Unfortunately for ABIT, the competition in the saturated motherboard manufacturing market has put ABIT in a very difficult position. They can no longer rely on their SoftMenu setup to sell motherboards since virtually all manufacturers now have a jumperless CPU setup utility, AWARD's latest BIOS release even provides for such a utility, it is up to the motherboard manufacturers to take advantage of it.
Because ABIT never really had more than their SoftMenu setup going for their name, they have resorted to producing a very large product line in an attempt to increase their market coverage. In this process of expanding, ABIT has taken a path that they have never journeyed down before. With the lack of practicality behind the i820 chipset because of the incredible cost and low yields on RDRAM, VIA's Apollo Pro 133 and 133A chipsets have become desired solutions for motherboard manufacturers looking to support the latest 133MHz FSB Intel CPUs.
Forced into an unfamiliar position, ABIT hoped to profit off of their well-known name among those in the overclocker community with their first ever motherboard based on a VIA chipset, the VA6. Based on the Apollo Pro 133 with a later revision due out using the Apollo Pro 133A chipset (which adds AGP 4X support) ABIT's VA6 is one of the piles of new motherboards appearing in the market based on the VIA chipset, but just as we've seen in the past from this Taiwanese based company, sometimes their products aren't exactly perfect the first time around.
New Anand Tech Report Card Rating 80/C-
CPU Interface |
Slot-1
|
Chipset |
VIA Apollo 133
VIA 693A North Bridge VIA 686A South Bridge |
L2 Cache |
N/A (on-chip)
|
Form Factor |
ATX
|
Bus Speeds |
66 / 75 / 83
100 / 105 / 110 / 112 / 115 / 120 / 124 133 / 140 / 150 |
Voltages Supported |
1.30v - 3.2v (in 0.05v increments)
|
Memory Slots |
3 168-pin DIMM Slots
|
Expansion Slots |
0 AMR Slots
1 AGP Slot 5 PCI Slots (5 Full Length) 2 ISA Slots (1 Shared / 1 Full Length) |
AC'97 |
VIA VT1611A
|
BIOS |
AWARD BIOS
|
The Good
The VA6 looks surprisingly enough like ABIT's BH6 from the days of the Celeron 300A overclockers. The resemblance starts with the PCB layout and moves into the actual expansion slot configuration on the board. The VA6 still makes use of the 5/2/1 configuration (PCI/ISA/AGP) and interestingly enough doesn't feature a single AMR slot, a very odd thing since most motherboards that use VIA's 686A South Bridge (which supports the AC'97 and MC'97 codecs) do in fact feature an AMR slot. This helps to support the theory that the VA6 borrows the PCB design from the old BH6.
The VIA 686A South Bridge helps keep the cost of the VA6 down as it integrates hardware monitoring functionality, a PCI-to-ISA bridge and the normal South Bridge functions into a single chip. Because of this high level of integration, ABIT was able to outfit the VA6 with those 2 ISA slots at no added cost other than the cost of the slots themselves. Whether or not the 2 ISA slots are actually useful is up to the individual user to decide (only 1 ISA slot is pictured to the right).
The 686A is also the reason the VA6 does not feature ABIT's on-board HighPoint Ultra ATA 66 controller since the South Bridge features native support for Ultra ATA 66 devices. This is a very welcome change simply because there have been a number of problems reported with the HighPoint controller relating to compatibility with non-Ultra ATA 66 drives among other issues. Basically we were very glad to see the absence of that controller on the VA6 thanks to VIA's 686A South Bridge.
The three memory slots on the VA6 are capable of accepting up to 256MB modules of PC100/PC133 SDRAM or VC100/VC133 Virtual Channel SDRAM courtesy of the Apollo Pro 133 (693A) North Bridge chip located just above the memory banks. In spite of this theoretical support for 256MB modules, our 256MB Corsair modules had difficulty working reliably on the motherboard while they seemed to have no problems on other motherboards.
An interesting point that you may have picked up on is that the VA6 makes use of the older 693A version of VIA's North Bridge, and not the 694X which is commonly known as the Apollo Pro 133A. The only difference between the 693A and the 694X is that the latter features AGP 4X support while the 693A North Bridge is limited to AGP 2X transfers. From an implementation standpoint, the additional pins required for AGP 4X on the 694X North Bridge would force ABIT to adjust the design of the VA6 even more than implementing the 693A would since the latter is essentially pin compatible with the 443BX North Bridge from their BH6 and other BX board designs.
Once again, this supports the theory that ABIT produced the VA6 essentially as a VIA based version of their BX based BH6, an issue which we will get into greater depth with later. ABIT does plan on releasing a 694X based motherboard in the future, but for now the only VIA based solution is the VA6 using the 693A North Bridge.
In spite of the fact that the VA6 does not support AGP 4X transfer modes, the board is outfitted with a universal AGP connector, a feature we normally see reserved to AGP 4X compliant motherboards. There is no harm in doing this, as all the universal AGP connector does is it allows for any AGP card, whether 3.3v or 1.5v, to be used in the slot. For those of you that aren't familiar with the standards, AGP 2X cards feature the 3.3v notch towards the end of the connector nearest the VGA output while AGP 4X cards feature an additional 1.5v notch towards the end of the connector furthest from the VGA output.
In an effort to stick to the already designed BH6 layout, ABIT made no effort to add an additional slot in order to support audio modem riser cards. While there is no AMR slot on the VA6, the board does feature VIA's VT1611A AC'97 codec which is used to drive the on-board sound connector. Keep in mind that the VT1611A is a software based codec meaning it uses your CPU's power to do most of the work.
Just like with the old BH6, ABIT was forced to locate the ATX power connector above the Slot-1 connector on the VA6. Surrounding the ATX connector are a handful of 1000uF capacitors positioned to help filter the power signal supplied to the CPU. Unfortunately this doesn't help attain a level of stability uncommon to ABIT, quick translation, the VA6 wasn't ABIT's most stable motherboard we've ever seen.
The VA6 does boast ABIT's SoftMenu setup, however it does not feature the newly implemented SoftMenu III that is present on the ABIT BF6. Instead the VA6's setup pales in comparison to the BF6, one of ABIT's flagship BX line, in that it "only" supports the following FSB frequencies all selectable only through the BIOS setup: 66 / 75 / 83 / 100 / 105 / 110 / 112 / 115 / 120 / 124 / 133 / 140 and 150MHz. Selecting an FSB setting less than 100MHz forces an AGP clock ratio of 1:1 with the FSB setting; picking a setting between 100MHz and 124MHz, inclusive, defaults to an AGP ratio of 2:3 with the FSB; and finally selecting anything faster than 124MHz (133MHz and above) the AGP clock ratio is set to 1:2, a feature of the 693A North Bridge.
The CPU's clock multiplier and voltage settings can also be selected from within the BIOS, make the VA6 true to the ABIT style of manufacturing only fully jumperless motherboards.
Hardware monitoring on the VA6 is provided courtesy of VIA's 686A South Bridge. The chip can monitor three temperatures, one being the temperature of the 686A chip itself and two external thermistor values. One thermistor is already built onto the motherboard, positioned between two capacitors near the memory slots. There is a single remaining thermistor header placed near the Slot-1 connector, however ABIT failed to include a thermistor for use with that header.
ABIT's classic User's Manual comes bundled with the VA6. While the manual itself does have some glaring errors, for example stating that the 133MHz FSB frequency isn't officially supported, the documentation can be quite useful to users that are building their very first systems. We have seen better User's Manuals from ABIT in the past that go into greater detail with the actual installation process, let's just hope that the VA6's manual was simply a fluke that made it by the QA team. ABIT doesn't hesitate to include the usual bundled drivers and utilities that do come in handy if you don't have an active Internet connection while you're setting up your system.
The Bad
The biggest and most inexcusable issue we had with the VA6 was its utter lack of stability. While all of the Apollo Pro 133 and 133A based boards we have tested, with the exception of a few notable entries (i.e. AOpen MX64), have been noticeably less reliable than the majority of BX motherboards we've reviewed, the VA6 we tested is definitely on the lower end of the stability scale. The board could not successfully complete any of our stability tests, and while they do require that the test system remain operational and stable for a full 24 hour period most motherboards in the past haven't had a problem making their way through our rigorous testing.
With the possibility that maybe our VA6 sample was flawed we proceeded to talk to other users that had purchased VA6 boards, and unfortunately our fears were confirmed when we hadn't received a single positive comment about the stability board from any of the VA6 owners we had talked to. Let's hope that the future revisions of the VA6 correct these stability problems, because as of now, the board isn't fit for sale.
From an overclocking standpoint, our FC-PGA 550E that had no problem running at 825MHz (150MHz FSB) on the Tyan Trinity 400, a competing Apollo Pro 133A based solution, wouldn't even boot at that speed on the VA6. There are definitely some major issues with the current revision of the VA6 that do require ABIT's attention if they expect this product to represent their company in a positive light.
There isn't much point in talking about other problems with the board, but it would have been nice (if they fixed the stability issues) for ABIT to port the SoftMenu III setup over to the VA6 to allow for a little more flexibility when overclocking. They should also provide a BIOS update that allows for the manual selection of the AGP clock ratio instead of it being dependent solely on FSB frequency.
USB Compatibility
-
Number of Front Universal Serial Bus Root Ports: 2
-
Number of Rear Universal Serial Bus Root Ports: 2
-
USB IRQ Enable/Disable in BIOS: Yes
-
USB Keyboard Support in BIOS: Yes
Recommended SDRAM
Recommended SDRAM: 1 x 128MB Corsair PC133 SDRAM; 1 x 128MB Mushkin PC133 SDRAM
SDRAM Tested: 1 x 128MB Corsair PC133 SDRAM; 1 x 128MB Mushkin PC133 SDRAM
Manufacturer:
Corsair
Purchase Website: http://www.corsairmicro.com
Manufacturer:
Mushkin
Purchase Website: http://www.mushkin.com
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
Pentium III 733 provided by Memman
|
RAM: |
1
x 128MB Corsair PC133 SDRAM
1 x 128MB Mushkin PC133 SDRAM |
Hard Drive(s): |
Western Digital 153BA Ultra
ATA 66
|
Bus Master Drivers: |
VIA 4-in-1 v4.19 BMIDE Driver
|
Video Card(s): |
NVIDIA
GeForce 256 SDR
|
Video Drivers: |
NVIDIA
Detonator 3.53
|
Operation System(s): |
Windows
98 SE
|
Motherboard Revision: |
ABIT
VA6 Revision 0.5
|
Windows 98 Performance |
||
Sysmark 2000 | Content Creation Winstone 2000 |
|
Intel Pentium III 733 (5.5 x 133) |
146
|
Failed
|
The Final Decision
It honestly looks like the VA6 was nothing more than a BH6 modified for use with the Apollo Pro 133 chipset. We have seen this scenario all too much with ABIT motherboards, they release a version to the public (keep in mind that the revision we tested has been seen in retail channels) that simply isn't fit for sale and then correct the problems in a later revision.
The VA6 has the potential to become a pretty good 133MHz FSB motherboard solution, but there are a number of issues which we pointed out that must be addressed before the VA6 can fulfill that destiny. ABIT has never been known for being the best in stability but this is simply unacceptable.
Your best bet is to stay away from the VA6 until you start hearing some more success stories from actual VA6 owners, because in the end, it's the user that decides how good a motherboard is, not a reviewer. Because at a price point of around $80 (partially courtesy of the low-cost VIA chipset), the VA6 when combined with a FC-PGA Pentium III could make for a very high performing yet affordable upgrade.
AnandTech Motherboard Rating |
|
Business | |
Performance |
85%
|
Price |
94%
|
Ease of Use |
94%
|
Overclocked Stability |
60%
|
General Stability |
60%
|
Quality |
85%
|
Documentation |
88%
|
Reliability |
75%
|
Overall Rating |
80%
|
Click Here to learn about AnandTech's Motherboard Testing Methodology.