FIC VB-601-V Apollo Pro Pentium II Board
by Anand Lal Shimpi on December 31, 1998 1:08 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
USB Compatibility
Number of Front Universal Serial Bus Root Ports: 1 (no cut-outs included)
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: Mushkin SEC -GH PC100
SDRAM; Memory Man SEC -GH PC100 SDRAM
SDRAM Tested: 1 x 64MB Mushkin PC100 SDRAM; 1 x 64MB Memory-Man PC100 SDRAM
Manufacturer: The Memory Man
Purchase Web-Site: http://www.memory-man.com
Manufacturer: Mushkin
Purchase Web-Site: 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.
How I Tested
Each benchmark was run a minimum of 2 times and a maximum of 5 times, if the motherboard failed to complete a single test within the 5 allocated test runs the OS/Software was re-installed on a freshly formatted Hard Drive and the BIOS settings were adjusted to prevent the test from failing again. All such encounters were noted at the exact time of their occurrence.
Business Winstone 98 & 3D Winbench 98 was run at each individually tested clock speed, if reliable scores were achieved with the first two test runs of the suite an average of the two was taken and recorded as the final score at that clock speed. If the test system displayed erratic behavior while the tests were running or the results were incredibly low/high the tests were re-run up to 5 times and an average of all the test runs was taken and recorded at the final score at that clock speed
All video tests were conducted using an AGP video accelerator
No foreign drivers were present in the test system other than those required for the system to function to the best of its ability
All foreign installation files were moved to a separate partition during the test as to prevent them from effecting the test results
All tests were conducted at 1024 x 768 x 16-bit color
3D Winbench 98 tests were double buffered and conducted at 800 x 600 x 16-bit color
Test Configuration |
|
Processor(s): | Intel Pentium II 300 Intel Pentium II 400 |
RAM: | 1 - 64MB Memory Man PC100 SDRAM DIMM |
Hard Drive(s): | Western Digital Caviar AC35100 - UltraATA |
Video Card(s): | Matrox Millennium G200 (8MB SGRAM - AGP) |
Bus Master Drivers: | Microsoft Win98 DMA Drivers |
Video Drivers: | MGA Millennium G200 Release 1677-411 |
Operation System(s): | Windows 98 |
Motherboard Revision: | FIC VB-601-V Revision 1.3 |
Ziff Davis Winstone 98 - Windows 95 Performance |
|
Business | |
Intel Pentium II - 300 (66 x 4.5) | 23.9 |
Intel Pentium II - 350 (100 x 3.5) | 26.1 |
Intel Pentium II - 400 (100 x 4.0) | 27.9 |
Other than the lack of the ability to manipulate the core voltage of the Pentium II processor, the VB-601-V has the potential to give ABIT's own BH6 a run for its money, in terms of performance, reliability, expandability, and quality...however the depends entirely on the final cost of the board, only a sub-$100 VB-601-V would grab the attention of this reviewer. Otherwise, we have yet another Pentium II motherboard to fill the market with.
AnandTech Motherboard Rating |
|
Business | |
Performance | 84% |
Price | 90% |
Ease of Use | 86% |
Overclocked Stability | 80% |
General Stability | 85% |
Quality | 83% |
Documentation | 90% |
Reliability | 83% |
Overall Rating | 85% |
The
New Rating System
Each motherboard is rated in 8 areas, Performance, Price, Ease of Use, Overclocked
Stability, Stability, Quality, Documentation, and Reliability.
Do not compare newer scores to older ones, the newer scores are much more aggressive
Performance - How well the motherboard compares to others in its class
Price - How competitive the price of the motherboard is when compared to others in its class
Ease of Use - How easy it is to setup the motherboard, jumper settings, jumperless configuration etc...
Overclocked Stability - How stable the motherboard is at overclocked CPU/Bus speeds
Stability - How stable the motherboard is at normal CPU/Bus speeds
Quality - How much effort went into producing the motherboard
Documentation - How helpful is the manual and bundled support manuals
Reliability - How long will this motherboard last, will it fail? Deals with quantity/size of capacitors, known bugs, etc...
Overall Rating - an average of the eight above areas
0 Comments
View All Comments