motherboard dilemmas

[DavidCane]

I've just got a P3 600e (slot 1), and the PC133 ram should be here tomorrow. I'm using an ABIT BH6 at the moment, but that maxes out at 133mhz FSB.
I'm gonna want to try to push it further, so which motherboard should I go for?

I've been told that the VIA Apollo 133 chipset is good, but is it better than the BX?

Should I get an ABIT BF6, BE6-II, or an ASUS P3V4X or something else????

Thanks

David C

[wtp]

I've seen many go for the BE6-II as it has 83MHz to 200MHz FSB in 1MHz increments. Good for experimenting with those bus speeds ain't it. I'm not sure if it's the best, but many of the CPUs i've seen clocked to high speeds are on the BE6-II. Go check out http://www.overclockers.com and check out what motherboard they are using, and you should tell which to get by looking at the majority. http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/smile.gif

wtp http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/smile.gif

[Virtual Infinity]

The choice right now is either BX or VIA.

BX offers the best performance but due to limitations of a 2/3 AGP divider you can have trouble running your video card at speeds above your current 89mhz for 133 Default is 66. Good choices for BX are MSI BX Master, Soyo 6BA+IV, Abit BE6 II or Asus CUBX. I'd put my money on the MSI though.

The VIA Apollo chipset suffers from memory bandwidth problems which means performance wise it cannot compare to BX. However

1)you may have noticed recently that BIOS updates and newer Gart drivers put the performance much closer to BX.
2)you get a 1/2 AGP divider so at 133 your running at default 66mhz and higher FSB are much more achievable plus you can run your memory at a -33mhz fsb http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/smile.gif.

A good VIA board is the Asus P3V4X and with tweaks this may eventually reach BX performance levels.

On one more note Intel's i815 Solano chipset is due to be released soon which offers native 133 support and since it should offer a superior memory controller this could be the best choice but when it becomes available - your guess is as good as mine.
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