Until recently we haven't paid a lot of attention to the mainboards on chipsets with integrated video. Their applicationseemed far too narrow considering problems with their upgrade, rather low quality and performance of the integrated graphicscore. Nevertheless, Intel came up with its solution to the problem - i810 and later - i810E. i752 graphics accelerator showingabove all rather acceptable 3D-performance is integrated into these two chipsets. Thus i810 and i810E-boards proved to be anacceptable solution for cheap computers, which don't require supercool 3D.

And the major Intel's contender in the field - SiS - is forced now to have a closer look at the integrated graphics coreperformance, which is expected to result soon in brand new SiS-chipset mainboards with integrated SiS300 graphics accelerator.The latter shows fairly high performance as well. As far as the third chipset-builder VIA is concerned, it is about to startmoving towards the integrated chipsets market, which has suddenly become pretty popular, and to come up with the chipsets withintegrated S3 Savage4 graphics core.

From now on, following the twist of the market we are going to pay more attention to the mainboards with integrated graphics,including based on Intel's new chipsets. The first one that we've chosen is Chaintech 6WEX2 on Intel 810E chipset. It has somerather unique features we are going to touch upon in our further discussion.

Specification

• Processor
  • Supports Slot 1 Intel Pentium II/III up to 733MHz
  • Supports Socket 370 Intel Pentium III and Intel Celeron up to 600MHz
  • 66/100/133MHz bus
• Chipset
  • Intel 810E three-chip AGPset (GMCH 82810E, ICH 82801, FWH 82802)
• Memory
  • Supports up to 512MB SDRAM
  • Two 168-pin DIMM sockets supporting 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256MB modules
• Integrated graphics core
  • Full 2D Hardware Acceleration Graphics up to 1600x1200 at 85Hz refresh rate
  • 3D core with i752 superpipelined architecture
  • Integrated 24-bit 230MHz RAMDAC
  • Hardware Motion Compensation Assistance for MPEG2 decoder
  • Optional 4MB Display Cache
• Slots
  • AMR supporting cheap soft-modems
  • 4 PCI-slots
• Integrated AC'97 2.1 audio subsystem
• UltraDMA/66 controller
  • Supports two IDE-ports and up to 4 ATA/ATAPI devices
• BIOS
  • Intel 4MB FWH (Filmware Hub)
  • Award 6.0 supporting PnP, APM (v1.2), DMI (v2.0) and multy-device booting: floppy, IDE/SCSI hard drive,LS120, ZIP ATAPI and CD-ROM
• I/O
  • WB627HF LPC I/O chip with hardware monitoring support
  • 1 parallel port with supporting ECP and EPP
  • 2 USB-ports
  • 2 serial ports
  • 1 FD up to 2.88MB
• Form-factor
  • BabyAT (219x259 cm)

Besides Chaintech 6WEX2 mainboard itself, its standard package includes FDD, UltraDMA/66 cables, a detailed user's manual, a CD with drivers and all the necessary software known under AIRBAG code name. This package also contains useful antivirus software, namely Norton Antivirus, Trend PC-Cilin 98 and a Norton Ghost utility allowing hard drives cloning. No other mainboard package contains a similar software set, which makes another argument in favour of Chaintech mainboards. It might be that Chaintech takes after graphics card manufacturers, which usually bundle graphics applications and 3D-games into the package.

Closer look

The first thing, which catches one's eye right away, is that both Slot 1 and Socket 370 are mounted on the board.Naturally, that doesn't mean that the mainboard works in dual-processor configuration. i810E chipset, 6WEX2 isbased on, doesn't support SMP, although allows using both Slot 1 and Socket 370 processors. Thus Chaintech hasimplemented the so-called twin CPU technology, which implies using both Slot 1 and Socket 370 on 6WEX2, with a jumperserving as a switch between them. In general similar mainboards supporting Slot 1 and Socket 370 have already beenavailable for quite a time, but the majority of those were built long ago, hence they were built not on the mostup-to-date Intel chipsets and didn't support processors on Coppermine core. As we all know, the FSB frequency of133MHz and the voltage of 1.6V are not the only requirements for mainboards to support new processors, but in caseof FC-PGA Coppermine it's also a slightly altered Socket 370 pinout. Chaintech 6WEX2 which works both with FC-PGA andSC-242 (Slot 1) Coppermine and supports system bus frequency of 66, 100 and 133MHz complies with all the demands listedabove. Now any of the last generation Intel processors like Celeron, Pentium II or Pentium III can be easily setup onthe board, which is the board's indisputable advantage.

Since Chaintech 6WEX2 mainboard is based on Intel 810E chipset, it supports only 2 DIMM slots, which can carry up to512MB SDRAM. Thanks to the chipset properties SDRAM on 6WEX2, as well as on any other similar chipset, always works at100MHz regardless of the bus speed. That is why, when upgrading to 6WEX2 it is worth checking on the one hand, if theold memory can work at 100MHz. On the other hand, installation of PC133 SDRAM makes obviously no sense, for it'll stillgo on working at 100MHz even if 133MHz FSB is used.

The second issue we'd like to point out is the form-factor. Although Chaintech 6WEX2 has BabyAT format, it does notnecessarily mean that it cannot be installed into an ATX or MicroATX case. The mainboard has both AT and ATX powerconnectors, so if there's a backpanel, which ATX cases usually tend to have, one can easily install 6WEX2 inside anATX case. Thus Chaintech 6WEX2 can be fixed both on newly assembled computers and on those under upgrade.

Chaintech proved inventive dealing with external connectors as well. Earlier AT-boards used to have a huge numberof brackets placed instead of expansion cards with various connectors and cables, but now that problem is solved a greatdeal more elegantly. There's also a riser card slot and the riser card with video connectors, PS/2 and two USB ports, issupplied in the same package with 6WEX2. And the rest of the connectors: parallel and serial ports are installed the oldway, using a mounting bracket with connectors and cables.

As one can easily guess, since Chaintech 6WEX2 is based on Intel 810E chipset, it has integrated video. Which in turndoes not mean that you won't be able to install an external graphics card. If you wish you might disable integrated videoin BIOS Setup and install a video card in one of the PCI slots. Although that kind of solution may cause a great deal ofenthusiasm only with 3dfx fans, for at present only Voodoo3 PCI version is available. PCI versions of NVIDIA Riva TNT2also exist, but it'll be quite a task to find those in retail. As far as the prospects of PCI video, the owners of i810cards will not be forgotten, at least by 3dfx, which is planning to present PCI version of its future product - Voodoo5.

Nevertheless, the speed of the i810E integrated graphics core is enough to achieve acceptable fps practically in anypresent-day game. And for those users who are not inclined to use the built-in 3D graphics core Chaintech offers a slightlycheaper version of 6WEX2 without display cache, which boosts only 3D performance.

Apart from that the board can boast to be equipped with integrated AC'97-compatible sound (user can switch this one offas well). There's also an AMR slot on the board, in which a user can install a cheap ($10-15) soft-modem. As far as the restof the slots are concerned, one can see 4 PCI slots on Chaintech 6WEX2, which is quite a substantial number for a board ofthat size. ISA slots are missing on the mainboard, which is very unfortunate for upgraders, because older systems are mostlikely to support ISA-cards. On the other hand the requirements of the PC99 specification (as well as of its most up-to-dateversion PC99A) are very rigid in this respect: there should be no ISA slots on a mainboard.

Since PCB Chaintech 6WEX2 occupies rather small space, the lion's share of which is covered by Slot1 and Socket 370 slots,not much space was left for the other components. That's why they are located very compactly. For instance, it'll certainlyrequire some effort to fix rare but still existing full-size PCI-cards.

As for system setup and tuning, the new mainboard employs rather fresh Award BIOS 6.0, which enjoys a variety of properties.For example, thanks to the SeePU technology, frequency and multiplier are set from BIOS Setup, although you can switch betweenbasic 66, 100 and 133MHz only by jumpers. BIOS Setup also envisages manual IRQ sharing between PCI slots, which is an issuewith "hard-to-tune-up" devices. It also handles configuration of memory timings. Owing to the fact that BIOS is now a partof 4Mbit FWH, one gets an oportunity to write some additional soft into it, including AWDFlash utility, by means of which BIOSreflashing is carried out. Now that the process has become that simple, we don't need any extra utilities for that purpose.

Hardware monitoring has also been implemented on Chaintech 6WEX2. A multyfunctional WinBond WB627HF is in charge of it. Thechip measures three temperatures (of any of the processors and of the mainboard) and eight voltages. Noteworthy is that theprocessor temperature is measured with the most reliable technology - by built-in thermistors which are fixed on Slot1 IntelPentium III and any Socket 370 CPU.

Of less important, but still pleasing things one should mention a high-quality needle-shaped aluminium radiator on thechipset, which evidently provides better cooling than conventional (standard) radiators, and a LED indicating DIMM powersupply.

Overclocking

Chaintech 6WEX2's overclocking capabilities are far from being extraordinary. The range of supported FSB frequenciesis limited to the following: 66, 68, 75, 100, 112, 117, 124, 129, 133, 138 and 150MHz. In addition there's no voltagecontrol for the processor.

The lack of the popular FSB frequency of 83MHz can be explained by the mere fact that PCI frequency then becomes 42MHz,which is much more than normal 33MHz. And despite the fact that almost all the present-day PCI-devices can stand such afrequency, FWH, being one out of the i810E set of cards as well as of the other chipsets of the 800 family, refuses to workat such a high frequency.

As for the operation of PCI-devices at the system bus frequency of 133MHz, everything here runs smoothly. 133MHz is astandard frequency for i810E, which is why the PCI bus receives the same 33MHz in this mode too.

On the whole, one might state the following: it is possible to overclock processors on Chaintech 6WEX2, but without thecomfort and the effect we get on overlocker's favorite ABIT boards.

Performance

At the end, as we usually do, let us have a glance at the performance of the system built on 6WEX2. The test-system wasconfigured as follows:

• Slot1 Intel Pentium III CPU (on Katmai core)
• Socket 370 Intel Celeron 500, Intel Celeron 333 and Intel Pentium 500E (on Coppermine core) CPUs
• IBM DJNA 372200 HDD
• 128MB SEC PC-100 SDRAM

The following applications were employed:

• Windows98 SE
• Content Creation WinStone2000
• Quake3 Arena

The tested board was not equiped with the optional display cache memory.

Results:

By the way, the diagrams presented above allow us once again to assess the performance of the new Intel processors onCoppermine core, though this time only on the Low-End system with integrated graphics. One more thing we would like topoint out on the basis of the results sited above is that Intel Celeron overclocked by a 100MHz bus isn't already amongthe "top performers". One of the main reasons for that is that many of new applications support SSE SIMD-instructions set,which is missing in Celeron.

In its operation with different types of CPUs, both Slot 1 and Socket 370, Chaintech 6WEX2 mainboard has shown magnificentstability, which is, in actual fact, very typical of practically all the Chaintech boards.

Conclusions

So, Chaintech 6WEX2 mainboard is unique in the way it supports both Slot 1 and Socket 370 processors with system busfrequencies up to 133MHz, including those with the new Coppermine core. Therefore, and also because of its compatibilitywith both AT and ATX cases, this mainboard makes up a perfect solution with integrated graphics core and software soundlargely oriented on low-cost computers. These very qualities distinguishing Chaintech 6WEX2 from the other mainboards oni810 and i810E chipsets.

Highs:

• Flexibility: support of both Slot 1 and Socket 370 CPUs
• Support of 133MHz FSB and CPUs with Coppermine core in both SC-242 (Slot 1), and FC-PGA packages
• Useful AIRBAG software package
• Stability and reliability

Lows:

• Lack of ISA slots
• Poor CPU overclocking capabilities