Only half a year has passed since Intel's announcement of a new CPU socket - Socket370. However, one thing is beyond doubt: this novelty has deserved its living. But it managed to win public acknowledgement due to one very simple fact rather than to its peculiar features. The thing is that low-cost Celeron processors are now produced only for Socket370, and as for Slot-1 CPUs they have already had their day and all the pieces, which are still available somewhere are the remains of former splendours.

Though turning to a new case for the old Celeron processor core went not that easily for Intel this measure - the separation of Slot-1 and Socket370 systems - certainly was not casual and made a lot of sense. The corporation's main goal was to single out the market of low-cost processors intended for a wide range of customers because all Intel's main competitors were quite at home there and didn't feel like conceding their territory to anyone. And now when almost all CPU-makers (with the only exception of AMD still pushing forward its Slot A) announced their intention to design their own Socket370 processors all our doubts concerning the necessity of this change vanished. It became absolutely clear that Intel's good start provided a fully-fledged platform for further research and development.

As we have already mentioned several times Celeron is considered to be almost the best choice of all Intel processors. And the reason lies in its architecture. Celeron is practically the same thing as a normal Pentium II. Intel's first try to develop a low-cost processor based on the Pentium II Deschutes core but without the L2 cache ended up with a total failure. The first Celeron 266 processors performed as badly as Intel Pentium MMX. But Intel didn't give in. Since they are quite smart guys they quickly understood where the shoe pinches and changed its line correspondingly. As a result the company gave life to a new Celeron with a 128KB integrated L2 cache, which worked at the core frequency and not at only half the clock speed as in Pentium II. And only due to this fast cache Celeron performs practically as well as Pentium II provided the frequencies are the same. But the price…! In other words, the only thing that helps Pentium II to retain its high position is a 100MHz bus, which allows to achieve a bit faster memory data transfer.

And now a few words about Pentium III. The main difference Pentium II and Pentium III is the SSE SIMD-instructions, which make the latter a more powerful device and theoretically are able to provide a faster work of those applications using these instructions. Unfortunately, such tasks are not that widely spread by now. That's why it is again only 100MHz bus and slightly higher working frequencies (PIII - 550MHz while Celeron - only 466MHz) that make Pentium III win by a nose of Celeron.

The existing Celeron processors are designed for 66MHz system bus. However, this is likely to change as soon as the next Pentium III core - also known as Coppermine - comes out. This core will work with 133MHz system bus, which actually means that a 100MHz Celeron is not so far off. Moreover, we are on the threshold of a 0.18 micron technology and that means that very soon we'll get very well overclockable CPUs. Remember the first Celerons with a simple architecture? They could be overclocked by 1.5 times! That's why the argument about higher frequencies of Pentium III is very likely to lose its significance for overclockers in the light of the present situation.

Well, this boring introductory part was aimed at describing all the advantages and hidden potential of Celeron processors and of Socket370 in particular so that to assure Intel admirers of all the positive returns of shifting to it. But the determinative we have left for afters. It has been mentioned more than once actually that Intel can make much more from Socket370 processors manufacturing. It can spare on processor board and on its plug, where the CPU is usually installed. And what we have just happened to know, Intel is planning to launch a socketed Pentium III! The type of this socket hasn't been yet announced but I stake half of my mainboard on :-) that it will be our old fellow - Socket370.

So, buying a Socket370 mainboard now you definitely won't come off a loser and will even be the gainer in the future. That's why we decided to carry out a mass testing of Socket370 mainboards and to compare them so that to provide you with the most detailed statistics. The testing aimed at singling out the fastest, most promising and most convenient mainboard not only now but also in the near future. That's why in our testing system we used both an ordinary 66MHz Intel Celeron 300A and the same processor overclocked to 450MHz by means of system bus frequency increase up to 100MHz.

We will introduce all the participants a little bit later and now we would like to make you familiar with the chipsets, which are now used in Socket370 mainboards.

Chipsets

Before we start we'd like to warn you that we aren't going to consider any i810 mainboards. The thing is that i810 with its hub architecture is a highly integrated chipset with a built-in graphics controller. This fact definitely contradicts the message of the current article about using Celeron in far not the lowest level home and working stations. This built-in graphics controller is very like i740 graphics chipset, which proved unable to provide high performance required by most modern games. However, Celeron perfectly copes with this problem.

Well, let's start. The today's Socket370 mainboards are based on the following chipsets:

• Intel 440BX
• Intel 440ZX
• Intel 440LX
• Intel 440EX
• VIA Apollo Pro Plus

Even if we put aside the Taiwanese VIA chipset, which is none other than a slightly adapted similar Slot-1 chipset, we can easily get lost in all those Intel names. In brief. i440LX is a basic chipset, which used to be applied in Pentium II mainboards in times when nobody could even imagine a 100MHz system bus. i440EX is its lite-version designed especially for Celeron. i440BX is the current basic chipset used in Pentium II/III mainboards now, and i440ZX is its lite-version. What makes these chipsets "lite", what the reference between them is, and how VIA Apollo Pro Plus performs compared to Intel products can be easily drawn from the table below:

As you can easily notice the characteristics of all chipsets are very close, however, there are some differences. The first thing that is worth mentioning is that i440LX and its lite-version i440EX are already out of date and do not support 100MHz bus. It means that the mainboards will not be able to work on these chipsets and get along with 100MHz processors when they come out. Besides, these chipsets don't offer you a wide choice of upgrading options. That's why we would advice you not to rely on these products for a while.

The things that contribute to the simplicity of i440ZX compared to i440BX as well as that of i440EX compared to i440LX are: not so many supported memory banks, smaller memory size and the reduced number of Bus Master devices. This means that the mainboards based on lite-chipset versions will have less DIMM-slots (only 2 by i440ZX and i440EX) and less PCI-slots (usually it is not more than 4 by ZX and 3 by EX).

Then what is the reason for such devotion of the mainboards manufacturers to older and simpler chipset versions? Why don't they go over to i440BX with all its cool features, for instance? And the explanation is as simple as that. It is the price of a chipset that matters. i440BX is the most expensive and as a result the mainboard based on it will also be a bit more expensive. However, if you intend your mainboard to serve you for a considerable while you shouldn't grudge some $10 for additional features and upgrade options. Nevertheless, i440LX and i440EX will be most wanted in modest office systems.

And now a bit about VIA Apollo Pro. This chipset is not a bit worse than i440BX. It supports up to 1GB of memory in 8 banks and up to 5 Bus Master devices. The only weak point of the VIA chipsets, which has always been it and which found its way in Apollo Pro Plus as well, is the SDRAM working speed. The corresponding time diagrams are given in the table. But VIA chipset also has an advantage over Intel products. It allows to clock the memory bus not through the system bus but through AGP and hence to use older memory modules unable to work at 100MHz while the system bus frequency is equal to 100MHz.

In conclusion we will touch upon a problem of different mainboards practical performance, depending on the chipset they are based on. The diagram below represents the average performance testing results of different mainboards with Intel Celeron 300A CPU:

As we can see from the chart Intel chipsets provide practically the same performance for all cases, and VIA Apollo Pro Plus performs about 6% worse, which is the result of tangible delays occurring when working with SDRAM.

Testing participants

ABIT BM6

This mainboard belongs to the company, which won the fame among numerous overclockers. It is based on an i440BX chipset full-version and has 5 PCI-slots, 2 ISA-slots and 3 DIMM-slots. So many slots provide good expandability of the system on ABIT BM6. But even taking into account their number the developers hardly faced any problems when locating them on the board due to its full-size ATX-format. The coolest distinctive feature of all ABIT mainboards including BM6 is SoftMenu II. This technology allows to change CPU configuration through BIOS Setup. Besides, SoftMenu II makes it possible to change the processor core voltage, which is of great use for CPU overclocking. Of course, the mainboard supports a wide range of FSB frequencies, including 100MHz. Moreover, we should also draw your attention to high performance rates shown by this board.

ABIT ZM6

This mainboard can be regarded as a younger brother of BM6. It has only one outer difference - the chipset. ZM6 is based on the i440ZX chipset. But since ZX doesn't support more than 4 Bus Master devices and 4 memory banks, the 3d DIMM-slot may be used only in case the SDRAM modules are single-bank ones. As for the 5th PCI-slot, it is utilized only for those devices, which do not require their own interrupt, for example, for Voodoo2. The mainboard system BIOS also has a SoftMenu II, i.e. allows CPU jumperless configuration and its core voltage changing. It supports FSB frequencies starting from 100MHz and up. And the speed and stability of this mainboard are up to the mark.

Acorp 6LX87

This mainboard is on i440LX chipset and hence the FSB frequencies equal to 100MHz and over are out of the question. The mainboard has 3 DIMM-slots, 3 PCI-slots and 2 ISA-slots. This mainboard has a BabyAT form factor and that's why it perfectly suits for upgrading older Socket-7 systems of the same form factor. Among the main advantages of this board we would like to mention an isolating safety casing on the lower surface of the mainboard. However, to our great disappointment, the mainboard proved to be very unstable throughout all the tests.

ASUS MEB

The leading mainboards manufacturer has launched several Socket370 boards. The richest in different features is the MEB one based on the i440BX chipset. It supports FSB frequencies over 100MHz. This is a full ATX-format mainboard with 3 DIMM-slots, 3 ISA-slots and 4 PCI-slots. CPU configuring can be carried out by means of dip-switches. This mainboard supports a very wide range of external frequencies, which coincide with the ones supported by ABIT mainboards. Besides, it is also possible to change the VIO (voltage supply to the DRAM chipset AGP and the CPU's I/O buffer), which can theoretically lead to the rise in system stability when overclocking. Unfortunately, the mainboard lacks Clear CMOS jumper and only 2 contact surfaces remind us that all ASUS mainboards used to have it some time ago. Moreover, the so popular recently "Wake on Keyboard" and "Wake on Mouse" function is not supported by this mainboard. All this makes us think that despite high quality of the mainboard and its performance stability ASUS MEB is still too expensive.

ASUS MEL-B

This is a BabyAT-format mainboard on i440LX chipset. It has 3 DIMM-slots, 3 PCI-slots and 2 ISA-slots. Unfortunately, the older chipset version used in the board dashes our hopes for 100MHz FSB frequency support. As in the previous case, MEL-B CPU configuring can be carried out by means of dip-switches.

ASUS MEL-C

It is actually a full-size ATX-version of the previous mainboard. Since there is much more room on this mainboard it has 2 ISA-slots, 3 DIMM-slots and 4 PCI-slots. And the chipset is again the older i440LX, which makes all the conclusions for the previous piece fit here just perfectly.

Chaintech 6AIA

This mainboard is of MicroATX format and is based on VIA Apollo Pro Plus. It has 2 DIMM-slots, 3 PCI-slots and 1 ISA-slot. Due to so few slots the mainboard turned out relatively small. It provides 100MHz system bus frequency as well as asynchronous memory bus, which is of great importance when the system uses the modules different from PC100. Besides, there is an integrated sound chip ESS Solo-1, which makes this really chip mainboard an even much better choice for average users.

Chaintech 6LIA

This mainboard is almost identical to the previous one. The only difference is that 6LIA is based on i440LX and does not support 100MHz system bus frequency.

Chaintech 6ZIA

This is another twin-brother of the previous mainboards, however, this time the mainboard is made on i440ZX chipset. It supports 100MHz FSB and is considered to be Chaintech's top product for Celeron Socket370. This mainboard showed high performance and stability at work, i.e. proved pretty reliable.

DTK PRM-891

It is an ATX-format mainboard based on i440LX chipset from a not popular Taiwanese PC manufacturer. There are 4 PCI-slots, 2 ISA-slots and 3 DIMM-slots. Naturally, the 100MHz system bus is in no way supported by the mainboard. Though this mainboard can boast a very nice and convenient design its performance leaves much to be desired.

Elitegroup P6BXT-A+

Let us introduce the sensational "twinboard", which has become a topic for numerous reviews. This thing is based on i440BX chipset and is equipped with both: Socket370 and Slot-1. This technical peculiarity allows to upgrade your PC from Celeron to Pentium II/III without any problems connected with mainboard replacing. The mainboard is made in full-size ATX-format and has 4 PCI-slots, 3 DIMM-slots and 2 ISA-slots. It also has an integrated sound based on the CMI 8338 chip, which features are very similar to the ones of ESS Solo-1. It definitely supports 100MHz FSB since you can also plug a Pentium II or III CPU. The mainboard made a good impression on us especially regarding its unusual design solution.

Elitegroup P6EXP-Me

It is the only mainboard among all we tasted made on i440EX chipset. This fact as well as Elitegroup's general pricing policy make P6EXP-Me a really low-cost product. It has a MicroATX form factor, 3 PCI- and DIMM-slots, and all three DIMM modules can be set simultaneously only if they have a single-bank structure and a single ISA connector. The 100MHz system bus is not supported. And the mainboard possesses an integrated sound chip CMI 8338 described above.

Gigabyte GA-6LA7

This mainboard is made in BabyAT format on i440LX chipset. It nicely suits for older systems upgrade due to good performance stability shown while testing, however, it doesn't support 100MHz system bus. It has 4 PCI-slots, 3 DIMM-slots and 2 ISA-slots. In contrast to all the other mainboards GA-6LA7 has a system BIOS from AMI.

Intel BI440ZX

Please, meet a mainboard from the father of the chipset i440ZX it is based on. Since Intel simply can't contradict its own specs the mainboard has only one supported FSB frequency - 66MHz. Intel BI440ZX has 3 PCI-slots, 2 DIMM-slots and 1 ISA-slot. It can also boast an integrated sound solution on Creative ES1373 chip. Besides, there is a miniature PC-speaker. The board is in MicroATX-format. Among the most interesting features we would like to point out the jumperless configuring, i.e. all the settings are made in Setup BIOS (from Phoenix, by the way), which you can access by means of switching a certain jumper on the mainboard… This solution is undoubtedly very convenient in corporate systems but not for home or small office use. BI440ZX doesn't support IR-port and Wake on Mouse function.

Iwill LE370

This mainboard of ATX-format is based on i440LX chipset and hence supports 100MHz system bus. The mainboard has 5 PCI-slots, 3 DIMM-slots and 2 ISA-slots. However, though the chipset is quite out of date the mainboard demonstrated highly stable performance. The top peculiarity of Iwill LE370 is the integrated sound based on one of the best (within its price group) chips - Aureal Vortex, which is famous for supporting a 3D-sound. In other words, if you were not planning to upgrade your system in the near future then this mainboard would be the best integrated solution. But unfortunately, the bitter truth is that Iwill engineers have really made a big mistake when choosing the basic chipset for their product.

Lucky Star 6ZX

This BabyAT-format mainboard is made by one of the most notorious manufacturers. This is the only mainboard of this form-factor made on i440ZX chipset. However, extremely unstable performance at 100MHz FSB frequency, as well as its really bad layout, prevent us from paying compliments to this device. The mainboard is equipped with 3 PCI-slots, 2 DIMM-slots and 2 ISA-slots. The wake on PS/2 mouse is not supported.

Microstar MS-6161

This is another unremarkable MicroATX-format mainboard based on i440LX chipset, which does not support 100MHz FSB frequency. It has 5 PCI-slots, 3 DIMM-slots and 2 ISA-slots. The only advantage of this mainboard, which should be mentioned here is its stable performance. And nothing more.

SOYO SY-6ILA

This mainboard is based on i440LX and has an ATX form factor. No 100MHz system bus support. It has 4 PCI-slots, 3 DIMM-slots and 1 ISA-slot. Besides, it has an integrated sound chip Creative ES1373. Unfortunately, AGP-slot is very inconveniently located and as a result the battery doesn't let you insert your graphics cards properly. The mainboard doesn't also support wake on mouse function. Nevertheless, SOYO SY-6ILA managed to achieve the highest speed at 66MHz FSB frequency and is an absolute leader here.

SOYO SY-6VZA

This mainboard is absolutely identical to the previous one with that only difference that it is made on VIA Apollo Pro Plus chipset and supports 100MHz FSB frequency with asynchronous memory clocking. However, the drawbacks of the previous device are enriched with the incomplete BIOS version, which has a number of errors.

Supermicro 370SBA

This is one of the fastest mainboards of our competition due to its i440BX chipset. It has an ATX form factor, 4 PCI-slots, 3 DIMM- and 3 ISA-slots. It provides a 100MHz system bus support but unfortunately doesn't allow to set external frequencies different from 66 and 100MHz. Besides, it lacks the IR-port connection. 370SBA utilizes a not so widely spread graphics AMI BIOS. Nevertheless, its high performance stability during the tests is worth noting here.

Tekram S3AP-A

This is an ATX-format mainboard on VIA Apollo Pro Plus chipset. It supports higher FSB frequencies and asynchronous memory bus. As for the mainboard configuration here we see a popular version with 5 PCI-slots, 3 DIMM-slots and 2 ISA-slots. Besides, it has an integrated sound chip ESS Solo-1. Wake on PS/2 mouse is absent. The last valuable thing is a broad range of external frequencies as by ABIT mainboards. And that's it.

Tyan Tomahawk BX/A+

This mainboard of a famous American company is based on i440BX chipset, has 100MHz FSB frequency and ATX form factor. It has the most popular slot combination: 5 PCI-slots, 3 DIMM-slots and 2 ISA-slots. However, though it showed cool CPU overclocking features it can't boast high stability. It may be caused by AMI BIOS used on this mainboard. Besides, the board lacks IR-port connector.

In conclusion, we offer you a small comparative table with the main parameters of all the tested pieces:

Compatibility

In order to achieve maximum compatibility with a wide range of equipment mainboard manufacturers introduce various functions in their BIOS versions. The most important ones are the possibility to manually assign IRQ to PCI-slots, the possibility to disable the USB controller so that to get an additional interrupt and Spread Spectrum function.

Although PCI specification implies using one single IRQ by several devices when the signal is activated by level and not by edge, most equipment still requires individual IRQ. Theoretically, the mainboard should provide an individual IRQ in such cases but sometimes it fails to for various reasons, for instance, it may simply lack IRQs. And this is exactly the case when manual IRQ assigning is really needed.

As for USB controller disabling it helps get an additional IRQ10. And this feature may stand your system in good stead because it will definitely ease the operation with a great number of devices requiring their own interrupt.

The Spread Spectrum function reduces the mutual electromagnetic influence of the mainboard component parts on each other. This effect can be achieved due to the signal amplitude decrease and automatic electric disconnection of all the unused system components, for example, of free DIMM- or PCI-slots. Actually, the positive outcome of Spread Spectrum function is very hard to observe but if there are some really capricious expansion boards in the system, for instance, SCSI-controllers, you will get a noticeably increased reliability.

The table below describes the presence of these two functions by all the mainboards:

As you can easily notice, IRQ assignment for PCI-slots is no longer a rarity as it used to be before. A lot of mainboards manufacturers consider this feature to be very important and add it to their BIOS. In general, the following mainboards possess a full set of features providing better compatibility: ABIT BM6 and ZM6, Chaintech 6LIA and 6ZIA, and SOYO SY-6ILA.

Memory compatibility

In order to work with older non-PC100 memory modules, which support a 100MHz system bus frequency very badly it would be better to use mainboards with asynchronous memory bus. This bus allows SDRAM to perform at 66MHz while the FSB frequency is 100MHz. The other side of this medal is the fact that asynchronous bus may be made only on the mainboards with VIA Apollo Pro Plus chipset, which is a bit slower compared to its Intel fellows, as we have mentioned above.

In other respects, in order to provide better compatibility and overclocking BIOS should guarantee the possibility to manually operate the following three signals: CAS Latency, RAS to CAS and RAS Precharge. These parameters are usually automatically set in SPD. But in case the modules lack this SPD all the parameters are set to their maximum value. This thing can be really harmful for the finer tuning of your system, especially for non-standard frequencies.

The table below describes the BIOS Setup features list for each mainboard:

Well, you see that the fullest list of memory settings is typical of Acorp 6LX87, all ASUS mainboards, Chaintech 6LIA, DTK PRM-89I, Elitgroup mainboards, Gigabyte GA-6LA7, Iwill LE370, Lucky Star 6ZX, Microstar MS-6161, Supermicro 370SBA.

Overclocking

Actually, a wide range of supported FSB frequencies is not enough to provide better CPU overclocking. Another important thing is the possibility to change CPU core voltage. But unfortunately, this function is present only by ABIT ZM6 and BM6 mainboards.

Then for greater comfort the CPU configuring through BIOS Setup is highly advisable. However, the majority of mainboards supporting 100MHz FSB frequency require its setting only by means of jumper change. Besides, the clear on keyboard feature for SoftMenu settings when starting your system is also very useful. If the mainboard doesn't have this feature then in case you set higher frequencies in your BIOS the system may turn out absolutely disabled until you fully clear your CMOS by a jumper change.

Here you can see a table summing up all these features by the mainboards we had for testing:

The data show that due to the special SoftMenu II technology the most suitable for overclocking are: ABIT BM6 and ZM6. Besides, a wide range of supported frequencies of ASUS MEB and Tekram S3AP-A is also worth mentioning.

However, in cases of extreme overclocking the mainboard design also contributes to the final result. That's why we tried overclocking one and the same Intel Celeron 300A processor on all mainboards. The results are given below:

The red color on the diagram denotes those frequencies, when the mainboard still works but lacks stability. And the green color shows the frequencies providing stable and reliable performance.

Well, ABIT deserves being called an overclocker's friendly manufacturer. Due to its exclusive feature enabling core voltage increase ABIT mainboards show the best result. The second thing is that the mainboards with the frequency generator submitting values varying from 103 to 112MHz perform much better than most of their competitors. Tekram S3AP-A and ASUS MEB undoubtedly belong to such mainboards.

And of course, those mainboards, which don't support 100MHz FSB can't even dare to compete with 100MHz boards when it comes to Intel Celeron 300A overclocking. However, if overclocking other CPUs with higher frequencies this 100MHz bus support loses its significance because they don't often work at this external frequency.

To conclude the current section we offer you a table characterizing the peculiarities of hardware monitoring of the tested mainboards:

	Chip	System termistor	CPU termistor	Additional termistor connector	Amount of cooler connectors	Amount of controlled voltages	Case open detection
ABIT BM6	WD83782	+	+	1	2	8	-
ABIT ZM6	WD83782	+	+	1	2< Table of contents: Chipsets Testing participants     ABIT BM6     ABIT ZM6     Acorp 6LX87     ASUS MEB     ASUS MEL-B     ASUS MEL-C     Chaintech 6AIA     Chaintech 6LIA     Chaintech 6ZIA     DTK PRM-891     Elitegroup P6BXT-A+     Elitegroup P6EXP-Me     Gigabyte GA-6LA7     Intel BI440ZX     Iwill LE370     Lucky Star 6ZX     Microstar MS-6161     SOYO SY-6ILA     SOYO SY-6VZA     Supermicro 370SBA     Tekram S3AP-A     Tyan Tomahawk BX/A+ Compatibility Memory compatibility Overclocking Home > <%BANNER[banner_468x60_f]%> Discussion Comments currently: 1 Discussion started: 09/23/04 01:47:50 AM Latest comment: 09/23/04 01:47:50 AM View comments You must log in to add comments. Forgot password? Registration Username Password remember me Latest materials in Mainboards section Foxconn BlackOps: Extraordinary Mainboard on Intel X48 Express Chipset "Dark" Mainboard: DFI LANPARTY DK X48-T2RS Review ASUS P5Q Pro Mainboard Review MSI P45 Platinum Mainboard: Two PCB Revisions, Three BIOS Versions Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3: Extra-Ordinary Budget Mainboard more articles >>> Article Rating Article Rating: 10.0000 out of 10   Rate this article: Excellent Average Poor   Our Golden Collection Our Sponsors Contacts Advertising About us Terms & Conditions