440BX Motherboard Review - Fall 1998

A-Trend ATC-6220

• BIOS Version: 1.3 (August 12, 1998)
• Board Revision: 2.0
• External clock speeds: 66, 75, 83, 100, 103, 112, 124, 133 MHz
• Slots: 4x full size PCI, 3x full size ISA, full size AGP
• Memory: 3x DIMM

The green A-Trend motherboard wants the multiplier to be set over some dip switches like with the FIC board. On the other hand, the FSB is detected automatically and can be adjusted in the BIOS. Overclockers will have to go via B21 to have a 66 MHz CPU running at 100 MHz or faster bus clock. The A-Trend board it the third together with Superpower and MSI that has a IDE connector with a colour differing from the primary. Also the power switch connector has a white base to recognize it fast and easy.

Two things do primarily prevent this board to be recommended: The USB IRQ cannot be disabled physically. The second deficit is that the 256 MB memory modules didn't run at all. An advantage are the three fan connectors on the board. A-Trend should be able to fix these two things with a BIOS uptade. If you are out for this board keep an eye on their website; maybe this will be corrected with a new BIOS soon.

Chaintech 6BTM

• BIOS Version: 0909 (September 9, 1998)
• Board Revision: M101 150
• External clock speeds: 66, 75, 83, 100, 103, 112, 133 MHz
• >Slots: 4x full size PCI, 3x full size ISA, full size AGP
• Memory: 4x DIMM

In spite of the generous board design there are only two fan connectors available. Chaintech doesn't require many jumpers, since the CPU settings are done in the BIOS. Here you can freely chose your clock multiplier and FSB (independent from the CPU) up to 133 MHz. The biggest strength of this board was and still is the ability to run reliable with almost all kind of SDRAM (PC-66 or PC-100). Tom had found this out already half a year ago; I wanted to go a bit deeper and also tested the 32 chip PC-66 module as well as the 256 MB types. The result: It works fine and fast. Even four different memory modules ran stable! Of course you can release the IRQ for the Universal Serial bus if it's not used.

Thanks to the impressing memory flexibility this board is also one of the best of this review, since it makes you almost independent from the main memory. It's quite safe to say: If you have brand SDRAM, it should work with a probability of over 90%. This is a motherboard according my wishes as regular user, that's why Chaintech earned more than the predicate "good choice", it's also my personal recommendation.