Target PC :: A look at four VIA Apollo 133A FC-PGA Motherboards

I could have used any number of motherboards to test this setup. Since the BX chipset is still riding as king at 133 MHz FSB I chose not to go with a newer board. This also let me test the Outrageous GeForce2 GTS at a very out of spec 88 MHz AGP bus. The test system consisted of:

CPU(s)	Intel Pentium III 500E @ 500 and 667 MHz
Heatsink & Fan	Retail Stock
Motherboard(s)	Abit BX6 rev.2 (BX chipset)
Memory	192 MB PC100 SDRAM
Hard Drive(s)	Western Digital 25 GB ATA66
CD-ROM	iomagic 40x
Sound Card	Creative Soundblaster Live X-Gamer
Video Card	Absolute Multimedia Outrageous GeForce2 GTS

Software

I ran the card at both a default 100 MHz FSB (500 MHz) which produced the correct 66 MHz AGP bus and at 133 MHz FSB (667 MHz) which produced a 33% out of spec AGP bus of 88 MHz. I tested at the default core/memory clocks of 200/333 and at an overclocked setting of 240/370. The card is capable of higher memory speeds, but I began to experience visual artifacts at 380 MHz with 3DMark 2000. 240/370 is still very impressive overclocking capability considering it was rock solid stable even with the 88 MHz AGP bus.

To benchmark I used MadOnion's 3DMark 2000 ver 1.1. I also tested with Quake III Arena. All the benchmarks with 3DMark2000 were run at the default settings. The tests were run three times and the results averaged to produce the final score. Absolute Multimedia provided drivers based on the nVidia 5.32 beta drivers for the purposes of testing full screen antialiasing in Direct3D. While testing Direct3D antialiasing I chose to use the default setting in the drivers, which is the third notch on the slider.

In Quake III I used the stock settings for Fastest, Normal, and High Quality. Only the resolutions were changed between 640x480, 800x600, and 1280x1024. I could have tested with many more resolutions, but I think that those would satisfy most gamers. 640x480 is used by those who do not wish to give up any performance for visual improvements. 800x600 is used by those who wish a balance of speed and visual quality. Although I could have also tested at 1024x768 for those who want great visual quality, I felt that 1280x1024 would push the video card harder and would really begin to show the cards limits. I believe those of you who avidly game in 1024x768 are intelligent enough to extrapolate the results you could expect. I used Demo1 to get all the benchmark results with Quake III Arena.