The Abit SE6 ATX i815E Motherboard
Introduction
I along with
many other high end enthusiasts have been waiting for the i815E chipset for
some months now. Instead of hacking into your old Slot1 MB with the ubiquitous
Slotket adapters that introduce yet another set of connections and diminish
overclocking ability, simply plug that lightweight P3 right in. Some of the
early reviews of the SE6 were just that, early reviews. Since a newer BIOS
revision has been made public, I was eager to put the latest S-370 contender
to the test. Let's just say that the SW BIOS revision made all
the difference when benchmarking...
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Factory
Specifications
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The
Unit
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- Intel i815E
chipset
- IDE ATA100
capability
- Socket-370
ATX design
- AGP 4X, AGP
½ & PCI ¼ dividers
- 1 AGP, 6
PCI, 0 ISA, 1 CNR slots
- Onboard AC97
audio
- 3 DIMM slots:
512MB max
- 4 ATA100
IDE devices total, 3 USB headers (1 built in)
- Hardware
monitoring: 3 temps & 3 fans
- Web price:
$140 USD
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Description
& Specifications
Finally,
a MB with all the latest compatabilities. No more BX133 overclocking to diminish
AGP video card life or cause that PCI bus to push your hard drive beyond stability.
AGP 4X, ATA100, ¼ PCI divider, USB's out the wazoo, the SE6 leaves
one wanting very little if anything.
In the summer
of 1998, I dumped everything I had that was ISA for the newer PCI and AGP
slots. I've never looked back and believe me, those PCI slots fill up with
things like a modem, SCSI card, NIC card, and a sound card. Gee, not much
room (or IRQ's) left. Six PCI slots, even if some are "slaved" is
still a welcome feature, just make sure that finicky devices that require
their own IRQ have one.
AGP 4X compatibility
has been the subject of much controversy as many factors must come together
in order to achieve full 4X operational status. First, the MB must support
it; second, the video drivers must support it; and third, in the i815E's case,
the Intel's latest .inf files must be used. For this MB test, all benchmarks
were conducted in full AGP 4X mode. Nothing less than 100% stability was observed.
The bus speeds
were different than other Soft Menu II selections: they are broken down into
ratios like 4:4:1 and so forth. Once you get used to the system (which took
about 5 minutes), figuring out how to efficiently tweak the BIOS is no sweat.
All tests were run in the 4:4:1 mode which meant the PCI speed (the "1")
was at 33MHz or greater, the SDRAM was run at the FSB (the "4")
and the FSB (the left-most "4") was 4 times the PCI speed (at least
133MHz). For more info, please visit Abit's site and download the acrobat
.pdf manual as it's very thorough.
Bus
Speeds (FSB/MEM/PCI)
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Low
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Medium
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High
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Highest
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66/100/33
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83/83/28
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125/94/31
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125/125/31
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68/103/34
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90/90/30
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130/98/33
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128/128/32
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70/105/35
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100/100/33
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133/100/33
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130/130/33
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72/109/46
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103/103/34
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137/103/34
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133/133/33
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75/114/38
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112/112/37
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140/105/35
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137/137/34
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77/116/39
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115/115/38
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145/109/36
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140/140/35
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120/120/40
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150/113/38
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145/145/36
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125/125/42
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153/115/38
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150/150/38
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153/153/38
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