Introduction
As of late Abit has faired very well in our labs, almost winning at every turnout mostly because of their innovative manufacturing style, producing quality and performance based motherboards. We decided to call in three of Abit's leading Pentium based Motherboards currently available the SE6, SL6 and the VH6 to test whether Abit can emulate the same attributes across the range as opposed to a 'once in a while great motherboard' company. In our previous roundup we discussed the main differences between the Intel BX and the Intel i815 'Solano' chipsets, so we won't bore you with the details again.

Motherboard Chipset Architecture
Before we proceed to discuss performance ratios for each motherboard, it will do no harm to briefly discuss chipset architecture for all them.

Intel i8xx Chipset
The SE6 and SL6 range of boards support the newly released Intel i815 range of chipsets. Unlike the old North and South Bridge Architecture found on the BX and current VIA and AMD chipsets, the i8xx series of chipsets are designed using the Intel Hub Architecture (IHA), containing two core elements; namely the 82815 Graphics and AGP Memory Controller Hub (GMCH) and the 82801AA/BA I/O Controller Hub (ICH). The 82815 GMCH integrates a 133MHz FSB controller, integrated 2D/3D graphics accelerator or AGP (2x/4x) graphics card, via the supported AGP slot, 100/133MHz SDRAM controller, and a high-speed accelerated hub architecture interface for communication with the ICH. The ICH comes in two versions 82801AA as found in the SL6 (i815-ICH - see figure 1) and 82801BA as found in the SE6 (i815e-ICH2 - see figure 2), the ICH integrates an Ultra ATA/66 controller, USB host controller, LPC interface controller, FWH interface controller, PICK interface controller, AC 97 digital controller (for both audio and modem applications), and a hub interface for communication with the GMCH. The ICH2 has all the features of the ICH plus ATA/100, and 10/100 LAN connect interface, dual master USB, and a Communication and Networking Riser slot (CNR).

VIA Apollo Pro 133A
The Pro 133A chipset has been around some 8 months and forms part of the Abit VH6 range. The Apollo Pro 133A is a two-chip set consisting of the VT82C694X (figure 3) North Bridge Controller and a choice of VT82C596B or VT82C686A (VH6) South Bridge Controllers (see figure 4). The chipset support is similar to the Intel i815, with all Intel PIII and Celeron processors, with a 133MHz FSB, Ultra DMA 66, in addition to the Abit VH6 providing the extra SOFTMENU II Technology support.

How we carried out our test

CPU:	Intel Pentium III - FC-PGA 733Mhz CPU
Motherboard:	Abit SE6, SL6 & VH6
Memory:	128Mb SDRAM Hyundai PC133 - 6ns CAS Latency 2
HDD:	IBM DTLA 307060 - 61.4GB UDMA/100 7200rpm
FDD:	3.5" 1.44Mb - Panasonic
CD ROM:	48 x Creative
Video Card:	ELSA Gladiac GeForce2GTS 32Mb DDR
Video Driver ver:	4.12.01.0204-0010 using Direct X ver 7.0a

The installation of Windows 98 SE was a breeze on all motherboards. Our next procedure was to install the relevant drivers for the motherboards, including the VIA 4in1 for the VH6. In the case of the SE6 and SL6 we decided NOT to utilise the on-board video, having already tested this option in our previous round up we elected to keep to our trusted ELSA GeForce2 GTS solution. If you are a serious user of your PC and have opted for the Intel i815 solution, then budget for an external Video card solution, and disable the on-board video at the first opportunity. Once the drivers were installed and a final reboot, we were on our way.

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