May 1999 Slot-1 BX Motherboard Roundup

Features such as the SB-Link, originally intended to help maintain DOS legacy compatibility by newer PCI Sound Blaster cards, are not really that important and usually won’t be a reason to sway your decision one way or the other with a motherboard. Some more useful features include BIOS level Anti-Virus protection, however that is still no true replacement for Anti-Virus software, a reason that some manufacturers have started to bundle Anti-Virus programs with their motherboards, there’s some bang for your buck.

One of the most important features when dealing with any motherboard is the support the backs it. Support is available not only in the form of written documentation but through the manufacturers’ web site in the form of driver downloads, BIOS updates, and more. It’s always good practice to check around motherboard manufacturers’ web sites in order to see the frequency at which they update their BIOSes (especially for older motherboards). There is no replacement for word of mouth passed on by other users, it seems like motherboards don’t inspire the same tension that video cards and CPUs do when it comes to asking for advice. Whereas asking the question "3dfx or NVIDIA?" or "AMD or Intel" in most newsgroups will end up in a flame war, asking for personal experiences with a particular motherboard manufacturer on-line will usually give you a good set of responses to help gauge your motherboard manufacturer’s support rating. The AnandTech Motherboard Discussion Forum on the AnandTech BBS is an excellent place to ask about individual experiences with motherboard manufacturers.

Towards the end of the reign of the Intel LX chipset we started to notice a decreasing performance gap among motherboards, and in AnandTech’s first BX motherboard comparison the slowest of the pack (Tyan Tsunami) was separated from the fastest of the bunch (ABIT BX6) under Winstone 98 by an insignificant 1.3 points.

There’s one thing that’s for sure, performance is no longer a deciding factor, and in most cases not even an influential factor when dealing with a BX motherboard purchase.