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The Intel BX Motherboard
 
I must admit that it is very strange to see this board, The layout is completely alien compared to other motherboards. Why? well, its just simply how it looks, there seem to be PCI slots missing (which afcourse isn't the fact). The board has 3 free PCi slots and one ISA slot available. That seems a little steep, but for the majority of the users thats plenty. Why are there so little did you say ? Well, the integrated soundcard takes up one PCI slot and the TNT takes up one AGP slot, so when you add it all together then theoreticly you'd have 6 slots.

Furthermore its just like a plain Slot-1 BX mobo, Its features include support for up to 768MB SDRAM and has three DIMM slots. There is also support for the latest processors like the Pentium III, and has selectable FSB speeds using DIP switches. The Front Side Bus speeds supported by the board are the standard 66, 75, 83, 100, 112, 133MHz which seriously covers all the needs.
 

The board is very easy to install and very easy to use thanks to the Award bios. One minor glitch though, i would have like seeing another AGP slot and the option to Disable internal integrated AGP with a jumper). Since a motherboard usually lasts 1 to 2 years and since 3D graphics card last about 6 months to a year it would be nice to see the option to install a newer AGP Videocard when needed.

 

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Copyright 1999 - All rights reserved Hilbert Hagedoorn

Riva TNT
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Technical Specifications

SLOT 1 architecture supports Intel® Pentium® II/ Pentium® III CPU 233-550MHz
Intel® Celeron® Processors supported
Chipset: Intel BX AGPSet  66Mhz, 75Mhz, 100Mhz, 112Mhz, 133Mhz FSB speeds supported

BIOS:
Award® PCI BIOS 

System Memory:
3 168-pin DIMM Sockets
Maximum 768MB RAM 
3.3V SDRAM DIMMs of the following types supported: Buffered, Non-Buffered, SPD, EEPROM
Supports 256MB DIMMs

On-Board EIDE:
(2) UltraDMA/33 PCI Bus Master IDE Ports 
 LBA Mode, Enhanced PIO Mode, 4HD Autodetect 

On-Board Super I/O:
1 Floppy Controller (up to 2.88 MB) 
2 Serial Ports (16550 UART) 
1 Parallel Port (EPP/ECP) 
2 USB Ports

Expansion Slots:
3 PCI  Slots 
1 ISA Slot 

SystemRequirements:
ATX Case & Power Supply

 

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