Article Info 440BX Motherboard Review Created: September 17, 1999 By: Brent Kerby Category: Mainboard Guide Summary: As the performance delta of the motherboards tested is so slight the users should base their purchasing decision on features and functionality. In addition to that, only a few boards were able to push the limits of our finicky overclocked CPU. Find out which board can.

Summary

Each of these manufacturers was able to create a functionally stable and well performing motherboard within the Intel specification, but only a few were able to push the limits of our finicky overclocked Pentium II CPU. Unfortunately, the purchase decision cannot be made on performance alone, given the small differences we see in the performance testing. The most important decision on any product is to make sure the product meets your functionality and feature requirements. Therefore, each of the features must be taken into consideration. If a user doesn't plan on doing any overclocking, any of these motherboards could fit the bill. Given my preferences, I like the ASUS P3B-F. I believe it provides the best all around flexibility giving the option of a JumperFree BIOS configuration for advanced users. It also provides the system integrator the ability to disable this feature prohibiting an un-experienced user the potential to misconfigure the CPU settings, possibly destroying the system. I am also fond of the frequency granularity provided by the P3B-F. Having this allows the overclocker to step up their frequency gradually until they reach a stable setting. Also, the ASUS P3B-F has a slight edge in the gaming benchmarks, which scores another point with me.

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