ABIT VH6-II

Company: ABIT
Product: VH6-II Motherboard
Street Price: ~$95
Complete Motherboard Spec's: ABIT Spec's
Date Reviewed: April 16, 2001
Reviewed By: Jason

BIOS Screen Shots & Notes:

I really like how you can manually enter in any FSB speed, it is so much faster than having to scroll down a huge list. The Voltage adjustment had me at a slight loss, the CPU I used was a P3-550 which has a default voltage of 1.5v, the max it would let me go was 1.8v, I'm thinking if you have a CPU with a higher default voltage then you would be able to go higher, but I don't know if ABIT would let you run a P3 over 1.95v in the BIOS. There is an option to turn off the Processor Number Feature, so the paranoid people won't have to worry.

All the usual memory & AGP tweaks can be found on this motherboard, however one thing that is missing is VIO adjustment. I didn't actually need it, even when I was at 150FSB, the limiting factor for me was the CPU voltage. The AGP bus was very stable, I was able to run at 4x AGP with auto for the driving control at 150FSB and encountered no problems at all.

There are the usual settings for the onboard audio, which you can disable completely if you want to use a separate sound card.

Physical Features:

In you click on the picture below, I boxed in some of the various features that are a little hard to make out from the regular picture. First, take note of the ATX power connector, it is on the edge of the board which keeps your power cables out of the way. Next, look at the CPU socket, there is plenty of clearance all the way around for just about any heat sink. Also, I boxed in the thermal probe in the socket itself, it is raised off of the PCB and comes close to touching the back of the CPU.

There are 3 fan headers spread around the board, which should be plenty for most users. The connectors in the bottom corner are the standard ABIT layout order, they are displayed in the book, and also marked on the motherboard which connecter goes where.

A really nice feature was the placement of the AMR slot, if they have to put one on a motherboard, then between the AGP & PCI slot is the way to go. This gives plenty of room for using oversized heat sinks on your video card without wasting a PCI slot. The onboard audio uses the regular AC'97 CODEC, the sound worked okay, but it was definitely no SBLive. There is also a connector on the MB for two more USB ports.

(click on image for close-up)

Overall the board is very well laid out, and even with all the extra features it doesn't seem like they tried to cram too much onto a small board. The inclusion of the ISA slot is nice for some people who still have some legacy equipment around.

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