AOpen AX59-Pro

Name: AOpen AX59-Pro
Item: AOpen AX59-Pro
Author: Anand Lal Shimpi

by Anand Lal Shimpi on June 6, 1998 11:44 AM EST

Posted in
Motherboards

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The Test

In recent times, choosing a motherboard cannot be completely determined by a Winstone score. Now, many boards come within one Winstone point of each other and therefore the need to benchmark boards against each other falls. Therefore you shouldn't base your decision entirely on the benchmarks you see here, but also on the technical features and advantages of this particular board, seeing as that will probably make the greatest difference in your overall experience.

How I Tested

Each benchmark was run a minimum of 2 times and a maximum of 5 times, if the motherboard failed to complete a single test within the 5 allocated test runs the OS/Software was re-installed on a freshly formatted Hard Drive and the BIOS settings were adjusted to prevent the test from failing again. All such encounters were noted at the exact time of their occurrence.
Business Winstone 98 was run at each individually tested clock speed, if reliable scores were achieved with the first two test runs of the suite an average of the two was taken and recorded as the final score at that clock speed. If the test system displayed erratic behavior while the tests were running or the results were incredibly low/high the tests were re-run up to 5 times and an average of all the test runs was taken and recorded at the final score at that clock speed
After each motherboard was tested a complete format of the test hard drive was initiated and the OS/benchmarking software was re-installed afterwards a defragment was initiated using Windows 95's Disk Defragmentation Utility
Tests using AGP Video cards were only run under Winstone 97, as the AGP Millennium II does not affect the Business Winstone 98 score when compared to the PCI Millennium II used in the tests.
No foreign drivers were present in the test system other than those required for the system to function to the best of its ability
All foreign installation files were moved to a separate partition during the test as to prevent them from effecting the test results
All tests were conducted at 800 x 600 x 16-bit color depth

Test Configuration

Processor(s):	AMD K6/300 AFR AMD K6-3D 300 AFR Intel Pentium MMX 233 Cyrix 6x86MX-PR2/200
RAM:	1 - 64MB AMM DIMM 1 - 64MB Azzo DIMM 1 - 64MB Corsair DIMM 1 - 64MB Memory Man DIMM
Hard Drive(s):	Western Digital Caviar AC35100 - UltraATA
Video Card(s):	Matrox Millennium II (4MB WRAM - AGP)
Bus Master Drivers:	VIA 2.14
Video Drivers:	MGA Millennium 4.07.00.700 VIA GART VxD v1.7
Operation System(s):	Windows 95 Service Release 2.1
Motherboard Revision:	AOpen AX59PRO v1.1

Ziff Davis Winstone - Windows 95 Performance
	Winstone 98	Winstone 97
	Business	Business
AMD K6/300 - 66MHz x 4.5	20.7	60.4
AMD K6/300 - 100MHz x 3.0	22.7	65.3
AMD K6/315 - 90MHz x 3.5	---	64.7
AMD K6/336 - 112MHz x 3.0	Failed	Failed
Intel Pentium MMX 233 - 66MHz x 3.5	---	52.8
Cyrix 6x86MX PR2/200+ - 66MHz x 2.5	---	54.9

wpe3.jpg (11683 bytes)

The Final Decision

If you must have an ATX Super7 motherboard now, the AOpen AX59Pro will probably be your best choice, however if you can wait then it is best that you do as there is still much to be desired from the Super7 motherboards on the market today.

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