Original Link: https://www.anandtech.com/show/214
FIC KA-6100 Apollo Pro AT Pentium II Board
by Anand Lal Shimpi on December 29, 1998 8:54 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Remember the days when huge AT cases could be had for less than $100? The days when you could order an average sized case for little more than $30, have been long gone since the advent of the ATX form factor which pulled motherboard manufacturers in the ATX direction, drove case prices up and left investors in the old AT form factor alone in the street.
Since the violent takeover of the ATX standard, most motherboard manufacturers have placed new AT products at the bottom of their list of priorities, and those that didn't usually produced lack-luster, low quality solutions for their once popular AT users.
Have things changed at all since the days of the relatively poor release of AT form factor Pentium II LX and BX boards? One company we're all familiar with, FIC, has put the low-cost VIA Apollo Pro Pentium II chipset to good use in a new line of Pentium II boards, including an AT form factor board, the KA-6100. Is the KA-6100 a trend setter or a follower of the rest of the industry, price over quality? Let's find out...
New Anand Tech Report Card Rating 81/C
Do not compare newer ratings to older ones, the newer ratings are much more aggressive
CPU Interface | Slot-1 |
Chipset | VIA Apollo Pro |
L2 Cache | N/A (on-chip) |
Form Factor | AT (w/ AT/ATX PS Connectors) |
Bus Speeds | 66 / 68 /
75 100 / 103 / 112 / 133 |
Clock Multipliers | 3.0x - 5.5x |
Voltages Supported | Auto Detect |
Memory Slots | 3 168pin DIMM Slots |
Expansion Slots | 1 AGP
Slot 3 PCI Slots (0 Full Length) 2 ISA Slots (1 Shared / 1 Full Length) |
BIOS | Award BIOS |
The Good
The Baby AT form factor KA-6100 starts off by cramming as much onto a PCB no larger than a sheet of paper. The 3/2/1 (PCI/ISA/AGP) expansion slot configuration is combined with the 3 DIMM slots to provide for a motherboard that is just about as expandable as possible for a Pentium II board of this size. From a feature point of view, the KA-6100 does bring quite a bit to the table, the on-board Yamaha ISA Audio tends to the need for occupying a precious expansion slot to add sound to a system based upon this motherboard, and at the same time it outshines the presence of only 2 ISA slots, or only 3 PCI slots, by eliminating the need for a physical sound card. FIC provides you with an I/O cutout panel for the game and sound interface ports, and with a the presence of only 5 usable slots, you shouldn't have a problem fitting the I/O panel to your case. |
The KA-6100 doesn't leave you without any of the bells and whistles ATX Pentium II motherboard owners have, in addition to the two rear-external USB ports standard on most newer motherboards, the KA-6100 brings an increasingly popular feature within the reach of AT advocates, the elusive front-panel USB connector. In between the two ISA slots, FIC placed a 4-pin USB connector that will hook up to a panel in the front of your case to support a USB port that is accessible from the front of your system, makes sense, no?
The VIA Apollo Pro chipset allows for the same feature support as Intel's BX chipset, with a new feature that will keep many cost-concerned users happy, the ability to run the memory bus at the speed of the AGP clock. This feature was once only reserved for MVP3 Super7 users, but it would make sense that VIA would bring the feature over to the Slot-1 arena with their Slot-1 chipset in order to offer an advantage, albeit not a great one, over the Intel BX chipset. The cost of the Apollo Pro is also decreased in comparison to the Intel BX, unfortunately the cost differential isn't great enough to justify going with a Slot-1 system over a low-cost Super7 upgrade for those users greatly concerned with the overall price of their system.
The initial setup and configuration of the KA-6100 did require a visit to the FIC user's manual, which since the beginning has been getting increasingly more thorough and well written. The KA-6100's manual documents all of the officially supported FSB settings, including the 68/103MHz turbo settings, however it refrains from documenting the 112/133MHz FSB settings that can be obtained by the following jumper configurations:
JCK1: |
112MHz 1-2 |
133MHz 1-2 |
Also included with the motherboard package is FIC's classic FIC CD Pro CD-ROM utility disc that contains everything necessary for getting your system up and running properly, including the latest AGP GART and BMIDE drivers, however for those users with DVD drives, it is recommended that you refrain from using the Bus Master IDE drivers to avoid any compatibility problems.
The performance of the Apollo Pro chipset doesn't distance itself enough from the BX chipset in 3D games and AGP tests to be considered a weak performer, and under Business Applications and general usage, the KA-6100 is often on the heels of the most popular BX motherboards, including the ABIT BH6.
The Bad
The jumper setup on the KA-6100 could've been simplified quite a bit, as the jumper blocks are too close together, and the documentation on the motherboard (as well as in the manual) does not correspond directly to the jumper positions as they are on the motherboard.
If you're concerned with audio quality and compatibility, then you will definitely want to pass up the choice on this motherboard, the on-board Yamaha's Windows Sound System/SB Pro compatibility left the test system out in the rain while playing older DOS games with a full set of peripherals installed (ISA Modem, SCSI/Network cards installed) and required quite a bit of troubleshooting to get all of the IRQ/DMA conflicts resolved. Over time you can expect upgrading the KA-6100 to be decreasingly pleasant, at least a PCI equivalent of the on-board sound would've been better than what was included on the KA-6100, the board would've been better off without it.
This can be attributed to the cramped Baby AT layout, however it is still no excuse, as other manufacturers have avoided the problem: the HDD/FDD interface ports are in the way of all three of the PCI slots, making the use of full length PCI cards quite difficult. After a little bending, I could install a reference Voodoo2 (the shorter Pure3D-2 had no problem fitting) without too much of a possibility that the card would lose its seat in the PCI slot as a result of the FDD cable pushing up on it, however installing a full length card would be a bit of a risk.
Following the lead of most AT motherboard manufacturers, FIC still fails to include any USB ports for your case, so you're left with a USB capable motherboard, and a $10 debt for the external USB ports that you can pick up at your local computer retail shop.
The stability of the motherboard, especially with all three DIMM slots populated pushed the quality rating of the KA-6100 down a few percent. Overall, under normal usage conditions, the KA-6100 bumped heads with the best of them, however don't consider the KA-6100 as a purely rock solid motherboard as it is shadowed by the ASUS' and AOpen's of the industry.
USB Compatibility
Number of Front Universal Serial Bus Root Ports: 1 (no cut-outs included)
Number of Rear Universal Serial Bus Root Ports: 2 (no cut-outs included)
USB IRQ Enable/Disable in BIOS: Yes
USB Keyboard Support in BIOS: Yes
Recommended SDRAM
Recommended SDRAM: Mushkin SEC -GH PC100
SDRAM; Memory Man SEC -GH PC100 SDRAM
SDRAM Tested: 1 x 64MB Mushkin PC100 SDRAM; 1 x 64MB Memory-Man PC100 SDRAM
Manufacturer: The Memory Man
Purchase Web-Site: http://www.memory-man.com
Manufacturer: Mushkin
Purchase Web-Site: http://www.mushkin.com
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 & 3D Winbench 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
All video tests were conducted using an AGP video accelerator
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 1024 x 768 x 16-bit color
3D Winbench 98 tests were double buffered and conducted at 800 x 600 x 16-bit color
Test Configuration |
|
Processor(s): | Intel Pentium II 300 Intel Pentium II 400 |
RAM: | 1 - 64MB Memory Man PC100 SDRAM DIMM |
Hard Drive(s): | Western Digital Caviar AC35100 - UltraATA |
Video Card(s): | Matrox Millennium G200 (8MB SGRAM - AGP) |
Bus Master Drivers: | Microsoft Win98 DMA Drivers |
Video Drivers: | MGA Millennium G200 Release 1677-411 |
Operation System(s): | Windows 98 |
Motherboard Revision: | FIC KA-6100 Revision 1.2 |
Ziff Davis Winstone 98 - Windows 95 Performance |
||
Business (66MHz Memory) | Business (100MHz Memory) | |
Intel Pentium II - 300 (66 x 4.5) | 23.6 | 23.9 |
Intel Pentium II - 350 (100 x 3.5) | 25.7 | 26.2 |
Intel Pentium II - 400 (100 x 4.0) | 27.4 | 27.7 |
As a low-cost filler for an extra AT case you have lying around, the KA-6100 will fit just fine, however as the basis for a strong primary system, the KA-6100 does leave much to be desired in terms of more expansion slots, greater quality, and the overall experience we've come to expect from FIC's more successful models (such as their Super7 flagship, the PA-2013). If the price is right, the KA-6100 would make an excellent low-cost solution for a second system, but it does seem like the days of high-end AT motherboards have long since deserted their faithful followers, this coming from a reviewer that knows the pain when he had to ditch his full tower AT case in favor of an ATX case that was twice as expensive, and half as big.
AnandTech Motherboard Rating |
|
Business | |
Performance | 84% |
Price | 90% |
Ease of Use | 80% |
Overclocked Stability | 70% |
General Stability | 70% |
Quality | 78% |
Documentation | 90% |
Reliability | 82% |
Overall Rating | 81% |
The
New Rating System
Each motherboard is rated in 8 areas, Performance, Price, Ease of Use, Overclocked
Stability, Stability, Quality, Documentation, and Reliability.
Do not compare newer scores to older ones, the newer scores are much more aggressive
Performance - How well the motherboard compares to others in its class
Price - How competitive the price of the motherboard is when compared to others in its class
Ease of Use - How easy it is to setup the motherboard, jumper settings, jumperless configuration etc...
Overclocked Stability - How stable the motherboard is at overclocked CPU/Bus speeds
Stability - How stable the motherboard is at normal CPU/Bus speeds
Quality - How much effort went into producing the motherboard
Documentation - How helpful is the manual and bundled support manuals
Reliability - How long will this motherboard last, will it fail? Deals with quantity/size of capacitors, known bugs, etc...
Overall Rating - an average of the eight above areas