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Motherboards mature,
like fine wine as the months go on, after a new
chipset is released. Intel has had the
highly anticipated i815E integrated chipset out
for a few months now and the Motherboard
Manufacturers are really beginning to polish their
product line offerings based on this chipset. At
first, we saw some pretty straight forward designs
with not too many frills or extras beyond the
i815E's well rounded feature set. Now things
are starting to get a little more exotic when it
comes to i815E boards and there are always a few
vendors out in front with the "bells and
whistles".
The Abit
SA6R is a follow on product to the
SE6, a board that we recently evaluated here.
The SA6R is the SE6's "Big Brother" in
almost every way. Abit
not only added the High Point HPT370 chipset to
the mix for added EIDE channels and RAID support
but their patented "SoftMenu III" BIOS
CPU setup now gives over-clockers the "tweakability"
that was missing in the SE6.
However, a long list of features and all the
"specsmanship" in the world does not a
perfect motherboard make. Let's see if Abit
added a little more than just glitz to this new
Intel infused power-house.
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| Specifications
and Features of the Abit SA6R |
| Oh,
you want that? It's in
there... |
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Abit
does a nice job of detailing their motherboards on
their site, so we decided to forego the long list
of specs and just clip this picture for your
convenience and reference. Let's dig a
little deeper here into the specs of this rather
large board.
Click
all images for full viewing
Alright
then, a keen sense of the obvious would tell you
that this is a rather large board. 4
separate EIDE channels as well as the High
Point HTP370 RAID Controller chip, add to the
board's real-estate consumption. However,
with the feature set that the SA6R packs, it is no
wonder the board is larger than most of its i815E
counterparts. From 6 PCI Slots, to on board
Audio, Video, Integrated ATA100 RAID Controller,
Health Monitoring and SoftMenu III, the SA6R has
the most complete feature set of any board we have
seen to date, from either the VIA or Intel camps.
A
note on quality and design:
General construction of the board is very clean
and quality is evident throughout. There are
three fan power headers positioned around the CPU
and lower left hand corner of the board where a
case intake fan could plug in. Layout and
component orientation is generally good with the
exception of the ATX Power Connector, which is a
little bit of a stretch behind the CPU
socket. The
BX133 board from Abit, has the best location
of this connector we have seen yet. Why they
couldn't squeeze it in like the BX133,
should be fairly obvious to you however.
There just isn't a lot of room in and around the
CPU socket on this board, to fit it in, like there
is on the BX133. Still, we would like to see
them try, even if it meant making the SA6R a
little larger than it already is.
Well
then, let's not just sit around looking at this
thing. We need to wire this Hot Rod up!
Setup,
Installation and BIOS Settings
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