Abit's VP6 VIA Apollo Pro 133A Dual-CPU Motherboard

By Marco "BigWop" Chiappetta
February 22, 2001

Synthetic and Real-World performance...

Sandra and CC Winstone 2001 Our Girl and her rocks...

Because of the initial problems we had with our first VP6, we configured our test rig in a variety of ways.  Initialy we were only able to get Windows 2000 installed with a single CPU and were only able to use the on-board IDE channels associated with the 686B Southbridge.  If you're planning on buying a VP6 with a single CPU with intentions on upgrading later, here's what kind of performance you can expect...

SiSoft Sandra 2001 (Single CPU 1GHz Scores)

CPU                                           MEM                                          M.M.

HARD DRIVE

The Abit VP6 with a single CPU performs as well or better than other boards we've tested based on the VIA Apollo Pro 133A.  Memory performance isn't stellar but we think with some maturity these numbers will improve.

Let's move on to the Dual-CPU (SMP) scores...get ready to drool...

SiSoft Sandra 2001 (Dual CPU Scores)
 
1.00 GHz.                                                 1.088GHz.
               

CPU performance was awesome.  While overclocked our VP6 rig spanked every system in Sandra's database.

Mem. 1.00 GHz.                                       Mem. 1.088GHz.
               

Here we see the only "shortcoming" of the VP6.  Even with 2 powerful CPUs backing it up, memory performance is not great...it's not bad, but it's nothing to brag about either.  Again though, as the VP6 matures, expect these numbers to improve.

M.M. 1.00 GHz.                                         M.M. 1.088GHz.
               

Again in Sandra's Multimedia tests we see the VP6 beat the competition.

RAID 0

Now how sweet is that number!  For a simple explanation, RAID 0 configures 2 hard drives as one large drive and writes half the data to each drive, effectively doubling performance.  The only drawback to setting up a RAID array is that you'll never want to be without it again!  Programs open so fast, and file transfers between partitions are so snappy you'll have to experience it first hand to appreciate the benefit.

We also ran ZD's CC Winstone 2001...

CC Winstone 2001

The VP6 just barely edges out the Intel reference rig Davo reviewed a few months back.  A few of the programs in the Content Creation tests (Adobe Premiere and Adobe PhotoShop) are SMP enabled so the benefits of the second CPU are fully realized.

Biz Winstone, Quake 3 and the Rating