The PCIEX4 slot operates at up to x2 mode when the PCIEX11/PCIEX12 slot is populated. The PCIEX4 slot operates at up to x4 mode when both of the PCIEX11 and PCIEX12 slots are empty. 1 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x1 (PCIEX12) Model #: B450 AORUS PRO WIFI; Item #: N5082; Return Policy: Extended Holiday Return Policy. AMD B550 Ultra Durable Motherboard with Pure Digital VRM Solution, PCIe 4.0 x16 Slot, Dual PCIe 4.0/3.0 M.2 Connectors, GIGABYTE 8118 Gaming LAN, Smart Fan 5. PCI Express 3.0 x16: 1 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x16 (PCIEX16). For optimum performance, if only one PCI Express graphics card is to be installed, be sure to install it in the PCIEX16 slot. 1 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x8 (PCIEX8). The PCIEX8 slot shares bandwidth with the PCIEX16 slot. When the PCIEX8 slot. GIGABYTE provides new innovated 3D sensing product -Time of Flight (ToF) camera. ToF camera is a special purpose, low-cost smart solution with novel 3D imaging capture technology. The ToF camera includes high-performance advanced analytics as a standard feature, improving measurement accuracy and performance when compared to the current. GIGABYTE B360M D3H LGA 1151 (300 Series) Intel B360 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.1 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard. Memory Standard: DDR4 2666/ 2400/ 2133. To support 2666 MHz or XMP memory, you must install an 8th Generation Intel Core i7/i5 processor. Number of Memory Slots: 4×288pin Audio Chipset: Realtek ALC892 PCI Express 3.0 x16: 1 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x16 (PCIEX16). For.

<Introduction><The Good><The Test><TheBad><Conclusion><Rating>

Introduction

Gigabyte has been producing motherboards ever since the 486s era. Stability has always been the main focus for the design of their mainboards. Following closely to the specifications given by Intel, it has been a known fact that the mainboards produced by Gigabyte will only support the conventional conservative settings like the 66Mhz and 100Mhz bus speed. Due to this fact, many overclockers who want their money worth are giving this brand a miss. Today, faced with the increasing competition by other mainboard manufacturers, Gigabyte has released the GA-6BXC Slot-1 motherboard. So what is it that its so great about this board? The answer is, without deviating from its focus of stability, Gigabyte has introduced to this motherboard an additional selection of other bus speeds like the 75Mhz, 83Mhz, 112Mhz and 133Mhz. With a wider selection of bus speed to play with, the option of overclocking is no longer limited. Let's find out how this board fare.

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The Good

The board comes in 30.5cm x 18cm ATX size and feature 3 DIMM slots with 4/3/1 expansion slots. Layout of the board is neat with markings clearly labeled on the 4 layer PCB. The IDE connector is located just on the right edge of the motherboard and this means that you will not have any messy data cable criss-crossing over your motherboard. The GA-6BXC uses DIP switches instead of the cumbersome conventional jumpers. However, it will even be more convenient if Gigabyte could move on to a jumperless design in its next generation of mainboards.

Initial setup of the board is a breeze. DIP switches settings are clearly labeled both in the manual as well as on the mainboard itself. However, the unofficial bus speed settings could only be found on the motherboard itself. Reknown for the fact of producing stable and reliable motherboards, the GA-6BXC live up to Gigabyte's standard when I conducted the tests on it. The unofficial 112Mhz setting was found to be rock-stable when I tweaked my P2-266MHz to 336MHz. In addition, the conventional 66MHz and 100MHz setting needless to say give stable results with my P2-300 (2.0V).

The Test

The 2.0V P2-300MHz chip was used for the testing of this board. With multiplier locked at 4.5x, the maximum speed I could push the chip to was at 450MHz @ 100Mhz x 4.5. When set at 112MHz, the system could only reach as far as POST before it hang. However, like all other boards that I've tested with, the 300 chip that I used could not run @ 504MHz, hence, it wasn't actually the fault of the GA-6BXC. I then proceeded on to test the board with my P2-266MHz chip. With the 112MHz setting, I could push the chip up to 336MHz with a multiplier setting of 3x. The system was totally stable at this setting without having to increase my core voltage of the chip. However, I was not able to boot up to Windows 98 at 350MHz setting when I set the dip switches to 100x3.5. This was due to the reason that the GA-6BXC support auto voltage detection and hence, not allowing me to tweak the voltage up. As for the 133MHz setting, the Mitsubishi SDRAM which I used did not allow the system to POST at all.

Jumper Settings :

ExternalCPU Bus Setting SW1

Gigabyte Slot 1

CPUMultiplier Settings SW2

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The Bad

Gigabyte is seen as taking a big step forward by introducing some of the unofficial bus speed settings to the GA-6XBC. However, it will even be a bigger step if they could introduce more unofficial settings like the 103MHz or the 124MHz. In addition, it will be perfect if the DIP switches could be replaced with a CMOS control jumperless setup for configuring the multiplier and bus speed setting. Also, the location of the DIP SW1 (for setting of the external bus speed setting) would be more accessible if it was placed beside SW2 instead of between the CPU and the DIMM slots.

Conclusion

The GA-6BXC lives up to the good old tradition of Gigabyte. Not only does it peform stabily at the conventional bus speed settings, the GA-6BXC also produces rock-stable setting with its bus speed set at 112MHz. Priced at a very affordable range, this board will definitely be in your consideration list if there is ever a need for you to upgrade to a SLOT-1 motherboard.

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MOTHERBOARD RATING

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Copyright © 1998 bySingapore Hardware Zone. Allrights reserved.

None of the aboveshall be reproduced, copied and/or
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Gigabyte Slot 1000

Slot 1 refers to the physical and electrical specification for the connector used by some of Intel's microprocessors, including the Pentium Pro, Celeron, Pentium II and the Pentium III. Both single and dual processor configurations were implemented.

Intel switched back to the traditional socket interface with Socket 370 in 1999.

General[edit]

With the introduction of the Pentium II CPU, the need for greater access for testing had made the transition from socket to slot necessary. Previously with the Pentium Pro, Intel had combined processor and cache dies in the same Socket 8 package. These were connected by a full-speed bus, resulting in significant performance benefits. Unfortunately, this method required that the two components be bonded together early in the production process, before testing was possible. As a result, a single, tiny flaw in either die made it necessary to discard the entire assembly, causing low production yield and high cost.^{[citation needed]}

Intel subsequently designed a circuit board where the CPU and cache remained closely integrated, but were mounted on a printed circuit board, called a Single-Edged Contact Cartridge (SECC). The CPU and cache could be tested separately, before final assembly into a package, reducing cost and making the CPU more attractive to markets other than that of high-end servers. These cards could also be easily plugged into a Slot 1, thereby eliminating the chance for pins of a typical CPU to be bent or broken when installing in a socket.

The form factor used for Slot 1 was a 5-inch-long, 242-contact edge connector named SC242. To prevent the cartridge from being inserted the wrong way, the slot was keyed to allow installation in only one direction. The SC242 was later used for AMD's Slot A as well, and while the two slots were identical mechanically, they were electrically incompatible. To discourage Slot A users from trying to install a Slot 1 CPU, the connector was rotated 180 degrees on Slot A motherboards.

Gigabyte Sli Bridge 1 Slot

With the new Slot 1, Intel added support for symmetric multiprocessing (SMP). A maximum of two Pentium II or Pentium III CPUs can be used in a dual slot motherboard. The Celeron does not have official SMP support.

There are also converter cards, known as Slotkets, which hold a Socket 8 so that a Pentium Pro CPU can be used with Slot 1 motherboards.^[2] These specific converters, however, are rare. Another kind of slotket allows using a Socket 370 CPU in a Slot 1. Many of these latter devices are equipped with own voltage regulator modules, in order to supply the new CPU with a lower core voltage, which the motherboard would not otherwise allow.

Form factors[edit]

The Single Edge Contact Cartridge, or 'SECC', was used at the beginning of the Slot 1-era for Pentium II CPUs. Inside the cartridge, the CPU itself is enclosed in a hybrid plastic and metal case. The back of the housing is plastic and has several markings on it: the name, 'Pentium II'; the Intel logo; a hologram; and the model number. The front consists of a black anodized aluminum plate, which is used to hold the CPU cooler. The SECC form is very solid, because the CPU itself is resting safely inside the case. As compared to socket-based CPUs, there are no pins that can be bent, and the CPU is less likely to be damaged by improper installation of a cooler.

Following SECC, the SEPP-form (Single Edge Processor Package) appeared on the market. It was designed for lower-priced Celeron CPUs. This form lacks a case entirely, consisting solely of the printed-circuit board holding the components.

A form factor called SECC2 was used for late Pentium II and Pentium III CPUs for Slot 1, which was created to accommodate the switch to flip chip packaging.^[3] Only the front plate was carried over, the coolers were now mounted straight to the PCB and exposed CPU die and are, as such, incompatible with SECC cartridges.

History[edit]

Historically, there are three platforms for the Intel P6-CPUs: Socket 8, Slot 1 and Socket 370.

Slot 1 is a successor to Socket 8. While the Socket 8 CPUs (Pentium Pro) directly had the L2-cache embedded into the CPU, it is located (outside of the core) on a circuit board shared with the core itself. The exception is later Slot 1 CPUs with the Coppermine core which have the L2-Cache embedded into the die.

In the beginning of 2000, while the Pentium-III-CPUs with FC-PGA-housing appeared, Slot 1 was slowly succeeded by Socket 370, after Intel had already offered Socket 370 and Slot 1 at the same time since the beginning of 1999. Socket 370 was initially made for the low-cost Celeron processors, while Slot 1 was thought of as a platform for the expensive Pentium II and early Pentium III models. Cache and core were both embedded into the die.

Slot 1 also obsoleted the old Socket 7, at least regarding Intel, as the standard platform for the home-user. After superseding the Intel P5Pentium MMX CPU, Intel completely left the Socket 7 market.

Chipsets and officially supported CPUs^[4][5][edit]

Intel 440FX ^[6][edit]

• Introduced in: May 6, 1996
• FSB: 66 MHz
• PIO/WDMA
• Supported RAM type: EDO-DRAM
• Supported CPUs:
  • Pentium II with 66 MHz FSB
  • Celeron (Covington, Mendocino)
• Used in both Socket 8 (Pentium Pro) and Slot 1 (Pentium II, early Celerons)
• Does not support AGP or SDRAM
• Allowed up to two CPUs for SMP

Intel 440LX ^[7][edit]

• Introduced in: August 27, 1997
• FSB: 66 MHz
• Supported RAM type: EDO-DRAM, SDRAM
• Supported CPUs: Pentium II, Celeron
• AGP 2× Mode
• UDMA/33
  • Pentium II with 66 MHz FSB
  • Celeron (Covington, Mendocino)
• Introduced support for AGP and SDRAM
• Allowed up to two CPUs for SMP

Intel 440EX ^[8][edit]

• Introduced in: April, 1998
• FSB: 66 MHz
• Supported RAM type: EDO-DRAM, SDRAM
• Supported CPUs: Pentium II, Celeron
• AGP 2× Mode
• UDMA/33
  • Pentium II with 66 MHz FSB
  • Celeron (Covington, Mendocino)
• Same specifications as 440LX, but memory support limited to 256MB and no SMP support.

Intel 440BX ^[9][edit]

• Introduced in: April 1998
• FSB: 66 and 100 MHz (some motherboards supported overclocking to 133 MHz, allowing usage of Socket 370 CPUs using a Slocket)
• AGP 2× Mode (max memory mapping 32 or 64 MB)
• UDMA/33
• Supported RAM types: SDRAM (PC66 and PC100, PC133 with overclocking) up to 4 DIMMs of 256 MB
• Supported CPUs:
  • Pentium II with 66 and 100 MHz FSB
  • Pentium III with 100 MHz FSB (133 with overclocking)
  • Celeron (Covington, Mendocino, Coppermine)
• Allowed up to two CPUs for SMP

Intel 440ZX[edit]

• Introduced in: November 1998
• FSB: 66 and 100 MHz (some motherboards supported overclocking to 133 MHz, allowing usage of Socket 370 CPUs using a Slocket)
• AGP 2× Mode
• UDMA/33
• Supported RAM types: SDRAM (PC66 and PC100, PC133 with overclocking)
• Supported CPUs:
  • Pentium II with 66 and 100 MHz FSB
  • Pentium III with 100 MHz FSB (133 with overclocking)
  • Celeron (Covington, Mendocino, Coppermine)

Intel 820/820E (Camino)[edit]

Gigabyte Slot 100

• Introduced in: November 1999
• FSB: 66, 100, and 133 MHz
• AGP 4× Mode
• UDMA/66 (i820), UDMA/100 (i820E)
• Supported RAM types: RDRAM, SDRAM (PC133)
• Supported CPUs: All Slot 1 CPUs
• Allowed up to two CPUs for SMP

Via Apollo Pro / Pro+[edit]

• Introduced in: May 1998 (Pro Plus: Dec 1998)
• FSB: 66, 100 MHz (some motherboards supported overclocking to 133 MHz, allowing usage of Socket 370 CPUs using a Slocket)
• AGP 2× Mode
• UDMA/33 (VT82C586B/VT82C596A), UDMA/66 (VT82C596B)
• Supported CPUs:
  • Pentium Pro with 66 MHz FSB
  • Pentium II with 66 and 100 MHz FSB
  • Pentium III with 100 MHz FSB (133 with overclocking)
  • Celeron (Covington, Mendocino, Coppermine)

Via Apollo Pro 133[edit]

• Introduced in: July 1999
• FSB: 66, 100, and 133 MHz
• AGP 2× Mode
• UDMA/33 (VT82C596A), UDMA/66 (VT82C596B/VT82C686A), UDMA/100 (VT82C686B)
• Supported CPUs: All Slot 1 CPUs

Via Apollo Pro 133A[edit]

• Introduced in: Oct 1999
• FSB: 66, 100, and 133 MHz
• AGP 4× Mode
• UDMA/66 (VT82C596B/VT82C686A), UDMA/100 (VT82C686B)
• Supported CPUs: All Slot 1 CPUs
• Allowed up to two CPUs for SMP

See also[edit]

References[edit]

1. ^'CPU Sockets Chart'. erols.com. Retrieved 2009-03-31.
2. ^'PPro on a BX?-Usenet Gateway'.
3. ^http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/overclocking-special,94-2.html^{[dead link]}
4. ^List of Intel chipsets
5. ^List of VIA chipsets
6. ^Intel Corporation: 440FX PCIset Datasheet
7. ^Intel Corporation: 440LX AGPset Design Guide^{[permanent dead link]}
8. ^Intel Corporation: 440EX AGPset Design Guide
9. ^Intel Corporation: 440BX AGPset Design GuideArchived 2012-10-04 at the Wayback Machine

External links[edit]

• Intel's specifications for the SC242 connectors^{[permanent dead link]}