The Bad
If you happen to be an owner of a BX motherboard, there's no point in looking towards the BD100Plus as an upgrade unless you are simply fed up with your current motherboard for one reason or another. The board itself is well made, however the days when the 5/2/1 expansion slot configuration is in demand are limited. With 820 a few months away, an investment in a BX board now won't be a long term one.
The BD100Plus' user's manual isn't the best there could be, in fact it is mostly a regurgitation of the spec sheet and some diagrams of the motherboard. There is a clear lack of helpful diagrams and illustrations present in the better examples of written documentation from companies like AOpen and ASUS. Another discouraging factor is the availability of the BD100Plus, out of the 10 popular online vendors AnandTech chose at random, none of them carried any Iwill products, while ASUS, AOpen, and ABIT were among the most popular boards available.
A quick search returned a few vendors that did carry the BD100Plus at a somewhat hefty price of $129 (hefty compared to the < $90 for the BH6, but not bad considering the BX6 Revision 2 is available for around the same price), however the reputation of the vendors is another thing...
USB Compatibility
Number of Front Universal Serial Bus Root Ports: 0
Number of Rear Universal Serial Bus Root Ports: 2
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; 1 x 256MB
Corsair PC100 SDRAM DIMM (for compatibility testing only)
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.
AnandTech Motherboard Testing Methodology
Test Configuration |
|
| Processor(s): | Intel Pentium III 450 |
| RAM: | 1 x 64MB Mushkin
PC100 SDRAM 1 x 64MB Memory-Man PC100 SDRAM |
| Hard Drive(s): | Western Digital Caviar AC35100 - UltraATA |
| Video Card(s): | Matrox G200 |
| Bus Master Drivers: | Microsoft Win98 DMA Drivers |
| Operation System(s): | Windows 98 |
| Motherboard Revision: | Iwill BD100Plus Revision 1.1 |
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Nick2 - Wednesday, November 24, 2010 - link
Hi,I'm writing in regards to the question I just asked. I still have that motherboard excellently working.
I have a "slot 1 to socket 370 converter adapter card" that is plug and using a 1.4Ghz CPU 133Mhz-FSB socket 370 Tualatin which is plugged and installed and working excellent and I can only put the Bus frequency up to 110Mhz max. and the multiplier is in maximum of 8x. If I overclock more than the 110Mhz to 112Mhz or more sometimes the frequency freezes and affects other devices cards and the I/O controller and it tends to freeze performance.
The only way to out smart that issue is to upgrade the Award BIOS that is designed and compatible to this motherboard that in the BIOS CPU multiplier has more than the multiplier of 8x like these 8.5x, 9x. 9.5x, 10x, 10.5x, up to 14x until it reach to the correct exact speed of the 1.4Ghz speed CPU, then adjust the Front Side Bus Frequency to the correct timing of 133Mhz FSB.
My question now is, do you have an upgraded Award BIOS CPU multiplier more than 8x up to 14x so that I/we can adjust to the correct speed and timing designed for that/this motherboard? Is that an Award BIOS driver? Please let me know and email me. I'll be waiting....