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.

Click Here to learn about AnandTech's Motherboard Testing Methodology.

Test Configuration

Processor(s): Intel Pentium III 550E
Provided by Memman
RAM: 1 x 128MB Samsung Original PC133
Provided by Mushkin
Hard Drive(s): Western Digital Expert 418000 - UltraATA/66
Bus Master Drivers: Promise Ultra ATA 66 Bus Master Version 1.43
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce 256 SDR 32MB AGP
Video Drivers: NVIDIA Detonator Reference Drivers 3.68
Operation System(s): Windows 98 SE
Motherboard Revision: MSI BXMaster Revision 1.0

 

Windows 98 Performance

  Sysmark 2000 Content Creation
Winstone 2000
Intel Pentium III 550E (5.5 x 100) 126 24.6
Intel Pentium III 690E (5.5 x 126) 143 28

The Final Decision

Editor's Choice AwardWith no major problems and a feature list that surpasses every other i440BX board on the market, the BXMaster is the most practical i440BX board on the market. With the weak memory performance of the VIA Apollo Pro 133/133A boards, the high cost of RDRAM on an i820, and the performance hit induced by using an MTH/SDRAM on the i820, the BXMaster is possibly the best current companion for a Coppermine CPU, as long as you don't want to get into any extreme overclocking.

With all that in mind, there is no way we could deny the BXMaster the prestigious AnandTech Editor's Choice Gold.


How it Rates

AnandTech Motherboard Rating

  Business
Performance 88%
Price 85%
Ease of Use 92%
Overclocked Stability 93%
General Stability 93%
Quality 90%
Documentation 88%
Reliability 88%
Overall Rating 90%

Click Here to learn about AnandTech's Motherboard Testing Methodology.

The Bad
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