VIA Apollo Pro 133/133A Motherboard Roundup - February 2000

Elitegroup P6VAP-Me

Motherboard Specifications
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CPU Interface	FC-PGA Socket-370
Chipset	VIA Apollo 133A VIA 694X North Bridge VIA 596B South Bridge
L2 Cache	N/A (on-chip)
Form Factor	ATX
Bus Speeds	66 / 75 / 83 100 / 124 / 133 / 140 / 150
Voltages Supported	1.30v - 3.5v (in 0.05 increments)
Memory Slots	2 168-pin DIMM Slots
Expansion Slots	0 AMR Slots 1 AGP Slot 3 PCI Slots (1 Full Length) 1 ISA Slots (1 Full Length)
AC'97	CMI8738 - PCI Audio
BIOS	AWARD BIOS 4.60PG

The P6VAP-Me is the third and final microATX board to be included in our roundup and does improve on one of the weak points of the other two Elitegroup boards in that it features a manual voltage configuration setup. 

Unfortunately, the P6VAP-Me, like the previous three ECS boards, still uses the dated 596B Mobile South Bridge instead of the 686A Super South Bridge, which would’ve made more sense for the small microATX motherboard. 

It is quite disappointing to see that the board is still using a jumper driven setup, but some companies have yet to make the transition to jumperless setups, which are much easier for overclockers and tweakers alike. 

The stability of the board was fine during our tests and the performance was above average in comparison to the other boards in this roundup.  It’s obvious that Elitegroup spent some time tweaking the BIOS of the P6VAP-Me.