I'd tend to agree with what some of the others say about it being a matter of personal preference. And this makes sense as most of the features that may uplift any particular board to "best bx board in the world"-status is down to personal preferences. I would argue that one that everybody can agree on, is that the board should work flawlessly when it comes to stability (which rules out obvious defects and poor board manufacture), but bx is almost by definition stable. So I reckon not many boards would actually drop off due to this.

For one VIA compatibility will perhaps be essential, but for the next person it may be overclockability.

I've never build a lot of complete full Slot 1 systems for my hobby, mostly because I had already used my P2B for so long that I wanted to try out other boards (with sockets and stuff! 😁 ) ((and because I already worked with a lot of Slot 1 boards elsewhere)), but I did end up liking the 6BTM for the same reasons I ended up liking the (non Slot-1 board) A7V-133: I happened to end up with a whole batch of them so I just had to try them.
6BTM just grew on me, but is it the best?

I wouldn't necessarily need P2B-F nor MS-6168 because bx boards usually come with lots of slots and there's a ton of expansion cards to choose from. So for me such a board would be a nice oddity, but it would also mean there's more that can make the board go kaput.

Btw I think I would not pick P2B as best board if only because (for some reason) my P2B has DIMM slots that make it very hard to insert memory modules into them, it seemed really very stiff (yes I did put in the SDRAMs correctly xD 😜 ).

I think TETRIUM is right! It is about personal preferences first and foremost and not performance. From my experience as I have all Abit boars based on 440BX I consider them all good: BH6 is the first 440bx that provided some good O/C features and has 2 ISA slots; BX6 has 4 memory slots for some insane memory configurations; BF6/BE6 II officially support up to P3 1000 and has one of the best tweaking options available - same for BX133-raid which IMHO is the best 440BX board because is socket 370 so no adapters and supports FSB 133mhz from the get go if your AGP video card is up to it! Abit BP6 is a collectors item and has the WOW factor attached to it but from the practical point of view it is outclassed by BX133 when it comes to retro gaming.

Tetrium wrote on 2023-01-14, 11:11:

I'd tend to agree with what some of the others say about it being a matter of personal preference. And this makes sense as most […]
Show full quote

I'd tend to agree with what some of the others say about it being a matter of personal preference. And this makes sense as most of the features that may uplift any particular board to "best bx board in the world"-status is down to personal preferences. I would argue that one that everybody can agree on, is that the board should work flawlessly when it comes to stability (which rules out obvious defects and poor board manufacture), but bx is almost by definition stable. So I reckon not many boards would actually drop off due to this.

For one VIA compatibility will perhaps be essential, but for the next person it may be overclockability.

I've never build a lot of complete full Slot 1 systems for my hobby, mostly because I had already used my P2B for so long that I wanted to try out other boards (with sockets and stuff! 😁 ) ((and because I already worked with a lot of Slot 1 boards elsewhere)), but I did end up liking the 6BTM for the same reasons I ended up liking the (non Slot-1 board) A7V-133: I happened to end up with a whole batch of them so I just had to try them.
6BTM just grew on me, but is it the best?

I wouldn't necessarily need P2B-F nor MS-6168 because bx boards usually come with lots of slots and there's a ton of expansion cards to choose from. So for me such a board would be a nice oddity, but it would also mean there's more that can make the board go kaput.

Btw I think I would not pick P2B as best board if only because (for some reason) my P2B has DIMM slots that make it very hard to insert memory modules into them, it seemed really very stiff (yes I did put in the SDRAMs correctly xD 😜 ).

I personally go between the P2B-DS and the PB3-F, both are rock solid boards and can take a ton of punishment in regards to modding the shit out of them, heck the P2B-DS 1.06 can run 1.4s Tualatins with a little modding. Is it the best ...perhaps but even if it isn't the P2B-DS Rev 1.06 is one of if not the most versatile and mod friendly BX board out there, I think its versatility alone puts it right at the top. My P2B-DS is running a pair of 1.1Ghz 100FSB Coppermines for example.

I don't really consider the socket 370 BX boards to even be in the same class as the slot1 boards but like above the BX133 cant be beat if socket 370 BX is your thing.

But with that said, I have a iWill BD100 Plus that is a Rock solid board that is compatible with pretty much every 1x/2x AGP GPU I have thrown at it. I'm willing to say that any of the late model BX boards with a mature BIOS released just before socket 370 would fit the "Best" moniker as you cant really go wrong with any of them. (They all make for solid compatible 98 Retro boxes)

I like CUBX-E for socket 370. Mainly because it's easy to maintain the cooler. Easy to repaste or replace the fan common size fan.

Mine is in a tower case. Sometimes I wonder if the hanging weight of the cooler, being held on by only the socket, is a concern.

Warlord wrote on 2023-01-12, 15:35:

the most overlooked board of the bunch MSI BX Master 3.0. slot 1 version of cubx
https://www.anandtech.com/show/556/11

Agree, the MSI BX Master https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/msi-ms-6163-v3.0-bx13 is a nice board sporting some good features but for DOS, it's missing SB_Link . My favorite is the MSI MS-6119https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/msi-ms-6119-bx2.

4 RAM slots;
buffers for RAM (as seen in BX6r2)
configurable VIO

I'll take whatever can run a PIII-S at 150fsb, handle an overclocked GF4600 for AGP power demands, and run 1GB RAM unbuffered.

Though oddly I like my P2-99 with the ZX... coz it's the only one out of 7 P2B series turkeys that will run.

Yeah so highest preference in a BX board is that I already have it here working.... or that I pick it up for $5 somewhere because I don't want to be playing "guess the strange malfunction or elusive sign of impending death" on one that I paid current eBay prices for.

Though I have been collecting up a huge pile of hints to have another thrash at every other P2B in the pile to hopefully get one or two more on their feet.

P3B-F 1.04 is such a solid all rounder, it's not even worth considering an ABIT

For the record, it's also one of the few boards that let you adjust VIO voltage for that extra stability at 150 fsb.