AOpen MX59-Pro Super-7 Motherboard
Reviewed by Vijay Anand (19/6/99)

<Introduction><The Good><The Bad><Conclusion>< Rating>

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Introduction

With the recent release of the i810 chipset from Intel, emphasizing more on integration by having on-board Audio and Video using their new AHA-Hub architecture and AC97 links, VIA too launched their own version (which they had planned long before Intel but only delivered now), the MVP4 chipset. Sad to say that it has too little enhancements to be called the MVP4 but rather MVP3e or something else with the number 3. They have basically used the same MVP3 design but added Trident Blade 3D's video core into the North-Bridge chipset (uses UMA for memory) and 4 USB-ports, AC97-link, UDMA-66 support in their South-Bridge chipset.

As of now very few MVP4-based motherboards exist and one of the few is AOpen's MX59-Pro which is based on a Micro-ATX form factor. Most other MVP4-motherboards are likely to be Micro-ATX size as well since this chipset is geared towards simple, cost-effective PCs.

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The Good

The Layout

AOpen might have decided to keep AX59-Pro (using the MVP3 chipset) as their main Super-7 ATX motherboard offering because of the MVP4's drawback's as we'll touch on later, and have a smaller Micro-ATX version for the MVP4-based MX59-Pro for building cheaper systems. It's fitted with a 4/1/0 (PCI/ISA/AGP) expansion slot configuration. Noticed there is no AGP slot? Well, that's because the MVP4's Trident-Blade3D uses an internal AGP-2X connection to the RAM. How unfortunate that we can't use our own AGP video-cards to expand the capabilities of this board.

The ATX connector, 2 DIMM slots, IDE and floppy connectors are all located in the front row of the board. Surprise! Surprise! The floppy connector is in front! AOpen did it (finally!). It used to be that the ATX and floppy connectors are located way behind, like in the AX59-Pro but things got better and AOpen managed to bring the power connector to the front of the board. Only now, in this board, the floppy connector has been brought to the front of the motherboard too. Ok besides that, casing connectors, DIP-switch block (voltage and multiplier settings), jumper block (FSB settings), CMOS-clear jumper and CMOS battery are all located easily in front section of the motherboard. I don't know why AOpen has not used all as DIP-switches or bios-controlled and followed the older AX59-Pro's settings. Voltage setting range from 1.3V to 3.5V, multiplier settings range from 1.5x till 6x and the FSB's range is most interesting: 60, 66, 70, 75/25, 75/37.5, 80/28, 80/40, 83/27, 83/41.5, 95, 100, 105, 110, 115, 120, 124Mhz. I would say that it's a very interesting board to overclock indeed. Talking about stability, I used a P.MMX-166 and overclocked it to 200 but I was using 2.2V (was using a K6-2 before trying this out) and it went through WinStone99 without any hiccups. There are two 3-pin fan connectors (CPU & CASE) and one 2-pin fan connector depending on the CPU and it's fan power connection type.

Other on-board connectors and jumpers are WOM, WOL, IrDA, Modem-CN, VIO-voltage jumper (3.32V or 3.45V), COM-2, CD-in and the ATX back-panel's Line-in, Line-out, Mic-in and Game. The reason for the sound-card related connectors is the on-board Analog-Digital's AD1819A-JST AC'97 Sound-codec. Now this feature is similar to that of the i810 chipset. As usual, this requires your processor to do the sound processing while the codec just supplies the information for the CPU to manipulate. Notice that I said there is a COM-2 connector on the board? Since video is built-in, one COM-port is sacrificed for the compulsory VGA connector. So if you need both COM-ports, just connect the COM-2 cable but it will eat up one of your blanking-plate slots.

The Installation

Once you've setup your system, power it up and you'll be greeted to an AOpen logo at the corner of the RAM-test screen (instead of the energy-saver logo). Get into the Bios and load up the Optima-Settings and then adjust minor parameters related to your own setup and you're done! In Win98, after the system has detected all your motherboard devices, pop in the AOpen-Bonus CD in to your drive and install the 4-in-1 VIA patches, followed by the AGP (VGA) drivers and finally the sound drivers. After restarting your system should be usable as per normal.

The built-in Trident Blade3D is surprisingly sharp in Windows for it's 230Mhz RAMDAC at 1024x768, though not like a Banshee, V3 or TNT, it's quite close to that, but don't bother with resolutions higher than that, unless you don't mind headaches from it's lofty output at higher resolutions. D3D games like NFS4 were not fast enough running in a K6-2-300 even at 640x480 resolutions, which leads to a conclusion that its D3D speeds are somewhat like a Riva-128 or a little worse. 3D graphics is nothing much to talk about at all, I don't know which category it belongs to but I don't like it! (maybe Riva-128?). I tried running 3DMark99 to get some results for people interested in the MVP4, BUT it let me down quite bad! A blue-screen of death hanged my test system while it was testing the 16MB-texture speed. This is the first time that 3DMark99 hanged on my system. It very well was the video-card drivers and the Trident Blade3D core because no other video-card combination and drivers has hanged my system. To make matters worse, I fired up Q2 and found out that there are no OpenGL drivers for this core to run Q2 in anything besides s/w mode! Arghh!! So, as of now don't expect good 3D games compatibility and besides it is slow! It uses the old UMA method to use system memory for the video-card's functions. The frame buffer can be set to 4MB or 8MB in the Bios.

The sound from the AC'97 codec is reminiscent of the SB16 but it can crack or distort for a second while playing 3D-games that are more CPU-intensive. Even the SB16 sounds better and more constant if you ask me. Fortunately you can disable the on-board codec in the Bios in favor of a better, dedicated sound-card.

There are no manuals but there is a quick-install guide. If you need to know more detail, you'll have to use the PDF-type manuals on the CD on a working PC first.

The Test

Wintune 98 Results

The results are quite similar for both motherboards, not comparing video results. By right, there should be a more visible difference using the older but more superior MVP3 chipset.

Sisoft Sandra-98 & Norton SI

All the benchmarks in this section show that the original AX59-Pro reigns in performance! The MVP4 uses UMA to quench the built-in Blade-3D's processing needs which can very well slow down the system as shown.

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The Bad

The build quality and overall operation of the board is very good but it's badly let down by a bad video-core from Trident(when did you ever hear someone boasting that he or she has Trident?). Even though the faults I've occurred are due to bad drivers, the overall gaming speed is slow! That Trident core also claims that it can support h/w DVD (I can't verify this, no DVD drive at home but I won't truly believe its claims)!

Sound is a little soft and not fluent as a dedicated card. No AGP slot and AMR-slot, severely limiting its expansion capabilities. I'm not sure of its selling price but I believe the difference between this board and getting a full AX59-Pro motherboard with a fairy capable video-card (for low-end users) and sound-card would have a price difference of about $100 to $150 maximum.

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Conclusion

A promising low-end motherboard let down by VIA's mistake in using the Trident's Blade3D core into it's MVP4 North-bridge chipset and lack of good expansion possibilities like AGP and AMR slots. Note that I've penalized the Stability rating to 3-star due to the video-related issues. The board was damn stable in Windows operation.

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Rating

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