Until Intel announces a Pentium III CPU in an S370 PPGA format (which they will by Q3/99 according to our sources within the company), the architecture seems doomed for mediocrity.

There are some spots of brilliance within the limited 440ZX segment though, and the ZM6 is definitely one of them. Unfortunately the ZM6 is nowhere near the well-rounded and feature-rich board that the Abit BX6 2.0 is, nor is it intended to be.

The price of the ZM6 is hovering near $100 currently, which is about 20% cheaper than the average $125 price of a full-steam-ahead BX6 2.0 board. Abit's reps have told us to expect the price gap between Intel's mainstream desktop core logic sets (440BX currently, Camino in Sept.) and their low end chipsets (440ZX, Camino Lite in Aug.) to widen as they refine the manufacturing process of the 440ZX and hence lower prices.

We'd need to see a price difference of at least $50 before we'd even begin to entertain the idea of buying any mainboard that has such low hardware specification limits built into it from the get go, as all of the current 440ZX based models do.

Bottom Line: Go with a Slot-1 Celeron CPU and an Abit BX6 2.0 mainboard and enjoy your large system scalability for only an additional $25.

OR, if you must have an S370-based system,

Go with a S370 PPGA Celeron and the 440BX-based Abit BM6 S370 board, and save a little cash while enjoying the benefits that the 440BX core logic chipset allows.