Availability: most likely backordered due to BX chipset shortages

Elitegroup, or ECS, was formed in 1987 in Taiwan to produce mainboards and various PC peripherals for the mainstream market.

12 years is a lifetime in the computer industry, and with determination and several successes, ECS has firmly established themselves in the top five mainboard manufacturers based on board volume for 1999.

Today Sharky Extreme is taking a look at the most current 440BX based mainboard from ECS, the P6BXT - A+.

The P6BXT - A+ has been marketed for some time by ECS, receiving small upgrades and refits since the initial version that was released in March of 1999. The version we're reviewing today is market "v1.3" and is the latest model.

Lets continue on into the meat of this review, where we determine whether or not the P6BXT is a worthy competitor to recent 440BX boards from Abit, ASUS, and other mainstream suppliers.

The first feature a buyer notices when their gaze falls upon the P6BXT is the fact that it offers both a Slot-1 and a Socket370 CPU connector.

They're wedged together near the 440BX Northbridge chip, which has its own gold colored heatsink, along with the board's ATX power connector.

This feature isn't one that we feel is a strong reason to choose the P6BXT however, mainly because the Slot-1 to Socket370 converter card market is so saturated that a good quality "slotket" can be purchased for as little as $10.

Still, it's nice to see that a mainboard vendor decided to offer a high degree of flexibility right out of the box in regards to CPU format support, and ECS' design engineers should be commended for it.