ASUS CUBX-E

This ASUS motherboard is based on the Intel’s 440BX chipset and has a

Socket 370 interface. It can support both PIIIs and Celerons in the FC-PGA

packaging and also the older Celerons in the PPGA packaging. As with all ASUS

boards the manuals are superb. So if you happen to get stuck somewhere or need

some information then the manuals will surely help you out. The board has an ATX

form factor and all ports for devices like mouse, keyboard are color-coded for

easy identification. The board has dip-switches but all settings can also be

done through the BIOS by setting all the dip switches to off. This is pretty

useful and easy. The board supports FSB’s of 66 MHz to 100 MHz, but not up to

133 MHz as is the case with other motherboards in the group. It can take in a

maximum of 1 GB of RAM in four DIMMs. For your expansion needs it has five PCI

and two ISA slots too, so you can also put to use one older ISA device you may

have. The only place where the board loses in features is its AGP. Being

designed around the Intel 440BX the CUBX-E has support for 2X AGP only.

Performance wise the board did exceedingly well. In Videomark 2000 it managed

to get the highest score of 1,863, beating the Intel board by a whisker, which

got 1,859 points. Again in Quake III arena, the board got top honors with an

average frame rate of 103 fps. In the end this motherboard managed a performance

score of 95.3, losing out by a fraction to the CUSL-2 and the CUSL2-C, which are

also from ASUS. So on the performance front this was one of the best boards in

the shootout.

From the point of view of pricing, this board is a little expensive at Rs

8,450, like other ASUS boards.