This is a great article about the BP6 and multi processor boards.
A nostalgic look back at the BP6, predecessor to 4x4
Way, way back in June 1999, Abit released a real landmark motherboard – something completely different to anything available at the time, and a very clever piece of engineering – the BP6 motherboard.
The low cost BP6 took two off the shelf Socket 370 Celeron processors and ran them in Dual processor mode – something reserved at the time for only high end motherboards and slot-based Pentium IIs.
Combined with the overclockability and high performance of the low speed Celerons of the time, this was a dream for enthusiasts, as you could buy two dirt cheap processors and a motherboard for less than the cost of a Pentium II, run them at a higher clock speed, and get the advantages of the dual core processing – six years before the launch of the current generation of dual core chips!
AMD’s 4x4 platform will mark the first dual processor motherboards targeted at consumers since the BP6, so it has some big boots to fill.
The article captured the way I felt about the BP6 and AMD's 4X4.
My first trip into dual was a P-PRO and it was a dissapointment. The BP6 is great cause it uses cheap CPUs and a flexable FSB and there is experimenting with ATA66 and all that stuff.
Ya know, people that MOD the board for coppermine P-IIIs are kind of doing a dis-service to the purity of the BP6's uniqueness.
There are *almost* no bad BP6s. There are mostly bad caps.
No BP6s remaining
Athlon 2800
Sempron 2000
ViaCPU laptop with Vista.(Works great after bumping ram to 2Gig)
P-III 850@100
I recently moved house, suddenly realised how much junk I had accumulated... Sad to throw out complete working computers, including a dual Pentium Pro, a dual Pentium Compaq server, my original many times upgraded original IBM AT (complete with SCSI drives and Pentium) and a DEC Alpha.
A dual P3 Dell has gone to a new home, etc etc.
Also an Athlon 2400 pushed in the direction of an ex girlfriend.....
Amongst all the upheaval I confess to keeping all my BP6s and my VP6.
Good to see some of the old names appearing on here from time to time, it was really buzzing years ago and people were doing some really wierd stuff with BP6s. One of my BP6s is still running 24/7, no real need to upgrade it, has plenty of power for what it does.
As for the VP6 which is still my main machine... it is just beginning to seem slow at times... I am not into computer games so perhaps I am very trailing edge!
Next PC has to be similarly eccentric and wierd...any ideas?