Transcend is a relatively new player in the motherboard market, and had previously focused their energies on producing high quality memory products. These products include memory modules for workstations and servers, as well as flash cards and laptop DIMMs. Lately, Transcend has been releasing new motherboards by the boatload, and in one press release alone, announced six new FC-PGA Coppermine boards. They also have Intel 820, VIA Apollo Pro 133 and 133A boards, as well as the new TS-AKXA Athlon KX133 motherboard.

The Transcend TS-ABX11

In this review, we take a look at their flagship BX motherboard, the Transcend TS-ABX11. The TS- ABX11 is a very standard BX motherboard, resembling in many ways the Abit BH6 and BX6R2. In fact, other than a few small differences, I had some trouble telling them apart. The design starts with the popular 1 AGP / 5 PCI / 2 ISA slot format, which allows quite a bit of flexibility and expansion, without forgetting about legacy devices. The three DIMM sockets are also pretty standard across BX motherboards, and they support memory added in any combination. By supporting up to 256 MB DIMMs, this brings the maximum memory size to 768 MB.

The rest of the board is fairly basic as well, with the floppy and IDE cables on the right edge of the board, well out of the way of DIMM sockets and AGP slots. The AGP, PCI and one of the ISA slots are all fully accessible and can easily handle full-length cards. Even the ATX case connectors are perfectly designed, and no special adjustments are required on the cables. About the only issue with the TS-ABX11 design is a familiar one, with the ATX power connector located right behind the CPU. This means that the power cable run overtop of the CPU, which can cause problems with installation and cooling. While I didn’t experience problems, the mass of capacitors right next to the CPU socket might have an effect on the cooler employed.

As for cooling, the TS-ABX11 features 3 fan headers, two near the CPU and one down on the bottom right of the board. This bottom fan header can be used to hook up a front intake fan, while the dual fans above might come in handy depending on the type of CPU cooler required. I have a couple of large coolers that require dual fan headers, but if a standard cooler is used, then you have the option of attaching an outtake fan to the back of the case.

After seeing what the TS-ABX11 has to offer, it’s a good idea to look over the features it does not have. Granted, these are due to limitations of the Intel BX architecture, but they are important to note. The first missing feature is ATA-66 support, which can have a noticeable effect on HD performance. While the BX does not inherently support ATA-66, there are Highpoint and Promise bolt-on controllers that could have been fitted to the TS-ABX11. Unfortunately, if you want ATA-66 support with the TS-ABX11, you’ll need to purchase an add-on card. The other two features that won’t be found on the TS-ABX11 are PC133 and AGP 4X support. The BX chipset only supports PC100 and AGP 2X, and therefore are all you will find on the TS-ABX11.

Test Hardware Information:

Motherboard Name: TS-ABX11
Company: Transcend Information, Inc.
Chipset: Intel BX
DIMM Slots: 3
PCI Slots: 5
ISA Slot: 2
AGP Slot: 1 (x2)
USB Ports: 2
Bus Speeds: 66, 68, 75, 83, 100, 103, 112, 117, 124, 129, 133, 138, 143, 148,153 MHz
CPU Clock Multipliers Supported: 2.0, 2.5, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0, 4.5, 5.0, 5.5, 6.0, 6.5, 7.0, 7.5, and 8.0