We've seen a plethora of Socket370 supporting mainboards arrive at Sharky Extreme's office doorstep over the past month, we can now count over 10 separate models awaiting a tasty winner-take-all Sharky Extreme comparison shootout. (look for this by the end of March S370 fans).

Until the grueling comparo testing is complete, we're going to review a few of the particular stand outs, or recognizable brand name items, in order to be able to help people that just have to upgrade right this second.

The Abit ZM6 S370 board stands out to us for a few reasons, mainly because of Abit's brand name, but also for a few hardware options Abit has wisely chosen to outfit the ZM6 with:

DESCRIPTION
66/100MHz FSB Socket370 processor based ATX mainboard with AGP Port

PROCESSOR
Intel Celeron processor (266 - 550+MHz)
Front Side Bus Speeds Supported: 66, 75, 83, 100, 103, 105, 110, 112, 115, 120, 124, 133Mhz
CPU Clock Multipliers Supported: 2, 2.5,3.0, 3.5, 4.0, 4.5, 5.0, 5.5, 6.0, 6.5, 7.0, 7.5, 8.0
PCI Clock Divider Ratios: 1/2 on 75 - 83MHz, 1/3 on 100 - 120MHz, 1/4 on 124 - 133MHz

CHIPSET
Intel 82440ZX-AGP two chip AGPset

SYSTEM MEMORY
3 x 168 pin SDRAM DIMM sockets
Support up to 256MB

BIOS
Soft Menu II BIOS adjustable CPU settings
Award Plug and Play
Y2K Compliant

EXPANSION SLOTS
5 x 32 bit PCI slots (4 Bus Master)
2 x 16 bit ISA slots (One PCI/ISA Shared slot)
1 x 32 bit AGP slot (v1.0 compliant)

ON BOARD Ultra I/O Chip
ITE 8671/D chip
2 RS-232 Serial Ports (16550 UART compatible)
1 Parallel Printer Port (SPP/EPP/ECP mode)
1 FDD port (supports LS120, 3 mode, 1.2/1.44/2.88 MB FDD)
Built in IrDA TX/RX Header

HARDWARE MONITORING
Fan speed, voltages, system temp built in
Thermal Header on board for use with CPU or other temp monitoring

ULTRA DMA/33 IDE PORTS
Supports 4 IDE devices
Supports up to PIO mode 4 and Ultra DMA/33
2 PCI bus mastering ATA E-IDE ports

BOARD DIMENSIONS
4 Layer PCB, 12" x 8.5"
ATX form factor

DOUBLE STACK BACK PANEL I/O CONNECTORS
PS/2 Mini-DIN mouse & keyboard ports
2 USB ports
2 D-Sub 9-pin male Serial ports
1 D-sub 25-pin female printer port