Clearly the additions by Abit of a 5th PCI slot and a 3rd DIMM slot to the Intel reference 440ZX-AGP board design are welcome stand outs to a bland category of products, even if there are strings attached to their inclusion.

When users occupy the ZM6's 5th PCI slot with a peripheral, be advised that it won't be able to take advantage of Intel's bus mastering ability that the other 4 PCI slots on the board offer. This is due to the stripped down Intel 440ZX chipset that the ZM6 uses, it simply doesn't offer bus mastering support for five slots.

In our own experience with the ZM6, items like NICs and modems, as well as Voodoo2 cards all performed fine in the 5th PCI slot of the board, while a Tekram U2W SCSI controller card wasn't properly recognized and installed when inserted in the same spot.

Yikes! This Intel 440ZX chipset is a tough jailbreak eh?

Another plus that pertains to the way Abit outfitted the ZM6 comes in the form of a third DIMM slot. This contrasts again to the Intel model for the 440ZX chipset, in that only two DIMM slots are supported.

The catch for the third DIMM slot on the ZM6 is simply that no double-sided SDRAM module will function in it. Single sided modules only folks. Also, the 440ZX chipset waves goodbye to ECC SDRAM support as well, and the ZM6 is no different.

Even though the 5th PCI slot and 3rd DIMM slot of the ZM6 aren't up to the specifications most 440BX board buyers are used to, they're welcome additions to the low-end 440ZX board market.

In addition to the hardware features of the ZM6, Abit has also included a slightly revised version of their infamous Soft Menu II Bios CPU adjustment routine on the board.

New FSB speeds of 105, 110, 115, and 120MHz show up for the first time on an Abit board with the arrival of the ZM6, each offering a 1/3 PCI clock speed divider ratio. Any FSB speeds above 120MHz (124 and 133MHz) automatically shift to a ratio of 1/4 in regards to the PCI bus ratio, which guarantees component compatibility at the higher frequency rates. (The AGP ratio is also adjustable, but only to the tune of 1/1 or 2/3 of the FSB speed.)

Plenty of CPU clock speed multipliers are included on the ZM6 for future CPU support, up to a nosebleed inducing 8.0x option.

Other than these specific items, the ZM6 is very comparable feature-wise to an Abit BH6 mainboard.