ECS P6SSM Motherboard
Installation of the board was simply a breeze. When choosing a casing for this board, remember you could opt for a Micro-ATX casing and save a few bucks there as well. You could always decide on a full ATX casing, however considering most users who buy this board will be budget users and Office users, a Micro-ATX casing is more sensible. For some reason the board we received from ECS did not contain any manual. It however included two diagrams detailing out the panel connectors and jumper settings. I don’t think ECS sells this board without a manual, and with reference to my past experience with them I’m sure the manual should be pretty detailed to get you around. The P6SSM is shipped out with 1 Floppy drive cable, 1 ATA/66 IDE cable, and a software CD. The CD contains all the required drivers for the mainboard plus a few handy utilities such as GAMUT (An Audio rack program), SuperVoice, MediaRing and PC-cillin. Decent bundle, however we have seen better 🙂
Even though the board includes a 2X AGP slot, we decided to go ahead with the on-board video, just to see how well it performs.
We made use of 2 of the 3 PCI slots by installing a NIC card and a Modem. The on-board modem can be used, for this it requires an Optional DAA (Digital to Analog Adapter) Header Card. ECS does not ship this with the board, and has to be purchased separately.
The board
The P6SSM is based on the SiS 630S NorthBridge. The board incorporates an one AGP, 3 PCI slot configuration. If you can be satisfied with all the built-in features the P6SSM offers, then it’s unlikely that’ll you’ll ever need these slots. Nevertheless ECS has maintained decent amount of room for some expansion if needed. Furthermore two 168-pin DIMM sockets are available, which can support up to 1GB of PC 100 or PC 133 SDRAM. The board is currently fitted with 128MB of Corsair PC 133 RAM.
One of the main factors I look into when I purchase a mainboard is the main layout of the board. If you read our review of the 6BA+100 motherboard, you’ll notice the bad layout of the board. The CPU socket and the motherboard NorthBridge are placed so close together. This prevents you from using those heavy-duty coolers for your CPU. Thankfully ECS has understood this and have done a pretty good job in the layout of the board. It’s unlikely that anyone would use those high-end coolers on a Micro-ATX board, nevertheless a good cooler can do wonders in some cramped us casings.
The placement of six 6.3V 2200MFD capacitors around the CPU socket is more than adequate for good power supply filtration, thus giving more stability to the system
Built in Graphics Controller
The P6SSM offers built-in video support by way of an integrated SIS 300 series graphics controller. The SIS graphics controller is capable of utilizing up to 64MB of system memory for its unified graphics memory architecture. We recommend you utilize the least amount of system memory if no demanding graphic work is carried out by the system. Remember, if you’re looking for some good 3D performance the SIS controller will not do you justice at all. It offers very satisfactory 2D performance, however when it comes to 3D acceleration the SIS 300 controller fails badly. For the average user the SIS controller is quite adequate, and we recommend you using it if the work you carry out are not so demanding graphically. (It’ll save you a few bucks, so think wisely as to what your requirements are)
Built-in Sound
The integrated sound of the P6SSM was quite satisfactory indeed. Now it’s not capable of reaching the audio quality of what a SB Live produces; yet for the average Joe who requires the very basic of sound, this would be splendid. If you want something more out of this system then spend around $40 – $50 to get yourself a PCI based sound card.
Another welcome feature of the P6SSM is that it’s ATA/100 compatible, giving this board quite respectable performance. Going onto the communication aspect of the board, it offers practically everything one would ever need. The board includes an Integrated 56K V.90 Full Duplex Modem as well as support for network communications.
The AMRplus Technology of the P6SSM utilizes the advanced HSP (Host to Signal Processing) technology to bring out an effective 56K Flex/V.90 compliant Modem solution. The modem includes support for automatic call back, caller ID and V.80 point-to-point H.324 video conferencing. In order to make use of this on-board modem, a DAA (Digital to Analog Adapter) needs to be fixed onto the system. As mentioned before ECS does not supply this with the board and has to be bought separately. The only drawback of the DAA is that it takes up the space of one PCI slot, limiting your expansion options. Since most buyers of this board would rarely go onto high-scale expansion, it’s unlikely you’ll face any trouble in any case.
The LAN adapter of the board is an integrated chip and transceiver capable of operating at 10/100Mbps. This too requires a special riser card for operation, which has to be purchased separately. Overall a job well done by ECS on all these special features of the board.
