AOpen Socket 478 I850E MOBOs

New AOpen MOBOs supporting 533MHz FSB and 1066 MHz RDRAM are being advertised at <A HREF="http://www.aopen.com/products/mb/RDRAMSK478.htm" target="_new">AOpen's web site. </A>

ICH2, 5 PCI slots and a CNR slot (why?). They don't offer all of the features of Gigabyte's GA-81HXP. In particular, no on-board RAID or ICH4. The AX4T II-133 does offer ATA 133. The bank of <A HREF="http://www.aopen.com/products/mb/Pax4tii-133.htm" target="_new"> capacitors alongside the CPU </A> as well as the close proximity of the AGP slot might interfere with the use of larger (Swiftech MCX4000 or Alpha PAL 8942) heatsinks???????????

The specks for these boards offer a higher max FSB speed than ASUS or Gigabyte for OC'ing - all jumperless.
The release of these boards missed Tom's "Warp Speed With Rambus: 6 Boards For PC1066" review. After checking them out I'm still partial to the GA-81HXP.

I'd be interested in hearing about anyone's experience with AOpen MOBOs re: stability, quality and support.

I'm glad manufacturers are still interested in providing end users with boards that offer RDRAM.

Could it be that Rambus lives?
Without the blessing of Intel?