The Albatron PX845G Pro II packaging.

A look at the Albatron PX845G Pro II.

The Albatron PX845G Pro II total package.

Albatron is new to the motherboard market, although reliable sources indicate that former Gigabyte employees founded the firm. The first Albatron board to go through the THG test lab was impressive and well worthy of the competition. Praise where praise is due - the test went very smoothly and the board performed well in all benchmark categories. The Albatron finished fourth overall - no small feat for a beginner! The board was helped by its Promise RAID controller for Ultra DMA/133, six PCI slots, three DIMM slots and the dual BIOS function; the latter is a feature usually associated with Gigabyte. Technically advanced features include the fixed voltage regulator. Card readers for Smartcards and Memorystick can be connected as an option.

Which firm does this remind you of? The Albatron PX845G Pro II's two BIOS chips.

Positioning of the additional USB interfaces using the slot bracket left room for improvement. Mounting the pins between the AGP slot and the first PCI slot renders the PCI slot unusable. Installation and error correction was made easier by the port 80 function with a choice of languages: English, German, Chinese and Japanese. Overall, the Albatron PX845G Pro II deserves attention. In some aspects, it is clearly superior to its established rivals, although the price has yet to be revealed.

Poor positioning of the USB ports blocks the AGP graphics card...

... and even renders the first PCI slot unusable.

A view of the Albatron PX845G Pro II BIOS.