Packaging for the Aopen AX4GE Max.

In black: the Aopen is well equipped and offers a range of features.

Aopen sent one board with the Intel 845GE chipset and one with the 845PE chipset for the test. In contrast to Asus, the manufacturer has developed a different board design for each chipset model. This means that both boards are fitted out with the complete range of functions, such as FireWire, network, serial ATA with RAID controller, voice output of errors, 5.1 digital audio and dual BIOS. In any case, the excess of goodies means that both boards are impressive, and nearly needed a bigger box. The equipment includes FireWire and USB 2 cables complete with slot panels, optical and conventional digital input and output ports for 5.1 audio (SP/ DIF form factor) and IDE and serial ATA cables. In contrast to the two Asus boards, the 5.1 audio can also be used via the three analog outputs. A real highlight and, thus, the exception in this test field are the variable settings for FSB, AGP/ PCI and CPU speeds. These enable the user to set an AGP speed of between 66 MHz and 96 MHz and PCI speed of between 33 MHz and 48 MHz asynchronously to the FSB speed, which can be adjusted to between 100 MHz and 248 MHz. This means that all speeds can be operated separately and, what's more, right up to each one's limit.