Black Beauty: AOpen AX6BC Pro II Millennium Edition
Conclusion
I could start to summarize the features and test results, but this board deserves something different. There is not much sense in talking about the amount of PCI slots and DIMM sockets or the placement of different components on the PCB.
Originally, I thought that the cool black PCB was all that is to the AX6BX Pro II ME. Fortunately there's quite a lot more to it. AOpen's 'Millennium Edition BX' is one of the fastest BX motherboards ever. Particularly in the SYSmark runs under Windows NT and Quake III Arena it scored the highest results.
I really like AOpen's idea of creating a special kind of hardware, since if gives the product a different feel. One of the factors is AOpen's idea to make the AX6BC Pro II ME a limited edition. The product becomes more valuable without having any feature changed.
Besides little issues like the placement of the FDD connector, I found nothing to complain. And up to 148 MHz the board runs rock-stable and fast. All things considered, AOpen did a good job with their Millennium Edition and I really hope that they will continue releasing high-end limited edition products every once a while.
AOpen does not only supply motherboards and graphics cards, but also multimedia components, optical drives and cases. I'd suggest AOpen's next Millennium Edition product to be a case made of glass. That would enable the owner to still see his pretty special edition motherboard once it's up and running.
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