The mother of all motherboards

A black PCB, Compact Design and BIOS that 'talks', helps differentiate the AX4BS Pro. It uses an Intel 845 chipset designed for Pentium 4 CPUs, while the ATX and AUX power connectors are placed towards the rear of the unit.

The rest of the specification of the board is standard, including five PCI slots, a 4X AGP slot, integrated audio, Ultra ATA/100 hard disk drive support, Wake-on-LAN and three Dimms for a maximum of 3Gb of PC133 SDRam memory.

Price: (as reviewed inc. VAT) £104.57

Distributor: Dabs.com 0870 429 3010
www.aopen.com

ASUS P4B

Asus' P4B uses a verbal post reporter to alert you if any problems occur during the boot sequence. You can even make your own error messages in WAV format.

There are headers to support Memory Stick or Secure Digital readers, as well as integrated S/PDIF optical output. Other features of this Pentium 4 board include three Dimm slots, six PCI slots, a 4X AGP slot and a CNR slot.

The four-pin plug on the motherboard that lets you connect to an auxiliary ATX12V power connector is, unfortunately, placed among the two Ultra ATA/100 connectors and the floppy disk connector is on the edge of the board.

Price: as reviewed (inc. VAT) £149.22

Distributor: Overclockers UK 01782 339600
www.asus.com

QDI SYNACTIX 5EP-V2

The Synactix 5EP-V2's design is based around the Socket 370 processor and supports Intel's Pentium III and Celeron, as well as VIA's C3 CPUs.

The board uses the Intel 815EP chipset, which comprises Intel's 815EP North Bridge and 82801BA South Bridge, and supports Ultra ATA/66 or ATA/100 E-IDE. The three PC133 Dimm slots only support a maximum of 512Mb of memory.

The board also provides six PCI slots, a 4X AGP slot, a CNR slot and integrated AC '97 audio. Should you want to fine-tune your CPU, there are up to 16 voltage options (all controlled by jumpers), while the supplied QDI StepEasy software allows you to tune the frequency of the processor within Windows.

Price: (as reviewed inc. VAT) £92.53

Distributor: The Data Store Online 020 8460 8991
www.qdieurope.com

First International Computer VC11

The VC11 is one of the first motherboards from First International Computer that uses an Intel 845 chipset for Intel Pentium 4 CPUs. It's a neatly designed board, with power connectors positioned to one side.

There are five PCI slots, one 4X AGP slot and a Communication and Networking Riser slot. It comes with dual Ultra ATA/100 E-IDE controllers, onboard 10/100Base-T, audio and supports up to 3Gb of PC133 SDRam through three Dimm slots.

The rear I/O panel contains a parallel, two serial, two USB, a Lan, a game and three audio ports. Apart from the driver CDRom, there's also a copy of Norton's AntiVirus, Ghost and Firewall 2001.

Price: (as reviewed inc. VAT) £94.99

Distributor: Silicon Group 0131 337 5177
www.fic.com.tw/

ASUS A7V266-E

Asus' motherboard is based on VIA's KT-266A chipset. Three DDR SDRam Dimm slots support a maximum 3Gb of either PC2100 or PC1600 memory. Two Promise Ultra ATA/100 E-IDE controllers accompany a Promise Fast Track Lite Ultra ATA/100 controller, while two onboard USB ports and two additional headers on the motherboard allow up to a maximum of six USB ports to be used.

Price: (as reviewed inc. VAT) £152.99.

Distributor: Overclockers UK 01782 339600
www.asus.com

See also:

MOTHERBOARDS - All aboard

Motherboards may not seem the most interesting of components, but the speed and design of PCs in the future depend on them.  19 May 1999

Straight Talking

Barry Fox bursts in with no-nonsense advice on buying PCs and CD-ROMdrives. Beware of dealers taking you unawares by selling you outdatedstock.  10 Apr 1997

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