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Overall, the AX4B Pro is every bit the motherboard most of us would expect from AOpen - a perfectly functional work of art. Fully stable under all our tests, including the rigorous "makeworld -j4" test in FreeBSD 4.5, the AX4B Pro is also no slouch, coming virtually neck and neck with the MSI 845 Ultra. To top these off are the excellent Dr. Voice and Die Hard BIOS technologies, the nice software bundle and excellent documentation. Lastly, there is the sexy black PCB and stylish silver chipset heatsink.
However, there are a few chinks in the AX4B Pro's armor. VIO and DIMM voltage adjustments are absent, but fortunately don't seem to
inhibit the its overclockability. While a 1/5/0/1 (AGP/PCI/ISA/CNR) expansion configuration is enough for most users, power users would have preferred to do away with the onboard sound and the CNR slot, replacing it with an additional PCI slot or an ISA slot for legacy support. The first 3 PCI slots are also incapable of accommodating full-length expansion cards due to the IDE and floppy headers. If there was one addition to the AX4B Pro this editor would have liked to see, it would be ATA-133 RAID as in the MSI 845 Ultra. Normally, AOpen produces a Pro and Plus series, however the RAID-equipped Plus version of the AX4B is strangely missing this time around.
The AOpen AX4B Pro gets our heartiest recommendations for an i845-based motherboard. Very Highly Recommended!
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