AOpen AX64Pro Apollo Pro 133A review

Mike Andrawes van Anandtech heeft een review gemaakt van het AOpen AX64Pro Apollo Pro 133A plankje. Ze waren er wel aardig content mee, alleen de hoeveelheid van 4 PCI sloten vonden ze te weinig en ze dachten dat het BIOS nog wel wat verbeterd kon worden:

The first thing you notice about the AOpen AX64Pro is the shiny gold plated heatsink that sits atop the 694X North Bridge, the heart of the VIA 133A chipset. It's the same heatsink that adorns the i443BX North Bridge on the AnandTech Editor's Choice winner AX6BC Pro Gold. Our thoughts on the gold heatsink are the same as they were back then - supposedly implemented to help conduct heat in a more efficient manner, the new heatsink does little more than make the motherboard more attractive. Our experience with the 694X North Bridge shows that heat is generally not an issue, as many manufacturers have forgone the heatsink completely. As with AOpen's other flag ship boards, the heatsink is an added touch that doesn't really hurt anything.

[...] The 4/1/1/1 (PCI/ISA/AGP/AMR) slot configuration is relatively weak in today's market, especially after we've started seeing numerous boards with 6 PCI slots. In fact, there is actually room on the board for an additional PCI slot without giving anything up and still complying with the ATX specification. Ideally, we'd actually prefer to see either the AMR slot take the place of the ISA slot or be removed completely, allowing physical space for 6 PCI slots total, which the Apollo Pro 133A does support. All four PCI slots are full length, but the sole ISA slot is blocked by front panel I/O connections. There is the chance that a full length AGP card may be blocked by the HDD connectors, but most standard video cards should be fine. Otherwise, everything is laid out beautifully with the ATX power connector out of the way and all HDD/FDD located at the front of the board. We're glad AOpen finally figured out the right location for that FDD connector