The Boards

Onslaught of boards

	PCI	USB	ATX12V	Audio	Overclocking	IDE RAID	LAN	Extras
ABIT BD7II-RAID	5	2.0	Yes	Yes	Yes	HighPoint	Realtek	None
Albatron PX845E Pro II	6	2.0	Yes	Yes	Yes	Promise	Intel	256MB DDR SDRAM
ASUS P4B533-E	6	2.0	No	Yes	Yes	Promise	Intel	1394/ASUSPanel/USB
Epox EP-4BEAR	5	2.0	No	Yes	Yes	HighPoint	None	USB/LED
Gigabyte 8IEXP	5	2.0	Yes	Yes	Yes	Promise	Intel	1394
MSI 845E Max2	6	2.0	Yes	Yes	Yes	Promise	Intel	BlueTooth
Tyan Trinity i845E GNNR	5	2.0 x 2	Yes	Yes	Yes	Promise	Intel	Gigabit LAN

One of the most important features being integrated on motherboards these days is support for Ethernet. Another common feature is the inclusion of ATA RAID. The most popular obviously being the solutions from Promise. HighPoint's controllers haven't taken off outside of motherboards from ABIT and Epox. Adaptec also uses HighPoint controllers on some of its controller cards.

Ethernet is a standard on all the boards we received but the oddity again is with ABIT, who chose to go with a separate Ethernet controller rather than using the integrated Intel controller. However, using the integrated Intel controller doesn't necessarily mean that you're getting the best performance. Many times, integrated Ethernet controllers do not include what's known as a PHY layer. This layer is the physical layer that controls much of the Ethernet controller and determines how well it will perform.

Some interesting features are appearing on many boards ranging from FireWire (1394), to BlueTooth and to Gigabit Ethernet. Albatron has even included DDR memory to help kick start your system.

We're expecting most of the boards to perform within similar margins with each other so real competing factors will be features and incentives. Let's take a look at the boards.