Board Analysis

Of course, centering on the i845GE chipset means that the board sports a VGA connector that is powered by Intel’s Extreme Graphics engine. It goes without saying that the 3D processing power Intel has dubbed “Extreme” will probably be viewed by most gamers as simply mundane. Intel concedes that its integrated solution is an ideal choice for mainstream consumers, and the following graph of Quake III benchmark results shows why:



With that said, the AX4GE Max is also host to an AGP 4x slot, six PCI slots, and a CNR slot to provide for expansion capabilities. It also has three fan headers for power, processor, and chassis fans. The board’s back panel features two PS/2 ports, four USB 2.0 ports, a lone serial port, a parallel port, an RJ-45 Ethernet connector, 1/8” min-jacks for audio support and a 15-pin VGA output.

Capacitor is too close for comfort

Must install memory first, this is pretty common

Board layout

From a layout point of view, AOpen has made several decisions that we applaud, and a few others that have us scratching our heads. The board is complex, so many of the space constraints are understandable. Even still, AOpen took care to locate the ATX power connector away from the processor interface to avoid inhibiting airflow. Similarly, the IDE connectors are low enough to clear the AGP port.

Cramping is evident on other parts of the board, though. The most glaring example is a small, 2200 microfarad capacitor that sticks up right below the heat sink retention mechanism. Intel’s reference cooling solution immediately got caught on the capacitor, preventing us from seating the ‘sink. We can only imagine that a larger unit with overhang would prove even more problematic.

On a lesser scale, the three, 184-pin DIMM slots are situated as such that a memory upgrade would first require removing the graphics card. It isn’t a show-stopper, but it is an inconvenience we’d prefer to circumvent.