AOPEN AX4C Max is AOpen's latest workstation class Canterwood based board featuring the best of best technology including the support for 800Mhz CPUs, Gigabit Ethernet, Hyper-Threading Technology, 6-channel sound, RAID, SATA, 1394.

In our tests, we find that the performance of this board is on par with most of the Canterwood boards. Supporting Dual Channel DDR400, we need to stabilise the system by increasing the Vdimm to 2.7v because we are running the RAM sticks at CAS 2, 5-2-2 which is a bit over spec. Comparing to Gigabyte and ASUS board, this board is slightly slower.

Although this board is meant as a workstation class board, it does not throw out the overclocking features that overclockers love like 100~400 FSB selectable and voltage adjustments. The PCI/AGP can also be fixed to 33/66. We tested the board and managed to run max at 225Mhz FSB at cpu:fsb=1:1 ratio. This makes it 3.3Ghz.

The 186 pages of English documentation is definitely well worth a read. Not only does it provide the configuration information, it also provides background information of the technology used.

Overall, an impressive board that has almost all the things any one would ever thought of. From Gigabit Ethernet to SATA, SATA RAID. The only thing lacking is a SCSI connector since this is supposed to be a workstation class board. There is also no upgrade capability to include a Wi-Fi connector like the ASUS board. Other unique board features are  WatchDog ABS, Voltage settings, Freq settings shown on Bootup, HerculesPCI, Jukebox cd player, SilentTek and Ezclock, Winbios and Ezwinflash makes this board stand out.

Suggested Retail : USD189

Discuss

Pros 好处:

• 6 Channel audio
• USB 2.0 
• Gigabit LAN
• 1394
• SATA, SATA RAID
• DR.LED, DR.VOICE - Diagnostics
• Overclocking - up to 400Mhz FSB, PCI /AGP FIX selectable

Cons 坏处:

• No SCSI
• AGP retention slot is blocked by capacitors around it
• DIMM voltage max to 2.80v

Ratings

Here are my ratings out of 10 stars.

Silver Award