hmm... i did a google search on "ax4spe max review" and the first 4 results were:
www.motherboards.org
an overall score of 93 and currently their highest ranking Intel-based mobo...
"Fast and filled with enough features to make even the most fanatical die hard enthusiasts drool the AX4SPE comes away smelling like a summer rose and even made me want to replace my current board with it. I would not have guessed that AOpen had listened to user's opinions as closely as they did in the engineering and development of this motherboard, but in the end game it panned out very nicely for the end user who purchases one. The overall feel of the board was a positive one in that it had no serious drawbacks or quirks of any kind and ran flawlessly through our battery of tests and overclocking procedures leaving me with a very satisfied feeling about the board."
www.pcstats.com
"While we did encounter a few issues with the beta board we received for testing that kept us from including any overclocking results, this did not affect stability or performance of the system during stock tests. We're pretty sure this is isolated an issue as well so it is not going to bear in the final weighting of the results.
That said, overall we're pretty impressed with what the AOpen AX4SPE Max has to offer. The board has six onboard USB 2.0 ports (two on a riser), Gigabit LAN, 5.1 audio, IEEE 1394, four Serial ATA/Serial ATA RAID ports and dual BIOS's!
If you feel the need to expand the AOpen AX4SPE MAX has six PCI slots as well as an 8x AGP port.
As you've seen from the benchmarks, when teamed up with a Pentium 4 3.0C processor, performance of the AOpen AX4SPE MAX and its' Springdale chipset is very nice indeed. Most surprising was the performance increases in the office based benchmarks; SysMark2002 and the Winstone 2002 tests. Depending on the tests, and hardware used, the AOpen AX4SPE Max was between 5-15% faster then the Abit IT7 MAX2 Rev2 which was one of the fastest i845PE motherboards on the market!
It's pretty easy to see AOpen are thinking about the end user with this motherboard. All the ports are located near the edges of the PCB which allow for easier access. The motherboard is not quite as well labelled as some of the other AOpen motherboards we have tested in the past, but even novice users need not worry. The manual is extremely detailed and easy to use, and quick start guide is done in colour which can also be rather helpful."
www.bleedinedge.com
"With the board having stunning features and an awesome price I would say if your after a rock solid but very tweakable motherboard the AX4SPE max could be for you?weekend speed freaks are VERY well catered for but you will not be setting any 3Dmark records with it. I feel the board is better suited to a 2.8 or 3 gig cpu if you want to overclock due to its (approx) 260fsb limit. Running good quality ram at 1:1 really is a must but dropping down to 5:4 at 250fsb still produced VERY respectable benchmarks."
www.hardocp.com
"I think AOpen has one of the best, if not the best feature set in the industry when it comes to BIOS and add-ons. Being able to save your OWN default BIOS settings is a great feature that can save you lots of time if you are trying to backtrack on tweaks gone wrong. Join that with the solid performing WatchDog BIOS, DieHard BIOS and EzWinFlash and a BIOS just cannot currently get much better. AOpen has always done this well and we wish other companies would take notice.
As for the performance of the board, if you want to upgrade to an 800MHz FSB system, I can say that the AOpen AX4SPE Max will not disappoint. I look at the numbers a bit different than Keith does. While the AX4SPE did put up the rear on many stock benchmarks, the gaps between the scores were so menial that they would not equate into any real world experience difference. If you live and die by the benchmark, then most likely you will not be running stock speeds anyway. When it came to overclocking scores that we recorded the AX4SPE Max was tops in the field."
Umm.... which reviews were you refering to, and is it only because this board isn't the absolute best out there for overclocking? Seems to be more than good in all other respects...
/syf3r
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