First The basics….

The AX34Pro is an ATX form factor motherboard designed for socket 370 processors. These include the Celeron, PII, & PIII. In my case I am running a PII-550 FCPGA chip and have had great success. It is one of the most stable computers I have ever owned. The Apollo chipset allows FSB speeds from 66-150 Mhz. Needless to say overclocking was on my mind when I bought this board. Other features I have found extremely useful are the 4 USB ports, notably on TWO controller chips. This is important since each can supply power to the USB bus. This is important as more and more USB peripherals require power and often if you have multiple USB devices you need to buy a powered hub to handle them, not so with the AX34Pro. Other niceties are a jumper-less design and built in UDMA 66 controllers. The board also has built in sound that is better than many on board sound controllers I have heard. I normally use my SB Live, but played around with the sound just to see what it could do and was impressed.

When I got the board home the first time, I ripped the box open and was amazed to find a well written, detailed manual that is one of the best I have ever seen. It is important to note, that there are updated AGP drivers that you must load for stable operation with Windows. The best manual in the world is no good if you don’t read it. There is also a full color “quick start” guide that walks you through the highlights and gets you running in a hurry, plus a included copy of Norton AntiVirus.

On to the details….

Of course if you are looking at a high end MB you are likely interested in overclocking. Well, let me tell you, the AX34Pro does not disappoint. AOpen gears a number of features on their boards directly to overclockers and it pays off. First on their Pro series boards, they choose higher quality resistors and capacitors than most companies, this results in more stable clock signals and CPU voltages which equals superior stability. The jumperless design on the board also makes tweaking voltages and FSB speed a breeze. More importantly, AOpen has also built in a soft reset feature that makes failed overclocking attempts a breeze to recover from. Just hold down the home key on power up and you reset to BIOS defaults, there is no need to open up the case and reset it using a jumper. It is a very nice feature that keeps you from constantly tearing open you PC if you are playing around with clock speeds.

So what can it do, you ask. Well I am currently running my PIII-550 at 140 MHz FSB that yields a clock speed of 770Mhz. Not too bad, and my machine is extremely stable, runs all my games well. Temperatures run just a degree or two Celsius higher than at 100MHz using just the stock cooling fan, so clearly heat is not an issue. I have also tried 150 MHz, but at this point began to have stability problems and did not want to tweak voltages or start swapping memory around just to get a bit more, possibly unstable, speed.

One very nice feature that AOpen offers is the DieHard BIOS. Basically, there are two BIOS chips on the MB. One is not flashable. Why? Well, there are numerous viruses out there that can destroy the BIOS, or what happens when your flash BIOS update goes bad, or you loose power during the update? Usually you need to make a trip back to the manufacturer. With the Die Hard BIOS, simply move a jumper, and boot from the non-flashable BIOS. Run AOpen’s BIOS flash utility and it will update and repair the damaged flash BIOS. Pretty cool and a real lifesaver if you ever need it. It could save you days of downtime.

All in all, I highly recommend the AX34Pro, it is a super board, handles overclocking well, packs in the features and has superb documentation. It may cost a bit more than other boards, but in my opinion it is a small price to pay for the added stability, reliability and most importantly SPEED.





Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 119