Heard anything about the AOpen AX45-8X Max (SiS 648)?

[rubik]

I haven't seen any reviews on this board yet and I was wondeing if anyone else had heard anything. According to the AOpen website, it supports DDR400 and includes Firewire which is what I'm looking for in a SiS 648 board.

Crossing my fingers hoping it's a quality mobo.

 

[MrEric]

Mine should be arriving today. I'll let know how it turns out.
I hope it works with my Radeon 9700 since many sis648 mobos
have problems with it.

 

[rubik]

Cool! Plan on overclocking it at all?

 

[Siegfried]

Yeah, I'm really interested in finding out more information on this motherboard, as it looks to be a very nice SiS648 offering, especially since, as you said, A-Open says that it supports DDR400. Is this the type of memory you have Mr. Eric? And if you could please let us know on what the BIOS supprts in terms of overclocking (bus clock, agp, memory, etc), it would REALLY be appreciated!

Thanks a lot!

 

[MrEric]

My limited impressions so far

The Bad:
-Won't post with the Radeon 9700, same problem as most other agp8x boards
-No paper manual, so you have to print out the front panel connectors layout
-It is not stable with DDR400, altho it works fine at DDR393, even with 2 sticks of ram.
-Some bios settings are missing. ie. agp transfer rate, memory voltage(only 2.7 jumper), agp voltage, bank interleave, etc...altho the most common ones are there. Maybe it's because of the Phoenix bios?

The Good:
-Has a backplate behind the cpu retention bracket so that the board is not bended so much when installing cpu heatsink
-Don't have to reinstall windows, most of the components are installed by windows automatically.
-Pretty stable so far, but I haven't really stressed it much. I'm running prime95 rite now to test it.
-Has 3 firewire connectors, 4 usb2.0

Seems like a decent motherboard for a budget price. I got mine at mwave.com for around $96. Let me know if you have a specific question.

 

[senior guy]

Hmm, maybe it's a re-badged ECS L4S8A2...

 

[First]

I'll have a review of EpoX's and AOpen's SiS 648 boards next week, with Intel's 845PE board coming this week..

 

[Siegfried]

Ok, thanks a lot for the info on the board.

There is however one issue that I've noted. If you look at this page on AOpen's website, you'll notice that there are 2 boards based on the SiS648 chipset, as opposed to what it's saying on their products page, which is only showing the AX45-8X Max board. The board that they are selling everywhere online (at least the only places I've found so far) are all AX45-8XN, and not the Max board. The lack of "official" DDR400 support along with less overclocking options than what is stated on the AOpen site for the MAX could very well be the difference between the 2 boards. The other difference that I saw on another website is a small difference in the picture of the board, compared to the MAX (they sell the 8XN). If you look closesly at that picture, and then compare it with this picture of the MAX on Aopen's site, you'll notice a difference in the area around the south bridge. They are positionned a bit differently and one has a heatsink on it. Since I've noticed that, I have been trying to find a AX45X-8X Max anywhere, but could not do so .

Evan, would it be possible to tell us which board you received between the 2? And if you have time (or anyone else that could find this info! ), if you could maybe ask a contact to gather the difference between the 8XN and the 8X Max? I've tried to search around for more info, but could not find anything.


Thanks a lot!

 

[First]

I'm going to be reviewing the AOpen AX45-8X Max.

 

[Siegfried]

Cool! Thanks a lot for the quick reply! Will await review of those 2 boards before buying anything then

 

[IntelConvert]

Originally posted by: rubik
I haven't seen any reviews on this board yet and I was wondeing if anyone else had heard anything. According to the AOpen website, it supports DDR400 and includes Firewire which is what I'm looking for in a SiS 648 board.

Crossing my fingers hoping it's a quality mobo.

You may want to check this out !

 

[Siegfried]

Very interesting link! Can't wait to see the review! Looks like a great board.

 

[rubik]

Wow that looks like the board I'll be getting..

 

[senior guy]

Evan: When you review AOpen's SiS648 board, can you at least speak to the differences between the AX45-8X Max (the model you are testing) and the AX45-8XN which apparently is the only version in the US retail channels. Otherwise, what good does it do to review a board that isn't being made available by AOpen?

 

[First]

From my initial tests, it looks like the AX45-8X Max isn't all that great of a board. First off, I can't even get this board to run two modules of memory @ 333MHz without having to use very conservative timings. The board won't even POST with three DIMMs no matter what.

DDR400 is obviously shot, it'll run one DIMM, but at very conservative timings and you actually lose a bit of performance in this scenario versus the CAS 2-2-2-5 timings I was able to get @ 333MHz with one DIMM installed.

All in all, definitely not so impressive memory performance-wise, but some good features. Although I don't know if I should release a review of this board; I'd rather concentrate on a more impressive board.

 

[LukFilm]

Originally posted by: Evan Lieb
From my initial tests, it looks like the AX45-8X Max isn't all that great of a board. First off, I can't even get this board to run two modules of memory @ 333MHz without having to use very conservative timings. The board won't even POST with three DIMMs no matter what.

DDR400 is obviously shot, it'll run one DIMM, but at very conservative timings and you actually lose a bit of performance in this scenario versus the CAS 2-2-2-5 timings I was able to get @ 333MHz with one DIMM installed.

All in all, definitely not so impressive memory performance-wise, but some good features. Although I don't know if I should release a review of this board; I'd rather concentrate on a more impressive board.

Strange, the users at ASUSboards got COMPLETELY different results running memory at 400MHz DDR just fine. However, they have N version, not Max, could that be the difference?

 

[rubik]

I think the key is that the people at Asusboards are talking about the AX45-8XN which sounds like the better board.

 

[IntelConvert]

Originally posted by: LukFilm
....Strange, the users at ASUSboards got COMPLETELY different results running memory at 400MHz DDR just fine. However, they have N version, not Max, could that be the difference?

I believe that's very likely... Evan, you may want to read what what Prometheus says about the AX45-8XN... Apparently, the AX45-8X Max (that you tested) is not the model that AOpen is marketing in the US, so the "Max" may not have the latest SiS648 stepping (or ?)!

 

[senior guy]

Originally posted by: Evan Lieb
From my initial tests, it looks like the AX45-8X Max isn't all that great of a board. First off, I can't even get this board to run two modules of memory @ 333MHz without having to use very conservative timings. The board won't even POST with three DIMMs no matter what.

DDR400 is obviously shot, it'll run one DIMM, but at very conservative timings and you actually lose a bit of performance in this scenario versus the CAS 2-2-2-5 timings I was able to get @ 333MHz with one DIMM installed.

All in all, definitely not so impressive memory performance-wise, but some good features. Although I don't know if I should release a review of this board; I'd rather concentrate on a more impressive board.

Shades of the Asus P4S8X !!! -- I was one of those who truly wanted to believe in the SiS648 chipset, but at this point I'm ready to concede that it is problematic (at best). Until Intel's 7205 proves itself, long-live the fast and reliable i845PE/GE.