ASUS Leaves Room To Grow

Incorporating a motherboard that allows for future add-ins may cost more, but in the long run it will afford the system builder more flexibility as it looks to upgrade CPUs, RAM, video cards and the like.

One board designed with future additions in mind is ASUS& A8N-SLI Premium Mainboard. The motherboard, priced at $175, works with Socket 939 processors but also will include support for AMD&s Athlon 64, 64FX, 64 X2 and Sempron processors.

Trying to convince to cost-conscious customers that they need a new system can be a hard sell. However, explaining them that installing a new processor, which already supports their current infrastructure, will increase productivity is much easier.

The ASUS board brings PCI Express support to the AMD64 platform. This is a higher bandwidth point-to-point bus topology architecture designed to incorporate high-performance hardware components, such as video cards. Moreover, the board is loaded with features a system builder needs to construct the most advanced business workstation. For example, it incorporates four SATA controller connecters that support RAID0, RAID1 and RAID0+1. It also supports up to 4 Gbytes of 400MHz, 333MHz or 266MHz DDRSDRAM.

Finally, the motherboard is a standard size that should fit any ATX-compliant case. Everything is labeled and laid out neatly, so system builders may not even have to look at the manual to connect the proper jumper cables.

The A8N-SLI is certified to work in several third-party chassis with different feature sets and price points. It&s an excellent option for system builders supporting customers whose database, groupware or Web server apps must evolve and grow.

PRODUCT SNAPSHOT
> Name: A8N-SLI Premium
> Price: $175
> Warranty: 3 years
> Distributors/Integrators: ASI
> Company: ASUS
Edison, N.J.
(732) 346-8088
usa.asus.com