AOpen AX4GE Tube-G

Review by Harry Lam on 03.13.03
Motherboard provided by AOpen

Conclusion:

The AOpen AX4GE Tube-G is one hell of a motherboard, combining unique and innovative AOpen features like SilentBIOS and OpenJukebox with AOpen's unique TubeSound implementation.  The sound quality on this board is simply awesome, and frankly, it looks awesome too.  This board is much more expensive than most (Price Watch shows a price of $186 including shipping), but it's definitely worth the few bucks over the AX4B-533 (Price Watch shows a price of $151.95 including shipping).  This feat of AOpen's engineering is quite impressive, and has rightfully been used as a marketing point for AOpen.  Due to its innovative design, abundance of features, and good performance, Techware Labs awards the AX4GE Tube-G the Editor's Choice Award.

Pros:

-A vacuum tube on a motherboard!
-Very Innovative features, like SilentBIOS, OpenJukebox, WatchDog Timer, etc
-Very ascetically appealing, with it's black PCB, gold trim, and blue leds

Cons:

-Significantly more expensive than other motherboards.
-Voltage problems in the bios (although it's probably something that's easily fixed)