Gigabyte GA-8INXP Limited Edition

The E7205 chipset was designed to be used in entry-level workstations and the performance of both the Asus and Gigabyte reflects this. For testing, we added a 3.06GHz Pentium 4 CPU, two 256MB modules of Corsair XMS 3200 memory, a 180GB IBM Deskstar 180GXP hard disk, a Crucial Radeon 9700 Pro graphics card and installed Windows XP. The Asus and Gigabyte both delivered stunning performance in our 2D benchmarks, scoring 1.84 and 1.83 respectively - easily the fastest scores we've seen from a Pentium 4-based system. Gaming performance is off the chart too, with 3DMark2001 SE scores of 15,183 for the Asus and 15,152 for the Gigabyte, both at 1,024 x 768 in 32-bit colour.

But while the Asus and Gigabyte share similar features and performance, they also have the same principal weakness. At £160 for the Gigabyte and £150 for the Asus, both are pricey, despite the added bells and whistles. By comparison AOpen's AX4R Plus costs under £130 and still features Serial ATA and LAN - for this reason, it remains our number one choice.

Author: Gareth Ogden