Review : ASUS P4S8X

The ASUS P4S8X is certainly one of the most full featured boards on the market today thanks in large part to the SiS648 chipset coupled with the SiS963 southbridge. Add in great features like 8X AGP, USB 2.2, 5.1 audio, built in Realtek LAN and Firewire make this an extremely well rounded board. Serial ATA is a nice added feature as well, which will make the upgrade to Serial ATA hard drives a snap when they become widely available.

I have some minor mixed feelings about the P4S8X, mainly because of the AGP 8X issues (Will they ever be fixed?), and cramped board layout. Still, the overwhelming great performance and abundance of features on this board make it a very good candidate for those of you not bothered by cramped layouts. The AGP 8X issue, while it may have been mildly annoying while we were dealing with it, we do understand that this is a brand new technology, and the issue could have very well been and isolated incident. So any attempt to place the sole blame on the mainboard or chipset would be extremely unfair at this point without absolute proof it was incompatibility on the part of the mainboard.