AOpen is one of those companies that has been around for a long time in computer terms. The parent company, the Acer Group, was founded over 22 years ago. Aopen, itself was founded in 1996, 7 years ago by Simon Lin. To put 22 years in perspective in computer terms, my first computer was a Atari 800XL with 16KB of memory and a tape drive. Today, computers come standard with 512MB of RAM and are far more powerful than any of the computers that were in existence in 1983. Many of the companies that define computers today (Dell, Gateway, Hewlett Packard, Microsoft) were small specks in the industry back then, if not existing at all (NVIDIA, SiS, Via).

It's fine and dandy to reminisce about the good old days, but I was just trying to give a sense of historical perspective on the longevity of the experience behind the company Aopen. It's amazing the innovations in computers and technology in 20 years. It's also amazing the longevity of the company and the experience Aopen puts into every product today.

Intel released the 875 chipset for motherboards in April of this year. This chipset is their current flagship chip for the Pentium 4 CPUs that they manufacture. Unfortunately, at the moment, Intel's 875 boards are pretty expensive. Intel released the 865 chipset to meet the demanding needs of the mainstream user without sacrificing features and performance. Today, the 865 is extremely popular, probably the most popular P4 chipset available. The AX4SPE is AOpen's board based upon this chipset.