14 DAY TRIAL // Asus prepares four new motherboards that will provide compatibility with all those new features within Microsoft's soon-to-be-released Vista operating system.
Two of these motherboards are based on Nvidia's nForce 590 SLI (M2N32-SLI Premium Vista Edition) and nForce 500 SLI (M2N-Plus Vista Edition), while the other two have Intel P965 chipsets (P5B Premium Vista Edition and P5B-Plus Vista Edition). The first two are designed for the AMD Athlon 64 FX dual-core chips, while the last two will only accept Intel Core 2 Quad processors.
All of them will ship with AI remote control units that allow users to quickly boot or resume media or other applications with the push of a button. Working in conjunction with the AP Trigger function, the Asus AI remote also functions as a media player remote and will let PC users turn their computers on or off and control Asus lifestyle features such as AI Gear and AI Nap with the simple push of a button. Each board also incorporates ASAP (Asus Accelerated Propeller), a Flash memory cache that can be used in conjunction with Vista's ReadyBoost feature to speed up boot times.
The top of the line motherboards - M2N32-SLI and P5B Premium Vista Edition - will also come with the ScreenDuo feature, which is said to provide a secondary display panel that lets the user view a USB-connected secondary display. This display may run its own OS and supports Vista's laptop-oriented SideShow system. ScreenDuo can also display RSS feeds, provide access to media content stored on the host PC's hard drive, and provide an email checking and read-out facility.
Another interesting feature comes in the form of TPM (trusted platform module), which will allow for enhanced data protection through Microsoft Vista's BitLocker hardware encryption features. This is an optional feature for all four new motherboards.
The new models accept dual-channel DDR2 memory modules clocked at up to 800MHz. However, Asus hasn't released pricing information or availability as of yet.