AOpen AK72 KX133 Slot-A ATX

AnandTech Motherboard Rating

Performance

The AK72 performed within 3% of the rest of the KX133 boards we reviewed and thus receives an average score for performance.

Price

Historically AOpen has never been the cost effective option, but normally the higher cost of their products has been masked by a clear superiority to the competition. In this case, that mask isn't present.

The AK72 isn't clearly superior to the competition and in fact, because of the board's larger PCB, you can expect it to cost even more than it normally would if it were just a regular ATX board.

Stability

The stability of the AK72 is definitely not what we were used to from AOpen. While the board is above average in terms of stability, we did notice a number of crashes during our stability testing period that could only be attributed to the board itself.

Quality

AOpen has always been associated with quality and the AK72 reflects this association quite well. Even down to the 2200uF low ESR capacitors, AOpen puts their all into this board just like they would any other.

Features

The AK72 offers everything you could expect from a KX133 motherboard but without going above and beyond all expectations the board doesn't break an average rating for features.

Layout

The layout of the AK72 does have some serious issues. There is entirely too much wasted space on the board which, while it doesn't affect the performance/stability of the board, influences the price and installation of the product because of the increased size.

The expansion slot layout isn't the most ideal either.

Availability

AOpen is a pretty well known and available brand name motherboard manufacturer, upon its release you should have no problem getting your hands on a AK72.

Documentation & Software Bundle

The bundled user's manual was definitely of great quality but the icing on the cake was the inclusion of a installations guide poster in addition to the regular user's manual.