Our second motherboard is the Albatron PX865PE Pro II. Although you may not have heard of Albatron before, the people behind the company have been in the industry for many years, as it was set up by the founder of Gigabyte after he left his old company.

The PX865PE Pro II uses the 865PE chipset, just as the model code suggests. This is very similar to the 875P but doesn't support ECC memory or have PAT. The cost savings are considerable, however, so an 865PE should be a far better choice for the typical home user, compared to an 875P motherboard. In our tests the Albatron performed nearly identically to the Abit IC7-G in Sysmark terms, but it was unimpressive in our graphics tests, so the question is whether the lower price also offers better value for money.

Well, yes, the Albatron is very good value for money. It's not an especially attractive motherboard, but it has all the essentials; five PCI slots, AGP 8x, Intel Gigabit LAN, and the two native Serial ATA controllers with RAID that are included with the ICH5R Southbridge. You also get a Promise RAID controller so there are four Parallel ATA controllers in total.

There are only two USB 2.0 ports on the backplate, but you'll find another four USB in a back bracket, as well as two Firewire ports on a second bracket. If you desperately need legacy ports there's a third bracket that has a serial port and a gameport, but we expect those are redundant for most people.

One feature that sets the Albatron apart is the integrated audio, which uses a VIA Envy chip offering eight-channel audio, i.e. 7.1 Dolby EX, although you'll need appropriate speakers to get the full benefit of this feature. There is a fourth back bracket with optical and coaxial SPDIF input and output ports.