Introduction

 

Albatron is a relatively new name to the motherboard and graphics production industry. Quite frankly, until Computex 2002, I had never heard of them. However, a quick trip to their booth and some photos later we began to see that Albatron had some very interesting ideas and a reasonably good upcoming line of products for a company that has not had a board on the market in the past.

 

Here is a snip from Albatron's webpage on the history of Albatron.

 

"Albatron Technology was formerly known as 'Chun Yun Electronics'. The company has been established since the early 80's and it was listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange in May 1999. Its primary business was producing television and CRT monitor display. So, how come this company can receive Intel support without even producing a single motherboard? Jack decided to leave his beloved company 'Gigabyte' and joined Albatron Technology end of last year. Within the IT and financial world, this was good news to Albatron Technology. He was immediately rewarded by the financial industry; the Albatron shares went up by 200% within a very short period of time. In Taiwan, Jack is better known as 'Big Jack' for his persistence in driving for success. At his head office in Taipei City, he has been the driving force behind this newfound success. He is changing the direction of the company and motherboards will be a very important piece for the future of Albatron."

While this press statement is all good, it is up to the R&D team and the engineers to make this a reality. Today, Albatron has been kind enough to send us a KX400+ motherboard based on the VIA KT333 chipset for the AMD Athlon platform. Will it perform? Lets find out.