New AOPEN® AK86 Motherboard Series Leverages Amd Athlon™ 64 Processor Capabilities

Users Can Experience the Excitement of New 64-Bit Applications, Maintain 32-Bit Compatibility and Upgrade at Their Own Pace

SAN JOSE, CA -- 9/23/2003 -- AOpen® Inc., an award-winning leader in innovative PC motherboard design and manufacturing, today announced the introduction of its new AK86 Series of motherboards specifically developed to support the AMD Athlon™ 64 processor. The AMD Athlon 64 processor is 64-bit capable – yet is completely 32-bit compatible, allowing users to take advantage of the “cinematic computing” experience of tomorrow’s software, and still continue to maintain outstanding 32-bit performance for existing applications.

Leading-off the AK86 Series of AOpen motherboards, the model AK86-L provides users with the ability to enjoy the world-class performance provided by the AMD Athlon 64 processor, combined with a host of AOpen’s innovative features – providing a highly reliable platform with excellent stability. AOpen plans on shipping its premiere motherboard based on the new AMD64 architecture in the next few weeks, followed by other models designed to meet the needs of various user levels during the fourth quarter of 2003 and into the first quarter of 2004.

“AOpen is always providing time-to-market products with solid quality and reliability, and the AMD Athlon 64 processor represents a milestone in the history of the PC.” said Richard Jen, motherboard product manager at AOpen. “We’re offering users stable and reliable AMD64 solutions with our new AK86 Series of motherboards that are complemented with popular features like the Gigabit Ethernet adapter as well as Serial ATA to eliminate upgrade hassles as they become more and more popular.”

The AOpen AK86-L supports the AMD Athlon 64 Socket 754 CPU and features the VIA K8T800 Chipset. It also comes with Serial ATA, ATA 133 and RAID, plus Gigabit Ethernet, DDR400, 5.1 Channel Audio, USB 2.0 and EZ-Color to make the installation of the board quick and easy. The AK86-L has an MSRP of $120 USD and comes with AOpen’s 3-year limited warranty. For more information about the AK86-L, please visit the AOpen web site at: http://www.aopen.com/products/mb/ak86-l.htm.

“The AOpen AK86 Series of motherboards, combined with the power of the AMD Athlon 64 processor, will give PC users a new level of flexibility,” said Tim Wright, director, desktop marketing, AMD’s Computation Products. “We’re working with AOpen in its development of the new AOpen AK86 Series of motherboards supporting the new AMD64 architecture to give customers the benefits of 64-bit computing performance with full 32-bit compatibility.”

About AOpen
Headquartered in Taipei, Taiwan, with AOpen America’s headquarters in San Jose, California, AOpen Inc. is the world’s largest total PC component solutions manufacturer and a member of a $14 billion technology group. Leveraging more than 28 years of technology manufacturing experience and more than 1,000 Group patents, AOpen designs, manufactures and markets high-quality, state-of-the-art motherboards; housings; VGA cards; white-box notebooks; optical drives; multimedia headsets and headphones; multimedia and network solutions; as well as numerous other PC component products sold through VARs to institutional, corporate, education and government customers, and via retailers to small business and end-user customers.

Editor’s Note: For additional information, evaluation units or executive interviews at AOpen, please contact Fred Gillaspy, InterSight Communications Corporation, 831-239-4292. More information about AOpen, AOpen Products, services, and business partners is available at: www.AOpen.com.

AOpen is a registered trademark of AOpen Inc. All other products, brand names or companies are trademarks or registered marks of their respective companies.

AMD, the AMD Arrow logo, AMD Athlon, and combinations thereof, are trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. Other product names are for informational purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective companies.