Another 815 chipset-based board, we tested this board in both our categories. It scored very well in performance in both categories, but lost points mainly due to its price and features. Though it costs only Rs 5,500, others in the shootout were priced even lower.

Interestingly, for a high-end board, the J618 AF comes with a DIN connector instead of a PS/2 for the keyboard. This was also the only board without any DIP switch settings to enable a jumperfree mode. You have to manually adjust the CPU Host/ SDRAM clock settings, which is an older way of handling things. It has only two onboard USB ports. So you wouldn’t pick this board for features.

In our entry-level suite of tests, this motherboard was one of the top performers, second only to Vesta VMB103. With the scores, there was a peculiar observation. The J618 AF performed great for all the application, graphics, and gaming benchmarks. The area where it lost out was in the optimization of its sound sub-system—a must for entry-level boards. So here go the statistics. With a score of 30.6 Winstone units for Business Winstone 99, this board was the best in its category.

Similar was the performance in running the graphics benchmarks and the score for 3DMark 2000 stood at 12.5 units, again the best. It achieved the best frame rates for the gaming benchmark, Quake III Arena, where it averaged to 21 fps. However, the board got 8.99 percent in CPU utilization, which was high compared to other boards.

Scores in the high-end category, though good, were lower than what most boards got. It got an overall performance score of 93.7, while most boards managed to get above 96. So overall, the board is a good choice for either category, if you’re not choosy on features. The bundled software includes PC-Cillin Antivirus and a trial version of Power DVD software DVD player.