Manufacturer: ASUS Tech: 440BX Motherboard w/ SCSI2 and Network adapter Price: ~$300

After returning from Comdex this year, Sharky Extreme wrote about the fact that most mainboard vendors were planning products that offered more peripheral integration to reduce the cost of systems that have to rely on adding PCI and ISA cards to outfit the options on the machine.

One great example of what can be accomplished when a company's engineers are sharp as tacks, and production lines can whip out high tech products like they're potato chips, is the ASUS P2B-LS.

The P2B-LS is a clear window to 1999 as it offers all of the love and technology that a standard Intel 440BX-based mainboard would, but throws in an integrated 100/10Mbps LAN controller and Ultra2SCSI host adapter.

ASUS went with brand name chips to outfit the P2B-LS's enhanced features, with the LAN controller being of the Intel 82558 variety, while the Ultra2SCSI host adapter is manufactured by SCSI giant Adaptec.