Conclusions
Asus' Vista Edition motherboard extras do a good job of highlighting some of the new functionality offered by Microsoft's latest operating system. More importantly, they add unique capabilities you won't find bundled with any other motherboard. In a market populated with largely cookie-cutter designs that don't vary much from manufacturer to manufacturer, that's a very good thing.

But novel capabilities aren't as valuable as useful ones, and some of Asus' Vista Edition extras are more flash than function. Take the horribly-named Asus Accelerated Propeller, for example. We love the idea of having onboard flash memory to take advantage of Vista's ReadyBoost feature, but you're not likely to notice much of a performance difference on systems with ample system memory. Microsoft also recommends at least a 1:1 ratio of flash to system memory for ReadyBoost, and since the ASAP module only makes 480MB available to Windows, you're not going to get anywhere close to 1:1 with the 2GB of system memory you're probably going to want to be running with Vista.

Still, the fact that we were able to use the ASAP flash drive as a DOS boot disk makes me all tingly. There should be plenty of room on that flash chip for a lean Linux distribution, system recovery utilities, or stress-testing apps for overclockers—it need not be a Vista-only perk.

You probably won't be able to use the ScreenDuo SideShow module without Vista, though. Thankfully, there are plenty of useful gadgets bundled with the unit and even more potential just waiting to be exploited. Enthusiasts looking to take advantage of Vista's Media Center functionality should also appreciate Asus' AI Remote.

The Vista Edition motherboards' support for Trusted Computing Modules is the only feature likely to be ignored by most enthusiasts. But that's OK, because the TPM header is at least there for those who want to experiment with BitLocker or surrender their souls to invasive digital rights management. Really, it's all about having options, and Asus' Vista Edition motherboard extras give you plenty.