In terms of raw performance the i855GMEm-LFS won't come anywhere close to a Pentium 4 desktop system, but this isn't really the idea behind it. Although we only managed to get hold of a 1.6GHz Pentium M 725 processor with 2MB of cache to test it with, the motherboard will accept any Pentium M processor on a 400MHz bus.

The overall SYSMark 2004 score of 132 is hardly impressive, but there were no problems running the benchmark, which is always a good sign with new hardware. The PCMark 2004 scores were similar to those of notebooks we have tested in the past; with the only real difference being that the hard drive scores were much higher due to a desktop hard drive being used. The poor integrated 3D score proved that you won't be able to play any recent games unless you install an AGP card. Throwing a GeForce 6600GT card into the mix, showed that you can expect numbers that aren't miles away from those you'd get from a mid-range desktop PC.

The i855GMEm-LFS is an interesting board and I would think that it represents the beginning of a new trend. Of course, the downside is the price you will have to pay for the processor and it doesn't help that AOpen is expecting a not insignificant £145 for this board - considering that you can get an nForce 4 SLI board for less than this, you're paying dearly for the sound of silence.

Verdict

The i855GMEm-LFS is the first in what will surely be a line of Pentium M based desktop products. There's definitely a strong appeal for a small, low-noise, low-power machine, but you'll need deep pockets.

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