Formally know as ASUSTeK Computer Incorporated (in Asia and the rest of the Pacific) and ASUS Computer International (in the United States), Asus is a company that produces mainly computer components ranging from mainboards and notebooks to graphics cards and optical storage. Started and still headquartered in Taipei, Taiwan, Republic of China, Asus boasts a leading R&D department and high-output production facilities.

Asus mainboards are known for their stability, reliability, and overclocking ability. Although slightly most expensive than it's peers, Asus mainboards are acclaimed by the do-it-yourself crowd. The quality of Asus' products are reinforced by various awards from HardOCP, Anandtech, and Tom's Hardware.

Similar to Abit's SOFTMenu, Asus' jumperless configuration technology allows multipliers and bus speeds to be set from the BIOS without opening the case.

Mainboards are named based on the CPU supported, the maker of the chipset, the bus speed, and additional features. For example, A7M266-D indicates that the board supports AMD 7 Series (Athlon) with an authentic chipset from AMD, a FSB speed of 266Mhz, and that it supports dual CPUs in SMP mode. Famous mainboards in the Asus line include the A7M266-D and the A7V133.

Asus CD-RW drives are also known for their ability to make 1-to-1 copies of many different kinds of copy-protected discs. Tests on Tom's Hardware indicate that the Asus CRW-1610A successfully duplicates Safedisc 2, Safedisc 2.51, and the dreaded Cactus Data Shield.

Asus's leading competitors include Abit, Epox, MSI, Aopen, Gigabyte, DFI, Jetway, Intel, QDI, and Shuttle.

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