In a press release issued issued today, Asus has released some interesting information regarding the future of their motherboards. One of the most common manufacturers for RAID controller chips built onto motherboards, Silicon Image, will be getting a definite ego boost by Asus's decision to use the SiI 4723 SteelVine chip to provide RAID functionality. More than just an upgrade from the omnipresent Sil 3114, the 4723 doesn't add native RAID-5 support but does include the standard RAID0/1/JBOD modes that the majority of home users enjoy. The 4723 does support native functions like auto rebuild and auto failover, and is a SATA-II device, definitely nice considering how most new SATA drives support SATA-II.
The first ASUS board to make an appearance with this chip will be the P5W DH Deluxe. It'll be interesting to see performance results of it once it hits the market.