btw, this mobo does NOT support any cpu frequency above 274 w/ any of the official bios' (1.2 and after), so if u buy it thinking u can do 275x9 (or more) u wont. complained to ASRock about this but it falls on deaf ears. :(
Interesting how posts end abruptly and not seeing any new posts on this board since September seems rather odd. Or is that normal? I just started researching my second build in 3+ years. That begs the questions of whether to buy this board, if anyone is still satisfied having bought one, and has this chipset held up? I want to multitask with a 64 X2 3800+ or 4000+ but if nobody is excited about this board anymore, then maybe I should go for the gusto and spend $200 on an Asus, but I rather not. Any comments?
I picked up one about 2 weeks ago as a refurb from newegg. Worked great, I'm currently running an Opteron 146 on it @ 2.5GHz, you can learn a lot more about it over at ocworkbench.com, as they have a pretty extensive forums based on ASrock products. I still had some of the cold boot issues with the 1.2 bios, but upgraded to the 1.5 bios and they went away. Couldn't be happier with my $42 investment :).
ASRock has posted a 1.20 BIOS update at their website dated 9/02/05. We flashed an update to 1.2 and the Cold Boot problems have disappeared. If you are experiencing cold boot issues please update to BIOS 1.2. We will also add an update to the review.
The article stated "We did find extremely irritating cold boot issues with the ASRock in our testing. Even at standard stock speeds and settings, the 939Dual often required several starts to boot,"
I purchased the 939Dual for a new computer and it will not start when the power button is pushed. The pins on the System Power Header for the PWRBTN# to GND measure 3.37 Vdc.
I wish freakin dual core would drop to sane prices. the 4400 looks like the nice semi-future proofing system. This board is perfect for dual core from scratch setup, only good board out there that is garaunteed to work with dual core out of the box.
Ocworkbench.com didnt experience cold boot problems. they use 1.20.
I'm planning to buy this board once it comes in stock again. I would of course eventually use PC3200 RAM or better on this board.
But I would like to know, in the interest of saving money for now, if my 512MB of PC2100 RAM that I have on my current motherboard (an FIC AD11) will work on this board for the time being.
Not a big deal if I have to buy new RAM right now, but it would help if that can wait a month or two, since I'm on a budget.
I don't have any first-hand experience with A64 platforms (yet), but the PC2100 should be fine as long as you set the RAM speed to 133 instead of 200 (which I'm not entirely sure how to do on this board, you may have to get the details from someone else). I suppose it's possible that it might not boot because the default is 200, but it won't hurt to try.
Wesley: Did you try checking/ replacing the BIOS backup battery? I have started experiencing coldboot/BIOS issues myself (and actually only when my flat is really cold(!)), and I am running everything @ stock with 2x 512mb Crucial Ballistix ram. Everest reads the battery voltage as 0.3v /this could of course be wrong), I'll try and replace the battery with another one that I know works in another board. I am running the 1.10 (stock) BIOS.
Just a thought.
Would have liked to see some Battlefield 2 benchmarks, but I agree with the poster above saying that having 5 or 6 boards with the same chipset (and same results) is a bit redundant.
Considering the cold boot issues increase with 4 DIMMs, could they be specific to the RAM? Could the board be more compatible with other brands of RAM?
The RAM used for testing is always specifed on our test setup page, and I also mentioned it several times in the article. It is our standard test memory, OCZ PC3200 Platinum Rev. 2, based on Samsung TCCD memory chips. Samsung TCCD is also available from many other Enthusiast memory companies like Corsair, Mushkin, G. Skill, Patriot, Geil, and many others.
I know and read that. It's just that I've had an experience with RAM incompatibility myself. The RAM worked fine on other boards, without errors, yet gave several errors on the board I was using. Switching the RAM to another brand made the board work perfectly.
It's been a while ago, so that's why I can't mention specifics, but not all boards are fully compatible with all sticks of RAM. Does ASRock recommend using RAM from several vendors, and if so, is the OCZ RAM on that list?
Well, there are no master cards to test this on but I think HKPC did this and it worked ok (with a hacked driver, most likely). Performance wasnt that hot, though.
I have had this mobo for like 2 days and I am VERY happy with it! It was the only way for my unlocked 6800LE to come along to the 939 platform (and not be crippled in the process) Currently running my 3200+ @ 10x240=2400mhz 1.45v wich was way more than I expected. Corsair XL @ 2-2-2-5 (will change the last to 10, tnx Anandtech!) dualchannel @ "High" memvolt.
I have flashed the new 1.20 BIOS and have had NO stability issues (as with my last Asrock board, a K7S8X) Time will tell if the quality is good enough. 7.1 surround and SATA II with NRQ is a nice bonus for me wich I will use in time.
At this time I can´t see a better "bang-per-buck"-board. Nice one Asrock/ULi!
Thanks for the detailed post, Wes ! It stands to reason that any vendor that wants to stay in business will 'follow the leader' and use those same optimized enhancements to make their product a better buy. Like you said, no one had heard of DFI 3 years ago, and Abit and Asus were everyones top choice. With bad news from the Abit camp lately, I would not be surprised to see them fold like a bad poker hand. I wouldn't <i>LIKE</i> it, but this is a tough industry to make a go of it too. I'm currently happy as a clam with my Soltek NF3 board, but this Asrock board is my #1 choice when my next upgrade comes along.
I liked this article, this is type of board that I'm contemplating for an upgrade.
However, I would like to see, for a more fully rounded comparison, a benchmark of an equivalent NF3 939 AGP system, and maybe a KT800, included in the results. Am I the only one that seems to think that inlcuding a multitude (6 actually) of similarly (within 2fps) performing NF4 boards to be bordering on pointless?
I know that NF4 is the current de-facto standard, but it would be interresting to have these other results included.
How is it that every motherboard reviewed since the beginning of this year seems to have better and better overclocking results? i just find it hard to believe that boards from sapphire, jetway and ASRock seem to outperform boards from EPox DFI etcetc.
We are told by industry analysts the DFI nForce4 boards are now the top seller among all Socket 939 boards. Since no one had heard of DFI 2 or 3 years ago in the AMD market, other manufacturers have been paying attention to what got DFI to this sales level. There are many clever overclocking tricks used on the DFI boards and we are told other mfgs have been x-raying the board and trying to do even better in performance in their new chipsets and boards.
ATI had a pretty basic Rx480 motherboard in August 04, but they devoted a whole development team at targeting the enthusiast. We suspect that Jetway, ULi and other recent great overclockers did not get to these OC levels by accident.
Well, AMD's integrated northbridge seems to help out a lot since chipset manufacturers dont have to deal with the mem controller. Also, most of the new chipsets have been aimed at the "enthusiast" market so of course they all overclock better than the old via chipsets.
For those that like this board so much, one bad bios flash and bye-bye mobo...Asrock doesn't support bios boot block recovery. They use 2 phase power regulators instead of the industry standard of 3 and there is no voltage adjustment regardless of what is claimed. Asrock cuts alot of corners resulting in horrible quality mobos. Even ECS is a lot better lately.
As we reported in the review, this board is 3-phase and not 2-phase as you state. Please look carefully at the board pictures.
There is no doubt ASRock is a value brand built down to a price point, and that means corners are cut. However, the value component is sometimes a much cheaper chipset. We report what we find in our tests, and you are certainly right to point out the potential downsides of buying a value motherboard.
The board might be value in everything, but certainly isn't in performance. And the fact that it overclocks so well could suggest it is thought out well, and that stability (at least for the board brand new) is not at all a problem
What about SATA, USB, sound, and ethernet performance. This seems like an incomplete review to me. I find these side performance issues are becoming more and more important. The RS480 for example has lousy SATA and USB performance which would rule it out for some who use those heavily.
We covered ULi SATA, USB, IDE, and other peripheral performance in our review of the 2nd ULi cReference Board at http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2489">http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2489. It seemed redundant to test features in the chipset again or external chips that we have just benchmarked. The ULI IDE and SATA performance were top-notch, and the USB was competetive (much better than ATI). Please refer to the ULi review for chipset benchmarks.
We did not test the JMicron SATA2 3Gb performance since we have not yet standardized on a 3Gb test platform. The Holy Grail at AnandTech is that a benchmark by itself is an advertisement - it takes 2 or more benchmarks compared for a review. AnandTech has been working on a chipset performance comparison for storage, and you will soon see comparison benchmarks for SATA2 performance in addition to SATA1.
AFter rereading the review of the ULi ref board rev 2, I did notice that the ULi reference board had used the Realtek ALC655, and this board (ASRock) lists the ALC850. I don't really know much about this topic, but based on the review of the reference board I would be a little bit worried about the CPU utilization of the ALC850? This is frankly critical to budget gamers I think. One doesn't want to use the on board audio if it will use 30% CPU. Can you enlighten me Wesley?
If this is priced equivalent and not more (and we know that won't be the case) then it might be worthwhile. If it costs $50-100 more, it would be no better than selling one's current AGP gpu and picking up a PCI-I gpu and ignoring any issues that might come from this freaky PCI-E/AGP/M2 board. :)
Newegg's cheapest Socket 939 PCIe (RS480 in this case) mobo is $66, and it's an ECS (ECS is on my blacklist).
The cheapest non-ECS board that has Socket 939 and PCIe is this, and the nearest board in that class (non-ECS, S939, PCIe) is $75.
Also, keep in mind, in performance, it keeps up with the big dogs. So, let's make it RS480s and NF4Us as the competition. Now, you're talking $80 for a Biostar NF4U, $84 for a Jetway RS480 (again, the ECS board is an RS480...)
So, it's DEFINITELY worth it.
BTW, this can run dual-GPU (not SLI). Wanted to run four heads, with two 3D render jobs running at once? This is the board to get. (Heck, ULi calls it "triple graphics technology", because of good ol' PCI GPUs. For that matter, there's PCIe 1x GPUs...)
This is marvelous :) !! for 68 $?? AsRock my be crazy by setting that price range. In any case, This is great for me and users who are in a similar situation, those who didn't want to blow wads of cash on another high end pci-e card for an upgrade. This is great news, kudos to everyone who made the product and a great review too from anandtech.com
I don't know what to say other than "awesome". It's been a long time in coming, but finally there's a solution out there for all of us high-end AGP owners that don't want to ditch last year's $350 video card just yet. ASRock has also already released one new BIOS version since the board was introduced, so I'm not worried about small issues.
Unless another manufacturer comes out with a board based on this chipset/southbridge within the next month or two, this will be the board I buy to finally move into the Athlon 64 world. For $65, you can't really go wrong.
At its time, I bought a SIS735 board (with RAM support of up to PC133 and PC-3200, two memory slots for each). This looks like the new "transition" board to have :)
"It will likely sell very well regardless, as many will also notice the slot for a future M2 expansion board."
.....A slot that likely will never be populated and even more likely not to be supported by Asrock in the future. But hey, if it helps sell a few thousand more mobo's, more power to them.
I purchased this board about two weeks ago, and have been happy ever since. I have not had any of the boot problems that anandtech had. When I get home I can check my BIOS version (that is, if anyone is interested)
The new southbridge that ULi is going to release is supposedly a pin for pin replacement for the 1567, and as it'll have SATA-II and more advanced raid functions etc, IF I get a crossover board that'll be the one.
This is the best review of a product I've wanted to purchse, you tested everything I needed you to. The only downside is it came out 22 hours after I bought the mobo.;)
I feel a lot better now about getting this board and buying another gig of Patriot XBLs for it.
I've read that this motherboard only allows 1.55v on 130nm chips, 1.45v on single-core 90nm and 1.35v on dual-core. This is probably to protect the CPU's VRMs but it should be pointed out.
We did check that an X2 operated on the ASRock, but we did not check to see if the voltage adjustments shifted. I tried a 4800+ x2 again, which has a default voltage of 1.35V, and the voltage adjustments now top out at 1.40v. It appears the slding voltage adjustments set themselves to .05v more than the voltage specification. A wider range at the top would definitely be better fro many users.
If they can fix their boot issues, this board is perfect for people like me who have a decent office computer (P4 2.0, 756 megs) and who would like to do a little gaming now, and more down the road. This board would allow me to take advantage of any great AGP deal that came along and add it to my current system, play some previous generation games, and then later keep my GPU and upgrade to a much desired A64 system when I have more time/money. Thanks ASRock
Like I said. I have a asrock that has video problems and ram issues. I have talked to others with the same problem yet Asrock has done nothign and does not respond to anybody. So I would not buy it until you hear soemthing else or you will be like myself and other Asrock owners hopeing and waiting. Mind you the boards are cheap, but the basic stuff should still work
Everything you have said is not true, I have owned a asrock k7s8x, asrock k7s8xe+, asrock k8 upgrade 760 gx and now a asrock 939 dual sata 2. I have found their support to be excellent and they only release bios updates when they are needed which is not often because their motherboards are very reliable. My first asrock motherboard the k7s8x was purchased in 2003 and it is still in use today and running perfectly.
Can AGP and PCI-express video cards run side by side in the same motherboard at the same time? Could I 2 PCI-express cards and my AGP 9700pro all at the same time for some Triple monotor action?
There are uli 1695 boards that do support that (their reference board, for instance), however this asrock board only has (1) PCIe x16 port.
Also, while running a setup with multiple cards, you would probably want only chipsets from one company, to minimize driver troubles (an ATI PCIe card to go with your 9700)
I just glanced back at the reference board review, and the feat was achieved through the use of a riser card out of the x16 slot, covering the AGP slot in the process.
ULi touts a "triple graphics interface" meaning PCIe, AGP8x, and PCI, I am unsure of the compatability with an SLI + AGP setup, but I'm sure some inventful motherboard manufacturer will put it into practice if it's feasible
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56 Comments
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poohbear - Thursday, January 19, 2006 - link
btw, this mobo does NOT support any cpu frequency above 274 w/ any of the official bios' (1.2 and after), so if u buy it thinking u can do 275x9 (or more) u wont. complained to ASRock about this but it falls on deaf ears. :(radiodad - Tuesday, December 6, 2005 - link
Interesting how posts end abruptly and not seeing any new posts on this board since September seems rather odd. Or is that normal? I just started researching my second build in 3+ years. That begs the questions of whether to buy this board, if anyone is still satisfied having bought one, and has this chipset held up? I want to multitask with a 64 X2 3800+ or 4000+ but if nobody is excited about this board anymore, then maybe I should go for the gusto and spend $200 on an Asus, but I rather not. Any comments?Krakn3Dfx - Saturday, December 17, 2005 - link
I picked up one about 2 weeks ago as a refurb from newegg. Worked great, I'm currently running an Opteron 146 on it @ 2.5GHz, you can learn a lot more about it over at ocworkbench.com, as they have a pretty extensive forums based on ASrock products. I still had some of the cold boot issues with the 1.2 bios, but upgraded to the 1.5 bios and they went away. Couldn't be happier with my $42 investment :).Wesley Fink - Friday, September 9, 2005 - link
ASRock has posted a 1.20 BIOS update at their website dated 9/02/05. We flashed an update to 1.2 and the Cold Boot problems have disappeared. If you are experiencing cold boot issues please update to BIOS 1.2. We will also add an update to the review.dlmetzger - Saturday, September 17, 2005 - link
What exactly is a 'cold boot' issue.The article stated "We did find extremely irritating cold boot issues with the ASRock in our testing. Even at standard stock speeds and settings, the 939Dual often required several starts to boot,"
I purchased the 939Dual for a new computer and it will not start when the power button is pushed. The pins on the System Power Header for the PWRBTN# to GND measure 3.37 Vdc.
Are these separate problems?
Fam Money - Monday, September 12, 2005 - link
Wesley, are you still able to achieve the same or better oc with the 1.20 BIOS? Which BIOS did you originally use?TIA
ElFenix - Friday, September 9, 2005 - link
does the new bios do anything else, like add more voltage adjustments?thanks!
ElJefe - Saturday, September 10, 2005 - link
I wish freakin dual core would drop to sane prices. the 4400 looks like the nice semi-future proofing system. This board is perfect for dual core from scratch setup, only good board out there that is garaunteed to work with dual core out of the box.Ocworkbench.com didnt experience cold boot problems. they use 1.20.
StillTickin - Thursday, September 8, 2005 - link
Hi,I'm planning to buy this board once it comes in stock again. I would of course eventually use PC3200 RAM or better on this board.
But I would like to know, in the interest of saving money for now, if my 512MB of PC2100 RAM that I have on my current motherboard (an FIC AD11) will work on this board for the time being.
Not a big deal if I have to buy new RAM right now, but it would help if that can wait a month or two, since I'm on a budget.
Thanks,
Aly
SynthDude2001 - Thursday, September 8, 2005 - link
I don't have any first-hand experience with A64 platforms (yet), but the PC2100 should be fine as long as you set the RAM speed to 133 instead of 200 (which I'm not entirely sure how to do on this board, you may have to get the details from someone else). I suppose it's possible that it might not boot because the default is 200, but it won't hurt to try.touchmyichi - Friday, September 9, 2005 - link
think i'll have any luck w/ an XP-120?frodin - Thursday, September 8, 2005 - link
Wesley: Did you try checking/ replacing the BIOS backup battery? I have started experiencing coldboot/BIOS issues myself (and actually only when my flat is really cold(!)), and I am running everything @ stock with 2x 512mb Crucial Ballistix ram. Everest reads the battery voltage as 0.3v /this could of course be wrong), I'll try and replace the battery with another one that I know works in another board. I am running the 1.10 (stock) BIOS.Just a thought.
mindless1 - Monday, September 12, 2005 - link
Everest's report is unquestionably wrong, you'd lose all your bios settings long before the battery dropped so far as 0.3Vceefka - Thursday, September 8, 2005 - link
Now if ULi can include SATA II, NCQ and Gb LAN and someone makes a board with that chipset including 1394b (on a TI controller), I'd buy it.JustAnAverageGuy - Wednesday, September 7, 2005 - link
Would have liked to see some Battlefield 2 benchmarks, but I agree with the poster above saying that having 5 or 6 boards with the same chipset (and same results) is a bit redundant.- JaAG
Nighteye2 - Wednesday, September 7, 2005 - link
Considering the cold boot issues increase with 4 DIMMs, could they be specific to the RAM? Could the board be more compatible with other brands of RAM?Wesley Fink - Wednesday, September 7, 2005 - link
The RAM used for testing is always specifed on our test setup page, and I also mentioned it several times in the article. It is our standard test memory, OCZ PC3200 Platinum Rev. 2, based on Samsung TCCD memory chips. Samsung TCCD is also available from many other Enthusiast memory companies like Corsair, Mushkin, G. Skill, Patriot, Geil, and many others.Nighteye2 - Wednesday, September 7, 2005 - link
I know and read that. It's just that I've had an experience with RAM incompatibility myself. The RAM worked fine on other boards, without errors, yet gave several errors on the board I was using. Switching the RAM to another brand made the board work perfectly.It's been a while ago, so that's why I can't mention specifics, but not all boards are fully compatible with all sticks of RAM. Does ASRock recommend using RAM from several vendors, and if so, is the OCZ RAM on that list?
OvErHeAtInG - Thursday, September 8, 2005 - link
That's what I thought, it probably just doesn't like TCCD.WeaselBlade - Wednesday, September 7, 2005 - link
Anyone have any idea whether it will be possible to run an agp/pcie crossfire setup, using a PCIE master card and AGP slave?Furen - Wednesday, September 7, 2005 - link
Well, there are no master cards to test this on but I think HKPC did this and it worked ok (with a hacked driver, most likely). Performance wasnt that hot, though.murak - Wednesday, September 7, 2005 - link
I have had this mobo for like 2 days and I am VERY happy with it! It was the only way for my unlocked 6800LE to come along to the 939 platform (and not be crippled in the process) Currently running my 3200+ @ 10x240=2400mhz 1.45v wich was way more than I expected. Corsair XL @ 2-2-2-5 (will change the last to 10, tnx Anandtech!) dualchannel @ "High" memvolt.I have flashed the new 1.20 BIOS and have had NO stability issues (as with my last Asrock board, a K7S8X) Time will tell if the quality is good enough. 7.1 surround and SATA II with NRQ is a nice bonus for me wich I will use in time.
At this time I can´t see a better "bang-per-buck"-board. Nice one Asrock/ULi!
WT - Wednesday, September 7, 2005 - link
Thanks for the detailed post, Wes ! It stands to reason that any vendor that wants to stay in business will 'follow the leader' and use those same optimized enhancements to make their product a better buy. Like you said, no one had heard of DFI 3 years ago, and Abit and Asus were everyones top choice. With bad news from the Abit camp lately, I would not be surprised to see them fold like a bad poker hand. I wouldn't <i>LIKE</i> it, but this is a tough industry to make a go of it too. I'm currently happy as a clam with my Soltek NF3 board, but this Asrock board is my #1 choice when my next upgrade comes along.FriedRiceBob - Wednesday, September 7, 2005 - link
I liked this article, this is type of board that I'm contemplating for an upgrade.However, I would like to see, for a more fully rounded comparison, a benchmark of an equivalent NF3 939 AGP system, and maybe a KT800, included in the results. Am I the only one that seems to think that inlcuding a multitude (6 actually) of similarly (within 2fps) performing NF4 boards to be bordering on pointless?
I know that NF4 is the current de-facto standard, but it would be interresting to have these other results included.
KayKay - Wednesday, September 7, 2005 - link
How is it that every motherboard reviewed since the beginning of this year seems to have better and better overclocking results? i just find it hard to believe that boards from sapphire, jetway and ASRock seem to outperform boards from EPox DFI etcetc.Wesley Fink - Wednesday, September 7, 2005 - link
We are told by industry analysts the DFI nForce4 boards are now the top seller among all Socket 939 boards. Since no one had heard of DFI 2 or 3 years ago in the AMD market, other manufacturers have been paying attention to what got DFI to this sales level. There are many clever overclocking tricks used on the DFI boards and we are told other mfgs have been x-raying the board and trying to do even better in performance in their new chipsets and boards.ATI had a pretty basic Rx480 motherboard in August 04, but they devoted a whole development team at targeting the enthusiast. We suspect that Jetway, ULi and other recent great overclockers did not get to these OC levels by accident.
Furen - Wednesday, September 7, 2005 - link
Well, AMD's integrated northbridge seems to help out a lot since chipset manufacturers dont have to deal with the mem controller. Also, most of the new chipsets have been aimed at the "enthusiast" market so of course they all overclock better than the old via chipsets.Tetsuro - Wednesday, September 7, 2005 - link
For those that like this board so much, one bad bios flash and bye-bye mobo...Asrock doesn't support bios boot block recovery. They use 2 phase power regulators instead of the industry standard of 3 and there is no voltage adjustment regardless of what is claimed. Asrock cuts alot of corners resulting in horrible quality mobos. Even ECS is a lot better lately.Wesley Fink - Wednesday, September 7, 2005 - link
As we reported in the review, this board is 3-phase and not 2-phase as you state. Please look carefully at the board pictures.There is no doubt ASRock is a value brand built down to a price point, and that means corners are cut. However, the value component is sometimes a much cheaper chipset. We report what we find in our tests, and you are certainly right to point out the potential downsides of buying a value motherboard.
Calin - Wednesday, September 7, 2005 - link
The board might be value in everything, but certainly isn't in performance. And the fact that it overclocks so well could suggest it is thought out well, and that stability (at least for the board brand new) is not at all a problemtayhimself - Wednesday, September 7, 2005 - link
What about SATA, USB, sound, and ethernet performance. This seems like an incomplete review to me. I find these side performance issues are becoming more and more important. The RS480 for example has lousy SATA and USB performance which would rule it out for some who use those heavily.Wesley Fink - Wednesday, September 7, 2005 - link
We covered ULi SATA, USB, IDE, and other peripheral performance in our review of the 2nd ULi cReference Board at http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2489">http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2489. It seemed redundant to test features in the chipset again or external chips that we have just benchmarked. The ULI IDE and SATA performance were top-notch, and the USB was competetive (much better than ATI). Please refer to the ULi review for chipset benchmarks.We did not test the JMicron SATA2 3Gb performance since we have not yet standardized on a 3Gb test platform. The Holy Grail at AnandTech is that a benchmark by itself is an advertisement - it takes 2 or more benchmarks compared for a review. AnandTech has been working on a chipset performance comparison for storage, and you will soon see comparison benchmarks for SATA2 performance in addition to SATA1.
OvErHeAtInG - Wednesday, September 7, 2005 - link
AFter rereading the review of the ULi ref board rev 2, I did notice that the ULi reference board had used the Realtek ALC655, and this board (ASRock) lists the ALC850. I don't really know much about this topic, but based on the review of the reference board I would be a little bit worried about the CPU utilization of the ALC850? This is frankly critical to budget gamers I think. One doesn't want to use the on board audio if it will use 30% CPU. Can you enlighten me Wesley?Tnx
tayhimself - Wednesday, September 7, 2005 - link
Thanks for this reply and the others. Good to see the reviewers checking comments. Props!yacoub - Wednesday, September 7, 2005 - link
If this is priced equivalent and not more (and we know that won't be the case) then it might be worthwhile. If it costs $50-100 more, it would be no better than selling one's current AGP gpu and picking up a PCI-I gpu and ignoring any issues that might come from this freaky PCI-E/AGP/M2 board. :)bhtooefr - Wednesday, September 7, 2005 - link
It's $68 at Newegg.Newegg's cheapest Socket 939 PCIe (RS480 in this case) mobo is $66, and it's an ECS (ECS is on my blacklist).
The cheapest non-ECS board that has Socket 939 and PCIe is this, and the nearest board in that class (non-ECS, S939, PCIe) is $75.
Also, keep in mind, in performance, it keeps up with the big dogs. So, let's make it RS480s and NF4Us as the competition. Now, you're talking $80 for a Biostar NF4U, $84 for a Jetway RS480 (again, the ECS board is an RS480...)
So, it's DEFINITELY worth it.
BTW, this can run dual-GPU (not SLI). Wanted to run four heads, with two 3D render jobs running at once? This is the board to get. (Heck, ULi calls it "triple graphics technology", because of good ol' PCI GPUs. For that matter, there's PCIe 1x GPUs...)
Powermoloch - Wednesday, September 7, 2005 - link
This is marvelous :) !! for 68 $?? AsRock my be crazy by setting that price range. In any case, This is great for me and users who are in a similar situation, those who didn't want to blow wads of cash on another high end pci-e card for an upgrade. This is great news, kudos to everyone who made the product and a great review too from anandtech.comSynthDude2001 - Wednesday, September 7, 2005 - link
I don't know what to say other than "awesome". It's been a long time in coming, but finally there's a solution out there for all of us high-end AGP owners that don't want to ditch last year's $350 video card just yet. ASRock has also already released one new BIOS version since the board was introduced, so I'm not worried about small issues.Unless another manufacturer comes out with a board based on this chipset/southbridge within the next month or two, this will be the board I buy to finally move into the Athlon 64 world. For $65, you can't really go wrong.
Calin - Wednesday, September 7, 2005 - link
At its time, I bought a SIS735 board (with RAM support of up to PC133 and PC-3200, two memory slots for each). This looks like the new "transition" board to have :)flatblastard - Wednesday, September 7, 2005 - link
"It will likely sell very well regardless, as many will also notice the slot for a future M2 expansion board.".....A slot that likely will never be populated and even more likely not to be supported by Asrock in the future. But hey, if it helps sell a few thousand more mobo's, more power to them.
MADDIE - Wednesday, September 7, 2005 - link
I purchased this board about two weeks ago, and have been happy ever since. I have not had any of the boot problems that anandtech had. When I get home I can check my BIOS version (that is, if anyone is interested)Pete84 - Wednesday, September 7, 2005 - link
The new southbridge that ULi is going to release is supposedly a pin for pin replacement for the 1567, and as it'll have SATA-II and more advanced raid functions etc, IF I get a crossover board that'll be the one.Furen - Wednesday, September 7, 2005 - link
I was under the impression that the new southbridge would be PCI-e only, though...Calin - Wednesday, September 7, 2005 - link
I'd say the AGP/PCIe is in the northbridge, not in the southbridge.Wesley Fink - Wednesday, September 7, 2005 - link
The PCIe is in the Northbridge on ULi chipsets, but the AGP is a M1567 Southbridge feature. If you combine a different Southbridge with the M1695 Northbridge you will not have AGP. You may want to take a closer look at the ULi chipset diagrams we published at http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2471&am...">http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2471&am...Fam Money - Wednesday, September 7, 2005 - link
This is the best review of a product I've wanted to purchse, you tested everything I needed you to. The only downside is it came out 22 hours after I bought the mobo.;)I feel a lot better now about getting this board and buying another gig of Patriot XBLs for it.
Thanks for the review.
Furen - Wednesday, September 7, 2005 - link
I've read that this motherboard only allows 1.55v on 130nm chips, 1.45v on single-core 90nm and 1.35v on dual-core. This is probably to protect the CPU's VRMs but it should be pointed out.Wesley Fink - Wednesday, September 7, 2005 - link
We did check that an X2 operated on the ASRock, but we did not check to see if the voltage adjustments shifted. I tried a 4800+ x2 again, which has a default voltage of 1.35V, and the voltage adjustments now top out at 1.40v. It appears the slding voltage adjustments set themselves to .05v more than the voltage specification. A wider range at the top would definitely be better fro many users.I will add this information to the review.
Sunrise089 - Wednesday, September 7, 2005 - link
If they can fix their boot issues, this board is perfect for people like me who have a decent office computer (P4 2.0, 756 megs) and who would like to do a little gaming now, and more down the road. This board would allow me to take advantage of any great AGP deal that came along and add it to my current system, play some previous generation games, and then later keep my GPU and upgrade to a much desired A64 system when I have more time/money. Thanks ASRockMarlin1975 - Wednesday, September 7, 2005 - link
Like I said. I have a asrock that has video problems and ram issues. I have talked to others with the same problem yet Asrock has done nothign and does not respond to anybody. So I would not buy it until you hear soemthing else or you will be like myself and other Asrock owners hopeing and waiting. Mind you the boards are cheap, but the basic stuff should still workMarlin1975 - Wednesday, September 7, 2005 - link
Just be careful. Asrock rarely upadtes their BIOS, has no support, etc... So if there is a problem, you better fix it yourself.nemesismk2 - Friday, September 9, 2005 - link
Everything you have said is not true, I have owned a asrock k7s8x, asrock k7s8xe+, asrock k8 upgrade 760 gx and now a asrock 939 dual sata 2. I have found their support to be excellent and they only release bios updates when they are needed which is not often because their motherboards are very reliable. My first asrock motherboard the k7s8x was purchased in 2003 and it is still in use today and running perfectly.Googer - Wednesday, September 7, 2005 - link
Dear Wesley,Can AGP and PCI-express video cards run side by side in the same motherboard at the same time? Could I 2 PCI-express cards and my AGP 9700pro all at the same time for some Triple monotor action?
Thanks.
FriedRiceBob - Thursday, September 8, 2005 - link
There are uli 1695 boards that do support that (their reference board, for instance), however this asrock board only has (1) PCIe x16 port.Also, while running a setup with multiple cards, you would probably want only chipsets from one company, to minimize driver troubles (an ATI PCIe card to go with your 9700)
FriedRiceBob - Thursday, September 8, 2005 - link
erp.I just glanced back at the reference board review, and the feat was achieved through the use of a riser card out of the x16 slot, covering the AGP slot in the process.
ULi touts a "triple graphics interface" meaning PCIe, AGP8x, and PCI, I am unsure of the compatability with an SLI + AGP setup, but I'm sure some inventful motherboard manufacturer will put it into practice if it's feasible
touchmyichi - Wednesday, September 7, 2005 - link
looks awesome! Perfect timing since my Neo 2 just bit it.