Asrock + AMD = ?

DogSoldierDogSoldier The heart of radical Amish country..
edited January 2006 in Hardware
I'm looking for opinions on Asrock boards for Socket A (462) AMD procs. I'm not looking for gossip or second hand opinions, but feedback from people who have experience with these boards. Thanks.

Comments

  • muddocktormuddocktor
    edited January 2006
    I can't give you any advice on their socket 462 stuff, but I bought the Dual SATA2 A64 board, which has both AGP and PCI-e X16 slots that work at their rated bus speeds (northbridge actually supports both standards) and so far it's been rock solid. It's not an overclocker's dream, with limited voltage options in bios, but all in all a good, solid board. I just got in from the rig a few minutes ago and that's the first machine I checked and Everest Home Edition shows an uptime of 13 days and 19 hours, which corresponds to the reboot I did before going offshore 2 weeks ago. And that's running an X2 4400 at 2430 MHz, which is overclocked by 230 MHz over stock.

    So how does this help you, DS? I don't know if it directly applies to your question, but it's indicative that they can build a decent mobo if they put their mind to it.;)
  • DogSoldierDogSoldier The heart of radical Amish country..
    edited January 2006
    I appreciate your opinion muddoctor.
  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited January 2006
    I have experience with a customer computer that had a socket a ASROCK motherboard. The board failed inexplicably and had to be replaced. My unscientific opinion is "budget quality" - as in you get what you pay for.
  • DogSoldierDogSoldier The heart of radical Amish country..
    edited January 2006
    prime, I'm disqualifying your opinion for being, in your words, "unscientific."
  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited January 2006
    100% failure rate in my experience ;)
  • DogSoldierDogSoldier The heart of radical Amish country..
    edited January 2006
    A little background - It's my uncles computer and the original MSI Mobo went boom. In looking at a replacement, we want to reuse as much as possible to keep costs down, this means we need a Socket A 266 FSB, 168 Pin SDRAM (Not DDR) and 4xAGP capable board. I wanted to go Abit or Asus. That's not possible. We live in a rural area and no computer store within 60 miles has what we need, except one. They are looking to get some Socket A boards that can seat 168 Pin SDRAM, these boards will be Asrock (What model? I won't know til Friday) I've also been promised, that if they can't get what we need, they will sell us a different DDR board and we can swap our 168 pin for new DDR, for $20.00.

    To confuse things further, my Uncle is also looking at Mobo+CPU bundles at Tiger Direct. He's found a Abit KV7-V + Sempron 2500 for $161.99. He'd also get some Kingston 333mhz PC2700 512ram for $58.99. Evidently, this fits within his budget. Anyone have any opinions about the Abit KV7-V?

    My uncle is the type of guy that likes to have options.
  • GHoosdumGHoosdum Icrontian
    edited January 2006
    I'm going to pre-disqualify my answer by saying I've never owned one, but in case you didn't know: Asrock is build by Asus, it's their value brand. Theoretically their build quality should be the same, they simply use less expensive chipsets. Of course, every manufacturer has been known to put out a lemon, as in prime's case with the customer board he spoke of.
  • jradminjradmin North Kackalaki
    edited January 2006
    I've never owned an Asrock board of any kind...but I have been putting them in my budget systems for customers for over 2 years now and none of them have ever had any issues. As far as I'm concerned that makes them rock solid. I also use them in the back office computers for the resturaunts I support and havent had any issues yet either. I don't really have any socket A ecperience with those boards, but my general opinion is that Asrock is a diecent board if your watching your $$$$.
  • DogSoldierDogSoldier The heart of radical Amish country..
    edited January 2006
    Well, the supplier wanted $100 for an $55 Asrock board, needless to say, I didn't buy the board and frankly, I doubt I'll ever deal with that guy again. Luckily my step dad, Ron, had an extra A7N8X-E and some DDR kickin around. We used that instead of buying a new board. We diagnosed the original problem to be the PSU, using Asus PC Probe, we watched the voltage rails fluctuating wildly at stock speeds. So we picked him up a new 500w PSU. The cpu also happened to be a DLT3C JIUHB stepping, so I knew it'd be a good overclocker. I got a new, larger Foxconn HSF and began to overclock it. It isn't my computer so the OC isn't radical. A slight voltage bump, a higher multi and boom, my Uncles 1800 is now running at 2200 speed. the temps are 41c idle, 45c Folding. I used Folding@Home to check stability and left it installed, after explaining to my uncle what Folding was. Which is great. Too bad he doesn't run it 24/7
Sign In or Register to comment.