ASRock 939Dual-SATA2: First Retail ULi PCIe/AGP
by Wesley Fink on September 7, 2005 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Test Setup
| Performance Test Configuration | |
| Processor(s): | AMD Athlon 64 4000+ (2.4GHz) Socket 939 |
| RAM: | 2 x 512MB OCZ PC3200 Platinum Rev. 2 |
| Hard Drive(s): | Seagate 120GB 7200 RPM SATA (8MB Buffer) |
| Video AGP & IDE Bus Master Drivers: | NVIDIA nForce 6.66 |
| Video Cards: | NVIDIA 6800 Ultra (PCIe) NVIDIA 6800 Ultra (AGP) |
| Video Drivers: | NVIDIA nForce 77.77 |
| Operating System(s): | Windows XP Professional SP2 Direct X 9.0c |
| Motherboards: | ASRock 939Dual-SATA2 (ULi M1695/1567) Sapphire A9RX480 (ATI) Jetway 939GT4-SLI-G (nForce4) ULi AP9567A (M1695/M1567) Abit An8 Fatal1ty Biostar NF4UL-A9 Chaintech VNF4-Ultra DFI LANParty UT nF4 Ultra-D ECS KN1 Extreme Epox 9NPA+ Ultra Winfast NF4UK8AA (Foxconn) Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe DFI LANParty nF4 SLI-DR Gigabyte K8NXP-SLI MSI K8N Neo4/SLI Platinum |
Tests used OCZ PC3200 Platinum Rev. 2, which uses Samsung TCCD chips. All memory ran at the best timings for the chipset in all benchmarks. This means 2-2-2 base timings with the optimal tRAS for the tested chipset - 7 for nForce4/ATI Rx480, and 10 for ULi.
The NVIDIA 6800 Ultra was used for testing both PCIe and AGP performance on the ASRock board, the ULi Reference board, and the Biostar. The 6800 Ultra video cards were tested at the same video timings and differed only in interface - AGP or PCIe. Resolution in all benchmarks is 1280x1024x32 unless otherwise noted.
Results for the ULi chipset boards are in orange for AGP and red for PCIe.
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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.