ASRock 939Dual-SATA2: First Retail ULi PCIe/AGP
by Wesley Fink on September 7, 2005 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Gaming Performance
There were no glaring deficiencies in gaming when we tested the ULi Reference Boards, but we were surprised that AGP outperformed PCIe and wondered aloud whether some future manufacturer would better tune the PCIe performance. If you look carefully, it's clear that ASROCK has done just that. AGP performance is a bit lower than the outstanding results that we achieved with the ULi Reference, but PCIe has now risen to the top of the charts. PCIe gaming results are now among the best that we have seen with any AMD Socket 939 board.
It is clear, after our testing of both ULi Reference and ASRock boards, that the ULi M1695/M1567 is capable of both top AGP performance and top PCIe performance. This means the ULi boards have proven that they can be tops in both areas. The capabilities are there with the ULi chipset, but it is up to the manufacturer to tweak the BIOS and/or board to achieve top performance.
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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.