Comment Thread for ASRock 4Core1333-eSATA2 Review

[SKYMTL]

This is our first motherboard review in a while and this time we are looking at ASRock's 4Core1333-eSATA2 board.

You can have a look at the review here: ASRock 4Core1333-eSATA2 R5.0 Motherboard Review

Please use this thread to post your questions, comments, rants and raves.

[Ugly n Grey]

Originally Posted by SKYMTL

This is our first motherboard review in a while and this time we are looking at ASRock's 4Core1333-eSATA2 board.

Good review and well written conclusion. The ASRock board based on the 570 chipset is getting much better reviews and turning in some decent performance numbers even beating out x38 based boards. Based on your review I'll give this one a miss as things like crackling sound and a chopped BIOS are something I personally have no time for. Good one

[Mr. Friendly]

interesting board with a well done review, but I have a few thoughts on it. 1) even tho it's a budget minded board, it's usually nice to put it up against higher quality components, to show where it actually falls in the pack. the inclusion of the Q6600 was brilliant as it shows that the concerns for quad core operations, even tho you professed some concerns about the power connectivity, is possible and still performs. the second is a bit bigger as a budget board would never run a quad core, but it sure would run something a lot better then a 6200. it would have been a lot better to get your hands on a HD2400 or 8400GS. :)

those naggling things aside, very well done! :D

[SKYMTL]

Originally Posted by Mr. Friendly

interesting board with a well done review, but I have a few thoughts on it. 1) even tho it's a budget minded board, it's usually nice to put it up against higher quality components, to show where it actually falls in the pack.

Considering our fair AkG just upgraded from all AMD systems, this was the best we could do. Stay tuned NEXT time.....

the second is a bit bigger as a budget board would never run a quad core,

I don't agree. As quads become more and more affordable, people are starting to put them in more budget-oriented boards.

but it sure would run something a lot better then a 6200. it would have been a lot better to get your hands on a HD2400 or 8400GS. :)

Once again, I don't agree. No matter what GPU you use, performance will scale accordingly. Some people will use the 6200, some will use the 2600 and still others may use 8800-series cards. We can't predict what EVERYONE will use.

[Mr. Friendly]

Originally Posted by SKYMTL

I don't agree. As quads become more and more affordable, people are starting to put them in more budget-oriented boards.

that's just it SKY, they're not affordable, not when a budget CPU runs in the neighbourhood of $60 - $150. quad's are a lot cheaper then when they first debut, but they're still the premium CPU and until they're not premium (and with a new whack load of dual cores out, that's a ways away), they're not going to be budget in anything but the $699 Quad Core TigerDirect specials.

still, on the level of CPU performance testing, this was more then fair :)

[SKYMTL]

Originally Posted by Ugly n Grey

Good review and well written conclusion. The ASRock board based on the 570 chipset is getting much better reviews and turning in some decent performance numbers even beating out x38 based boards. Based on your review I'll give this one a miss as things like crackling sound and a chopped BIOS are something I personally have no time for. Good one

Which one is on the 570 chipset?

ASRock Motherboard - Product List

I can't find it....

AMD??

[Ugly n Grey]

my bad it was the 650, techPowerUp! News :: ASRock Launches SLI 650i Motherboard with Yorkfield Support
beats up it's big brother the 780 and one of the guys writing a review for yet another site said it performs slightly better/equal to p35

I have AMD chipsets on the brain lately and am getting my numbers confused, I'm trying to figure out what's involved at the chipset level in Hybrid Crossfire and if it's a first step towards real platform support for stitching together multi GPU's as opposed to just relying on bad driver coding. Apologies

[Mr. Friendly]

Originally Posted by Ugly n Grey

my bad it was the 650, techPowerUp! News :: ASRock Launches SLI 650i Motherboard with Yorkfield Support
beats up it's big brother the 780 and one of the guys writing a review for yet another site said it performs slightly better/equal to p35

I have AMD chipsets on the brain lately and am getting my numbers confused, I'm trying to figure out what's involved at the chipset level in Hybrid Crossfire and if it's a first step towards real platform support for stitching together multi GPU's as opposed to just relying on bad driver coding. Apologies

that's a very nice sounding/looking board, aside from the deficit it suffers with only two 8x PCIe lanes (are they PCIe 2.0?). what's the word on the price point...I didn't see anything in that preview/review.

[SKYMTL]

Originally Posted by Ugly n Grey

my bad it was the 650, techPowerUp! News :: ASRock Launches SLI 650i Motherboard with Yorkfield Support
beats up it's big brother the 780 and one of the guys writing a review for yet another site said it performs slightly better/equal to p35

Yeah. We have one of those on its way supposedly.

[Ugly n Grey]

I'm not all that sure 8x PCIE lanes are a deficit on a budget board. Even 2 8x is a lot of bandwidth when you talk about about SLI with 2 midrange/low range GPU's... In fact, I've been looking for hard numbers I can trust for SLI and Crossfire in terms of uptake and no one really has them (gartner, Meta etc) . But what I do know is the vast majority of these systems are installed with ONE card. Personally, I'm looking for a solid board that will let me OC a yorkie without breaking the bank and doesn't have features I don't want or need. The price of the top line boards is a joke and I think the 680/780 chipsets are lousy (remember I just want to OC the crap out the proc) . AMD has some good value clocking boards around for under 80 bucks with no fancy features. I'd be happy to buy a board that offered the same to my Intel chips that was a 1/3 the price of a Maximus even if it is based on an older chipset.

Sky's review FTW :)