Long-term Impressions

Overall, the long-term impressions of the ASRock X48TurboTwins-WiFi are mixed but lean to the favourable side of things. On one hand, the solid capacitors and overall build quality are quite strong and the chipset runs cool, while on the other voltage regulation and BIOS need work. Very low chipset temperatures and motherboard heat in general are nice to see staying low, especially after reviewing the last 680i board where the chipset exceeded 80C in some cases. Cool parts are generally durable parts and we have no long-term worries whatsoever seeing a chipset running under 40C.

The BIOS has had one update since the release which fixed the issue with audio, however some other bugs and issues remain. First, the dividers have some issues and booting with settings that should work in theory isn’t always going to happen. Second, the BIOS is very basic for a board targeted at enthusiasts. It is almost laughable to see no secondary RAM timings at all and voltage settings labelled as high, medium and low. Hopefully in the next BIOS update ASRock will fix the memory dividers, add some additional memory settings, and change the NB, SB, and VTT voltages to actual voltages instead of settings like “high” which really leave too much guessing room for many users comfort.


Conclusion

Once again, ASRock has a sure winner if you look at board features. ASRock provides its customers with dual 16x PCIE 2.0 slots, 7.1 HD audio, WiFi capabilities, overclocking and monitoring software and many other perks. All the features tested in this review worked as promised and setup was quite straightforward. As seen in the CrossFire tests, the improvements when running CrossFire on an X48 board and an overclocked system were nothing short of outstanding. The board was also relatively strong in overclocking for a budget board and the dual 16x CrossFire plus hybrid DDR2/DDR3 is just icing on the cake.

When looking a bit further we saw that the BIOS was quite basic and there were a few issues with some of the memory dividers but overall most things work as they should. One plus is ASRock came out with the second BIOS for this board only a few weeks after the first, which shows they are willing to address issues quickly. The voltage regulation also could use some work as we saw a vdroop of 0.07v. When you set voltage to 1.56v in the BIOS and end up with 1.44v under load; that is a little concerning, especially when the max vcore available is 1.6v. This was also under a relatively low power 45nm duo, throw a 65nm quad in the works and droop would only be worse.

In spite of a few minor shortcomings, in terms of overclocking, the board really excelled. Stability over 500FSB and rock-solid stability at 4200Mhz with a 3000Mhz chip is impressive. ASRock’s OC Tuner also helps a lot with tweaking voltages and overclocking FSB and PCIE. Add a second GPU and run your CPU and memory at overclocked speeds and you could be seeing double the FPS than you are used to!

The build quality of the board is much improved over older ASRock designs, with all solid capacitors. However, the 24 pin ATX power connector is still located next to the CPU and may be an obstacle for users with bottom mounted power supplies or larger CPU heatsinks. It would also have been nice to have a little more space between the PCI-E slots to allow air cooled cards some breathing room or water cooling users some room to manoeuvre.

ASRock also gets points for coming to market with an X48 motherboard with a sub-$200 price tag. The other options for this latest and greatest chipset by Intel are very expensive, some nearly double the price. Without sacrificing features, ASRock put out a solid board for a first crack at X48. At this price the X48TurboTwins-WiFi should grab the attention of users that want to run full 16x CrossFire on board that is no slouch for overclocking.

So to sum all this up we have to say that this board is excellent for users who want a solid upgrade for their aging systems or even for the enthusiast looking to gain that extra 30% in performance by running an overclocked system. Hybrid DDR2/DDR3 and CrossFire only make this board more attractive. Is the extreme overclocker that uses sub-zero cooling to produce global benchmark results going to buy this board? Probably not. But for a mainstream overclocking enthusiast, the ASRock X48TurboTwins-WiFi makes up for the few shortcomings with an abundance of features and the cheapest price on a X48 chipset board we have saw thus far. That said, we give this product our Dam Good Value Award.


Pros

- CrossFire support with two 16x PCIE 2.0 slots
- Hybrid DDR2/DDR3
- HD 7.1 audio
- Quality design, with solid capacitors
- Very cool running chipset
- 45nm and FSB1600/1333 CPU support with stock BIOS
- Good overclocker – 4200Mhz easily
- Price!


Cons

- Limited BIOS options
- Few BIOS issues with memory dividers
- Voltage regulation could be better
- Board layout (oddly placed 24pin, close PCIE slots)
- Very limited availability at this time

Thanks to ASRock for sending us this motherboard