SLI Performance
We installed the supplied SLI bridge connector and the ULi PowerExpress Engine Enabling driver with the NVIDIA 81.98 WHQL driver set for SLI testing. Upon installation of the ULi PowerExpress driver and a system reboot, the NVIDIA 81.98 driver properly recognized our additional MSI 7800GTX video card for SLI operation.
The performance of the ASRock 939SLI32-eSATA2 board in our SLI gaming benchmarks is competitive and, at times, equal to our NVIDIA nForce4 boards. The Doom3 scores are almost equal to that of the nForce4 boards and they do not show the anomaly that we witnessed in the single video card testing. However, the F.E.A.R. scores are lower than what we expected based upon the single card testing. This could be the result of the PowerExpress driver not being fully optimized or a potential issue with power delivery under stress testing.
The performance pattern continues in the synthetic benchmarks with the ASRock board, scoring a victory in the 3DMark06 test although it trailed the top NVIDIA based boards in the other 3DMark tests. We were impressed with the general SLI performance of the ASRock 939SLI32-eSATA2 and did not find any performance or graphic issues in our test suites. We extensively tested the board in SLI operation with several game titles without issue and believe the ULi PowerExpress Engine Enabling driver is a very stable solution at this time. However, please note the board has not been certified by NVIDIA for SLI operation.
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Gary Key - Saturday, March 4, 2006 - link
It works very well on this board with an Opteron. ;-)Kiste - Thursday, March 2, 2006 - link
In the past, Realtek has solved performance issues by reducing the number of buffers and disabling EAX effects without telling anyone. I hope someone will have a really good look at these integrated audio solutions one day, one that isn't just FPS and CPU utilization.
Gary Key - Thursday, March 2, 2006 - link
To date with the HD Codecs, Realtek has not decreased the buffers nor have we noticed changes in EAX2 output except for the positive. It is a very subjective area to comment on but in BF2 I like the sound quality of the 1.29 drivers better but Serious Sam II seems to have improved a great deal in the 1.30 and 1.31 drivers. While the on-board audio solutions are still lacking in most areas compared to the add-in solutions at least the manufacturers (board/chipset) are trying to improve quality in this area instead of pumping out the same old AC97 codecs. If it were not for the cost I think we would have seen several additional Audigy-SE solutions on the motherboards by now and even possibly an improved offering from Creative. While the A-SE is an older chipset it does offer better performance and audio quality in gaming than the current HD codecs from Realtek, C-Media, ADI, and SigmaTel. I really thought the VIA Envy24 series would have had greater market penetration on the motherboards but one can only speculate as to why this never happened. ;->
tjpark1111 - Thursday, March 2, 2006 - link
is it just me, or does this thing have a 20-pin power connector. ?!?!?!??!???kelim - Thursday, March 2, 2006 - link
Yes, the board does in fact use a 20-pin power connection. If you have a 24-pin PSU, this shouldn't be a problem, since most are 20+4-pin, meaning you can detach the extra 4 pins and only use the ones you need. Either that, or the uneeded pins will hang off the side.Gary Key - Thursday, March 2, 2006 - link
You are correct, it is a 20-pin ATC connector as stated in the article. I was surprised also and did a double take after removing it from the box. :)dab - Thursday, March 2, 2006 - link
It says that this motherboard supports ddr2,"(4) x DIMM, max. 4GB, DDR2 400/333/266, non-ECC, un-buffered memory..."
Is this a joke? There's no 240pin slots on that board, only on the riser (which is not included). s939's IMC doesn't support this either..
Am I mistaken?
Gary Key - Thursday, March 2, 2006 - link
I was just changing that to DDR, sorry about the mistake. The AM2 daughter card will have slots for DDR2 memory.
Puddleglum - Thursday, March 2, 2006 - link
The figure is noteworthy, but it's actually the only Firewire 800 test result I can find in AT's reviews.Gary Key - Thursday, March 2, 2006 - link
I know we only have it in a recent review and probably should drop it. I keep hoping Firewire 800 will be implemented on the higher end boards or those designed for HTPC life. :) However, it appears to be a dead-end option at this point and the technology itself seems to be going away without a fight.