ASRock 939SLI32-eSATA2: ULi Dual x16 SLI
by Gary Key on March 2, 2006 12:15 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Final Words
The ASRock 939SLI32-eSATA2 offers excellent performance and a wealth of features at a bargain price. The performance of the board in the majority of the benchmarks was extremely competitive with the ATI and NVIDIA chipset offerings. The stability of the board was superb with the production release BIOS at stock settings. We still find it surprising that a board with this feature set and performance is being offered for a retail price of US $85.
With that said, let's move on to our performance opinions regarding this board.
In the video area, the inclusion of dual PCI Express x16 slots provides x16 SLI capability for half the price of the NVIDIA nForce4 x16 SLI chipset. The performance of the board under SLI testing was competitive with our nForce4 boards and offered full SLI compatibility when utilizing the ULi PowerExpress Engine Enabling driver. We tried this driver with the 81.85, 81.95, 81.98, and 82.12 drivers without an issue in a myriad of benchmarks and games. The board fully supported our ATI X1900XTX video card in limited testing. In fact, in discussions with the ULi engineers, we understood the next revision of the M1697 chipset would have offered full ATI CrossFire support with a similar PowerExpress Driver being offered. We doubt that this will occur now with ULi being fully owned by NVIDIA, but it certainly would have made this board even more desirable in the market place.
In the on-board audio area, the ASRock board offers the Realtek ALC-660 HD audio codec. While the ULi M1697 chipset fully supports 7.1 HD audio, ASRock provided 5.1 capability probably due to the implementation cost of the Realtek ALC-882. The audio output of this codec in the music, video, and DVD areas is very good for an on-board solution. The audio quality in gaming was good, but it did not match the output of the Sound Blaster X-FI. If you plan on utilizing this board for online gaming, then our recommendation is to purchase an appropriate sound card for consistency in frame rates across a wide range of games. However, the Realtek ALC-660 should suffice for the majority of users, and with constant driver updates, the performance will continue to improve.
In the storage area, the ASRock board offers the full complement of storage options afforded by the ULi M1697 chipset. The board offers RAID 0, 1, 0+1, 5, JDOB capability, NCQ, Hot Plug, eSATA, and 3Gb/s support along with dual channel ATA133 Ultra DMA capability. The board also offers eight ULi USB 2.0 ports when utilizing the two USB 2.0 headers and IEEE 1394 capability via the TI TSB43AB22 chipset. The performance of the ULi SATA and IDE controllers were excellent and easily exceeded the nForce4 solutions.
In the performance area, the ASRock 939SLI32-eSATA2 generated very good benchmark scores in most applications, considering the price of the board. The overall performance of the board in all areas was very competitive with boards costing significantly more. The stability of the board was excellent during testing and general usage. At stock speeds, there were no issues, but once we started overclocking the board, it became twitchy (due to limited voltage options) as we explored the limits of the board.
However, we feel that ASRock made the following errors in the design and execution of the board. The limited CPU and Memory voltages will hamper the marketability of this product into the AMD enthusiast community. When we utilized our Opteron 170 CPU, it was obvious that the board performed very well in overclocking situations where the CPU and Memory voltages were not a concern until reaching the limits of the CPU. While we understand the value nature of the board, the fact that it offers so many features and a fairly robust BIOS setup leads us to believe that the board's true performance potential will not be fully realized. However, even with additional voltage options this board was not designed for the hard-core overclocker.
Our other issues include the location of the floppy drive connector at the bottom of the board, the extremely tight clearance of IDE cables when utilizing an SLI setup, and the cooling capability of the heat sink on the ULi M1695 chipset. We also have to wonder about the inclusion of the AM2 CPU upgrade slot that seems more like a marketing gimmick than something that will be useful in the future. We certainly feel like the exclusion of this CPU upgrade slot would have afforded the opportunity to upgrade the already good 3-phase power delivery system, offering additional voltage settings, an additional slot space in between the PCI Express x16 connectors for custom video cooling solutions, and maybe the Realtek ALC-882 7.1 HD audio codec( we are being greedy now) at the same or slightly higher price point.
We believe that ASRock has done an incredible job in bringing a board with this feature set and performance to market at a very low price point. We feel that it is unfortunate that the ULi chipsets utilized on this board will probably have a limited life span in light of the NVIDIA acquisition, but are glad at this time to see more alternatives in the market place for the AMD enthusiast. The wide variety of alternatives now available in the market leads us to a difficult choice, but we believe this board offers the best overall combination of performance and features available on AMD motherboard under $100 at this time.
The ASRock 939SLI32-eSATA2 offers excellent performance and a wealth of features at a bargain price. The performance of the board in the majority of the benchmarks was extremely competitive with the ATI and NVIDIA chipset offerings. The stability of the board was superb with the production release BIOS at stock settings. We still find it surprising that a board with this feature set and performance is being offered for a retail price of US $85.
With that said, let's move on to our performance opinions regarding this board.
In the video area, the inclusion of dual PCI Express x16 slots provides x16 SLI capability for half the price of the NVIDIA nForce4 x16 SLI chipset. The performance of the board under SLI testing was competitive with our nForce4 boards and offered full SLI compatibility when utilizing the ULi PowerExpress Engine Enabling driver. We tried this driver with the 81.85, 81.95, 81.98, and 82.12 drivers without an issue in a myriad of benchmarks and games. The board fully supported our ATI X1900XTX video card in limited testing. In fact, in discussions with the ULi engineers, we understood the next revision of the M1697 chipset would have offered full ATI CrossFire support with a similar PowerExpress Driver being offered. We doubt that this will occur now with ULi being fully owned by NVIDIA, but it certainly would have made this board even more desirable in the market place.
In the on-board audio area, the ASRock board offers the Realtek ALC-660 HD audio codec. While the ULi M1697 chipset fully supports 7.1 HD audio, ASRock provided 5.1 capability probably due to the implementation cost of the Realtek ALC-882. The audio output of this codec in the music, video, and DVD areas is very good for an on-board solution. The audio quality in gaming was good, but it did not match the output of the Sound Blaster X-FI. If you plan on utilizing this board for online gaming, then our recommendation is to purchase an appropriate sound card for consistency in frame rates across a wide range of games. However, the Realtek ALC-660 should suffice for the majority of users, and with constant driver updates, the performance will continue to improve.
In the storage area, the ASRock board offers the full complement of storage options afforded by the ULi M1697 chipset. The board offers RAID 0, 1, 0+1, 5, JDOB capability, NCQ, Hot Plug, eSATA, and 3Gb/s support along with dual channel ATA133 Ultra DMA capability. The board also offers eight ULi USB 2.0 ports when utilizing the two USB 2.0 headers and IEEE 1394 capability via the TI TSB43AB22 chipset. The performance of the ULi SATA and IDE controllers were excellent and easily exceeded the nForce4 solutions.
In the performance area, the ASRock 939SLI32-eSATA2 generated very good benchmark scores in most applications, considering the price of the board. The overall performance of the board in all areas was very competitive with boards costing significantly more. The stability of the board was excellent during testing and general usage. At stock speeds, there were no issues, but once we started overclocking the board, it became twitchy (due to limited voltage options) as we explored the limits of the board.
However, we feel that ASRock made the following errors in the design and execution of the board. The limited CPU and Memory voltages will hamper the marketability of this product into the AMD enthusiast community. When we utilized our Opteron 170 CPU, it was obvious that the board performed very well in overclocking situations where the CPU and Memory voltages were not a concern until reaching the limits of the CPU. While we understand the value nature of the board, the fact that it offers so many features and a fairly robust BIOS setup leads us to believe that the board's true performance potential will not be fully realized. However, even with additional voltage options this board was not designed for the hard-core overclocker.
Our other issues include the location of the floppy drive connector at the bottom of the board, the extremely tight clearance of IDE cables when utilizing an SLI setup, and the cooling capability of the heat sink on the ULi M1695 chipset. We also have to wonder about the inclusion of the AM2 CPU upgrade slot that seems more like a marketing gimmick than something that will be useful in the future. We certainly feel like the exclusion of this CPU upgrade slot would have afforded the opportunity to upgrade the already good 3-phase power delivery system, offering additional voltage settings, an additional slot space in between the PCI Express x16 connectors for custom video cooling solutions, and maybe the Realtek ALC-882 7.1 HD audio codec( we are being greedy now) at the same or slightly higher price point.
We believe that ASRock has done an incredible job in bringing a board with this feature set and performance to market at a very low price point. We feel that it is unfortunate that the ULi chipsets utilized on this board will probably have a limited life span in light of the NVIDIA acquisition, but are glad at this time to see more alternatives in the market place for the AMD enthusiast. The wide variety of alternatives now available in the market leads us to a difficult choice, but we believe this board offers the best overall combination of performance and features available on AMD motherboard under $100 at this time.
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Zoomer - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
I believe it should be included to comparison's sake. And perhaps push manufacturers to adopt it.If new HD camcorders supports firewire 800, the market will be there right away. Too bad they aren't backward compatible.
deathwalker - Thursday, March 2, 2006 - link
At $85 I don't see how anyone could ask for much more in a motherboard...SLI/eSATA//8 channel sound/varity of Raid array choices. Can't hardly beat this for a basic and even higher platform. Kadoos to Asrock for a worthy effort. Before this thread is over someone will be slamming this mobo from some position other than one of using a rational approach for what you would be getting for $85 and they will be trying to compare it to a competetors $150 motherboard. AT..keep up the good work.Pete84 - Thursday, March 2, 2006 - link
The Asrock AM2 riser has been spied.http://www.hkepc.com/bbs/blog.php?tid=558875&s...">http://www.hkepc.com/bbs/blog.php?tid=5...time=114...
poohbear - Thursday, March 2, 2006 - link
Just remember ASRock is a dodgy mobo company. In their Dualsata2 mobo they gave reviewers a bios that allowed em to overclock using the 300mhz cpu frequency then they cap it @ 274 in subsequent bios'. Meanwhile, us customers read the reviews and their site/manual which states it can support a 300cpu frequency only to find a a 274mhz cap. Very deceptive of em. The dual sata2 was the only mobo that provided native agp and pci-e, so ASRock got away w/ dodgy BS like that cause there was no other company offering the Uli1695 chipset.In this situation, there are a ton of other exceptional PCI-E mobos, especially w/ ATI's 580 just being released, so why even consider em?!
sandorski - Thursday, March 2, 2006 - link
that's not what happened. go back and re-read what that was about.Gary Key - Thursday, March 2, 2006 - link
I would not consider ASRock a dodgy motherboard company. We at times find the initial bios releases to contain performance enhancements or features that might not be available upon production release of the boards. We (along with others) provide feedback to the manufacturers about the stability, features, or performance during testing. At times this feedback will cause the manufacturer to change the bios features to improve stability or as in our Biostar NF4 article to improve performance also.
We are taking a more serious stance with the motherboard companies in regards to their bios features before publishing an article. We could have published this article with the .17 bios release (not available) and shown additional voltage features along with improved performance as mentioned in the article. We waited until ASRock had the production release bios available before publishing our revised test results. We found the board to be better behaved with the release bios at the expense of performance. However, this the correct path as being able to score a few additional points in a benchmark or overclocking that extra bit is not important if the board produces BSOD results on a consistent basis. It also is not wise to release a bios with features the public will never see. I personally still have issues with Asus and the 0047 bios we tested on the P5N32-SLI board. Some of the features of that bios are still not available at this time and it is worrisome to publish an opinion about a board and not see the same level of performance or stability in the released product.
While there are other alternatives (excellent ones at that) I doubt you will find a board with this combination of performance and features for $85. If you are hard core overclocker this is not the board for you. If you like to casually overclock without pushing the boundaries then this board will suffice for a great number of people. It is all about choices and fortunately we will see some additional M1697 based boards before NVIDIA completes their assimilation of ULi. ;-)
poohbear - Thursday, March 2, 2006 - link
that's definetly good to hear. it's blatantly unacceptable when mobo manufacturers want to promote something that is'nt in their mobo so they can get good initial reviews and hence sell more, and then disable said feature when it becomes inconvenient to support. (the Dualsata2 still proports to support 300 cpu frequency both on ASRock's site and in their online manual, but it's simply not supported)
nemesismk2 - Friday, March 3, 2006 - link
You have said a couple of times that on the Asrock website it states that the Asrock 939 Dual Sata2 supports 300 Mhz CPU Frequency, can you tell me where because I can't find anywhere on http://www.asrock.com/product/939Dual-SATA2.htm">http://www.asrock.com/product/939Dual-SATA2.htm which confirms what you have been saying?nemesismk2 - Thursday, March 2, 2006 - link
Asrock are NOT a dodgy company at all, they are just a company who supply good quality budget motherboards which are not designed for overclocking. Yes it was found that the motherboard could use 300mhz cpu frequency with an early bios but it was also found that the motherboard wasn't stable using that frequency so it was reduced for stability reasons. I've never had any stability problems with my Asrock 939 Dual Sata2 so their decision was correct for most users, good work Asrock! :)poohbear - Thursday, March 2, 2006 - link
ppl w/ beta bios were running this mobo 350+ cpu frequency, so how can u say it's not stable? they're just not fixing it because, yes, they could care less about anybody who overclocks, but they shouldnt give the impression that this mobo supports something it doesnt. For all we know anandtechs overclock w/ this mobo might be completely misleading because ASRock might do the same thing and disable any such features when it's inconvenient for them to support em.