Introduction

I would like to thank ASRock for supplying the tested motherboard.

The ASRock 939Dual-SATA2 is built around the ULi M1695 Northbridge. As Southbridge the ULi 1567 is used.

What is unique about the ULi M1695 is that it has native support for AGP 8x and PCI-Express x16. Other boards which have both AGP and PCI-E, implement the AGP port via a PCI-to-AGP bridge, which means that all special performance enhancing features of AGP are lost. On these boards AGP performance is quite sluggish.

You can also use both AGP and PCI-Express at the same time to connect multiple displays. It is not possible to run Crossfire or SLI.

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In addition to the two SATA ports of the ULi chipset, ASRock has added another SATA-II capable port via an additional SATA controller chip.

The integrated network port is only 100 Megabits capable, but this should be fine for most users of this value oriented board.

Features

<table border="1" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" class="resulttable">
<tr>
<th colspan="2">ASRock 939Dual-SATA2</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Processor</th>
<td>AMD Athlon64 / FX / X2 Socket 939<br />(upgrade card for AMD Socket M2 will be available in '06)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>FSB</th>
<td>800 MHz / 1000+ MHz</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Chipset</th>
<td>ULi M1695 / M1567</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Memory</th>
<td>4x 184 Pin DDR, Dual Channel DDR333/400, up to 4 GB</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>BIOS</th>
<td>AMI Bios</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Slots</th>
<td>1x PCI-E x16<br />
1x AGP 8x<br />
1x PCI-E x1<br />
3x PCI</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>HDD Connectivity</th>
<td>2x ATA-133<br />
2x SATA<br />
1x SATA II</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Networking</th>
<td>10/100 Mbps - RTL8201CL</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Ports</th>
<td>8x USB 2.0 (4 on Back Panel)<br />
1x Serial, 1x Parallel</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Audio</th>
<td>8 Channel Realtek AC97 Audio</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Form Factor</th>
<td>ATX 305 x 244mm</td>
</tr>
</table>

Specifications from ASRock

CPU

Socket 939 for AMD Athlon 64 FX / Athlon 64 and Sempron processor
FSB 1000 MHz (2.0 GB/s)
Supports HyperTransport Technology
Supports AMD Cool‘n’Quiet Technology

Chipset

Northbridge: ULi M1695
Southbridge: ULI M1567

Hybrid Booster

CPU Frequency Stepless control
CPU Multiplier
ASRock U-COP
Boot Failure Guard (B.F.G)

Memory

DIMM slots: 4 supported
Max. capacity: 4 GB

Expansion Slot

1 x AGP8X/4X slot , 1.5 V only
PCI Express x16 slot
PCI Express x1 slot
3 x PCI slots
Compatible ATi X300 and X300SE series cards list

Graphics

Audio

Realtek 850 7.1 channel AC'97 audio codec

LAN

Realtek RTL8201CL 10/100 Ethernet LAN PHY
802.3u, WOL supported

Connector

2 x SerialATA connectors support RAID,0,1,JBOD
1 x SATA2 connector (based on PCI E SATA2 controller JMB360)
2 x ATA 133/100/66 IDE connectors (supports 4 x IDE devices)
1 x Floppy connector
CPU/Chassis FAN connectors
20 pin ATX power connector
4 pin ATX 12V power connector
Power LED connector
CD audio in header
Front panel audio connector
2 x USB 2.0 port pin headers (to support extra 4 USB2.0 ports)

Rear Panel I/O

ASRock 8CH I/O
4 x USB2.0 ports
1 x RJ45 LAN port
1 x Serial port (COM1)
1 x PS2 Keyboard connector
1 x PS2 Mouse connectors
1 x Parallel port (LPT1)
2 x Audio ports to support 8 Ch audio ( Line In/Out, Mic In)

BIOS Feature

2 Mb AMI BIOS with ACPI, SM BIOS 3.0, PnP

Support CD

Drivers, Utilities, AntiVirus Software
SATA driver and utility

Accessories

Quick Installation Guide, Support CD, I/O shield
Floppy/ATA 133 cables
1 x SerialATA data cable
1 x SerialATA 1-to-1 power cable

Form Factor

ATX, 305mm x 244 mm

Certifications

FCC, CE, MS WHQL

Packaging

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The motherboard package is styled in ASRock's corporate green. On the front you will find eye-catching "stickers" which outline the features of the board.

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On the backside is a longer text which explains certain extras.

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Inside you will find the accessories.

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Under the accessories the motherboard is wrapped in an anti-static bag.

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You will receive:

Motherboard
Quick installation Guide
1x IDE Cable, 1x Floppy Cable, 1x SATA Cable, 1x SATA Power Adapter
IO Shield
Driver CD

The accessory package is rather slim. For this budget board, I find that it is better to have less stuff in the package and get a smaller price for that in return. Essential things like SATA cable and power adapter are there.

Board Layout

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Click here for a 3000x2500 high-res shot of the board (3 MB download), the backside is here.

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The CPU socket area isn't offering that much space. Especially the area near the IO shield with all the capacitors is a bit crowded. However, even big CPU coolers fit fine, the chipset cooler is not very high, so it will not become a problem with huge heatsinks.

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The IO backpanel is pretty much standard. From left to right you have PS/2 Keyboard, PS/2 Mouse, Parallel Port, one Serial port, four USB Ports, Ethernet and six audio connectors.

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The motherboard's memory slots have been color coded for easy dual-channel configuration. To run your memory in dual-channel mode you have to put the modules into slots of the same color. I find the placement a bit uncommon, usually it is, that you have one empty slot between the modules when you run dual-channel, which helps the memory temperature a little bit.

Connectors

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ASRock uses a 20-pin ATX power connector on this board, pretty uncommon, now that most new motherboards use 24-pins. During testing there were no power issues, so this is fine. What I find more disturbing is the placement of the connectors. Most users prefer to have their power connectors closer to the PSU, which would mean that the power connector should be where the memory sockets are.

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Two black SATA ports are handled by the ULi chipset and another red one, which is SATA-II capable, has been added by the use of an additional controller chip.

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As you would expect from an upgrader's board there are two ATA-133 connectors.

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Other motherboard manufacturers color-code the Power/Reset/LED headers, here they are all black but they follow the standard layout and the manual has the info too.

Slots

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The first yellow slot will be used when you install a CPU Upgrade Card which will be available from ASRock once AMD releases Socket M2. This will not be until Cebit 2006. A great feature to save money during upgrades.
Below that is the white PCI-Express x16 connector. Then you have a PCI-E x1 slot. The next port is the AGP 8x slot. Below the AGP port are three PCI slots.
ASRock has given good thought to their slot placement. You can run two video cards with dual-slot cooling solutions and will still be able to use PCI cards.

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These four jumper blocks will be used in conjunction with the CPU Card. If you have the card installed, you have to move all jumpers to the other location so that the signals will be routed to the CPU Card instead of the CPU Socket on the motherboard.

Cooling

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ASRock is using only passive cooling on the motherboard. The Northbridge has a bigger heatsink, while the Southbridge heatsink is really tiny. During our overclocking tests the Northbridge cooler reached temperatures of about 80°C, but without any effect on stability. We added a cooler to the heatsink and it did not increase the overclock, which means that the high temperature didn't lower the overclock in the first place.

Chips

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Hardware monitoring is provided by Winbond's W83627HF.

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As clockgenerator an ICS952505 is used.

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For networking ASRock uses the Realtek RTL8201 10/100 MBit Ethernet controller. This is a very cost effective solution, but it certainly can't compare to much more expensive chips, for example from Intel.

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The Realtek ALC850 Audio Chip is responsible for sound. Compared to nForce4 motherboards which use the same sound chip, the quality is a good deal better.

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This is the first time I see the JMicron JMB360 SATA-II controller chip on a motherboard. Usually chips from Silicon Image are used. The JMB360 adds one 300 MB/s capable port with support for NCQ. For a board at this price, this makes a nice addition.

BIOS

What I really love about this BIOS is that it boots so extremely fast. You can barely see the POST screen. When the SATA RAID BIOS is disabled, the system starts loading your operating system after about four seconds.

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ASRock uses an AMI BIOS. The main page shows some general info about the motherboard, which BIOS version is installed and if the memory is running in dual-channel mode.

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The first page is called Advanced and is home to many sub-pages. All important things are grouped together here.

CPU Configuration

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On the CPU Configuration page you can tweak the rather few overclocking options.

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You can select "Auto", which runs your CPU at its default clock or you decide to do manual overclocking - make sure you select Async if you overclock. With Async your PCI-Express bus speed stays at 100 MHz, no matter what you set the HTT to.

What I found very odd at first, is how you change the CPU Frequency value. You can either use + or - on the numeric keypad to change the value or type in the numbers right after navigating to the option. Pressing the enter key or page up / page down or + / - does not do anything when this entry is highlighted.
The frequency range of 140 MHz to 300 MHz might not sound that bad at first (I like the underclocking part). But unfortunately with the official BIOSes you can not reach higher than 275 MHz stable.

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While the CPU multiplier setting shows you a lot of multipliers, the higher-than-default ones do not work. This is a CPU limitation, it's just that ASRock shows all multipliers here and does not ask the CPU which multipliers it actually supports.

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The CPU voltage selection is also quite limited. The highest setting is CPU default + 0.05V, for the Athlon64 Venice 1.450V. Not enough to do some serious overclocking. Doing a voltmod to increase the CPU voltage is quite easy and outlined here.

Memory voltage is changed on the Chipset Configuration page.

Memory Timings

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When overclocking, it is best to manually set your memory frequency. The available options here are 200 MHz (1:1), 166 MHz (5:6) and 133 MHz (2:3). A tweaked BIOS (see the overclocking section of this review) also enables 100 MHz (1:2).

You can change CAS Latency (tCL), Active-to-Precharge Delay (tRAS), Ras-to-Cas Delay (tRCD), and RAS Precharge Time (tRP), which are the standard timings for memory modules, there are many many more settings to tweak in the Athlon64 memory controller, but they are not listed here. At least the BIOS has settings to change the more expert settings 1/2T Memory Timing, Read Preamble value and Async Latency value.

Chipset Configuration

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On the Chipset Configuration page you can enable/disable the on-board Ethernet port and the on-board audio.

The AGP port can also be tweaked here. For overclockers an important option is CPU-NB link speed which controls the HTT multiplier. When running high FSB speeds, the HTT bus between CPU and chipset tends to go out of spec and limit your overclock. It is best to have it running around 1000 MHz. The options here are labeled with absolute MHz values. For example the 1000 MHz setting is multiplier 5 (200 MHz x 5 = 1000). Now, if you overclock to 300 MHz HTT, the option will still be labeled 1000 MHz but it would actually set 1500 MHz (300 x 5 = 1500). Consider this when overclocking.

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You can set your memory voltage to "Auto", which is the same as "Normal" which results in 2.6V and "High" which isn't so high with 2.7V. This list of options is really a shame. I couldn't get my Winbond BH5 memory to run 2-2-2-5 stable, so all benchmarks are run at 2-2-3-5 which has almost no performance impact. It's still annoying. A mod to increase memory voltage is described here.

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There are no interesting options on the pages ACPI, PCI PnP, Floppy Configuration and USB Configuration.

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The IDE Configuration page has the usual options that control how your IDE and SATA ports are handled. If you do not run RAID you should change the SATA Operation Mode setting to "Non-RAID" this will short your boot time, because the RAID BIOS does not have to be loaded.

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I always disable the floppy controller in the BIOS, you can do it here and also change some settings of the serial and parallel ports.

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On the Hardware Monitoring page you will find the bare minimum temperatures, fan speeds and the monitored voltages. Options to dynamically change fan speeds based on temperature are not available.

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The order in which boot devices are tried during startup is configured here. You can also disable certain startup devices. A nice feature of this BIOS is that after pressing F11 on the POST screen you get a list of detected devices and can chose from which to boot.

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On the security page you can enter passwords to protect your system bootup or your CMOS setup from being entered.

Test Systems

<table border="1" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="0" class="ramtable" width="450">
<tr align="center">
<th colspan="2" scope="row" style="font-size:larger;text-align:center">Test System "ASRock 939Dual-SATA2"</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<th width="100" scope="row">CPU:</th>
<td scope="row">AMD Athlon64 3000+ (S939; 512KB; Venice)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Motherboard:</th>
<td scope="row">ASRock 939Dual-SATA2, Bios 1.40<br />ULi M1695</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Memory:</th>
<td scope="row">2x 512MB OCZ PC-3200 Gold GX 2-2-3-5</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th valign="top" scope="row">Video Card:</th>
<td valign="top" scope="row">ATI X850 Pro PCI-E</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th valign="top" scope="row">Harddisk:</th>
<td valign="top" scope="row">Maxtor DiamondMax 160GB</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th valign="top" scope="row">Power Supply:</th>
<td valign="top" scope="row">HEC Power475</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th valign="top" scope="row">Software:</th>
<td valign="top" scope="row">Windows XP SP2, Catalyst 5.10</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="2">OC 2700 is 9x300 FSB, Mem ratio 2:3 (=200 MHz)</td>
</tr>
</table>

<table border="1" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="0" class="ramtable" width="450">
<tr align="center">
<th colspan="2" scope="row" style="font-size:larger;text-align:center">Test System "LP NF4 Ultra-D"</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<th width="100" scope="row">CPU:</th>
<td scope="row">AMD Athlon64 3000+ (S939; 512KB; Venice)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Motherboard:</th>
<td scope="row">DFI LanParty NF4 Ultra-D, Bios 5.10-2 Fix<br />NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Memory:</th>
<td scope="row">2x 512MB OCZ DDR PC3200 Gold GX 2-2-2-5</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th valign="top" scope="row">Video Card:</th>
<td valign="top" scope="row">ATI X850 Pro PCI-E</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th valign="top" scope="row">Harddisk:</th>
<td valign="top" scope="row">Maxtor DiamondMax 160GB</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th valign="top" scope="row">Power Supply:</th>
<td valign="top" scope="row">HEC Power475</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th valign="top" scope="row">Software:</th>
<td valign="top" scope="row">Windows XP SP2, Catalyst 5.6</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="2">OC 2700 is 9x300 FSB, Mem ratio 2:3 (=200 MHz)</td>
</tr>
</table>

<table border="1" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="0" class="ramtable" width="450">
<tr align="center">
<th colspan="2" scope="row" style="font-size:larger;text-align:center">Test System "Sapphire PI-A9RX480"</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<th width="100" scope="row">CPU:</th>
<td scope="row">AMD Athlon64 3000+ (S939; 512KB; Venice)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Motherboard:</th>
<td scope="row">Sapphire PURE Innovation PI-A9RX480, Bios 07/27/05<br />ATI RX480</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Memory:</th>
<td scope="row">2x 512MB OCZ PC3500 Gold GX 2-2-2-5</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th valign="top" scope="row">Video Card:</th>
<td valign="top" scope="row">ATI X850 Pro PCI-E</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th valign="top" scope="row">Harddisk:</th>
<td valign="top" scope="row">Maxtor DiamondMax 160GB</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th valign="top" scope="row">Power Supply:</th>
<td valign="top" scope="row">HEC Power475</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th valign="top" scope="row">Software:</th>
<td valign="top" scope="row">Windows XP SP2, Catalyst 5.7</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="2">OC 2700 is 9x300 FSB, Mem ratio 2:3 (=200 MHz)</td>
</tr>
</table>

<table border="1" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="0" class="ramtable" width="450">
<tr align="center">
<th colspan="2" scope="row" style="font-size:larger;text-align:center">Test System "AA8XE"</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<th width="100" scope="row">CPU:</th>
<td scope="row">Intel Pentium 4 3.0F (S775; 2MB; Prescott)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Motherboard:</th>
<td scope="row">ABIT Fatal1ty AA8XE, Bios 1.4<br />Intel i925XE</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Memory:</th>
<td scope="row">2x 512MB OCZ PC2-5400 EB Platinum 4-2-2-8</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th valign="top" scope="row">Video Card:</th>
<td valign="top" scope="row">ATI X800 Non-Pro PCI-E</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th valign="top" scope="row">Harddisk:</th>
<td valign="top" scope="row">Maxtor DiamondMax 160GB</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th valign="top" scope="row">Power Supply:</th>
<td valign="top" scope="row">HEC Power475</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th valign="top" scope="row">Software:</th>
<td valign="top" scope="row">Windows XP SP2, Catalyst 5.4</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="2">OC 4500 is 15x300 FSB, Mem Ratio 1:1 (=300 MHz)</td>
</tr>
</table>

<table border="1" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="0" class="ramtable" width="450">
<tr align="center">
<th colspan="2" scope="row" style="font-size:larger;text-align:center">Test System "P4 2.4C"</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<th width="100" scope="row">CPU:</th>
<td scope="row">Intel Pentium 4 2.4C (S478; 512KB; Northwood)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Motherboard:</th>
<td scope="row">ABIT IC7, Bios 2.8<br />Intel i875P</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Memory:</th>
<td scope="row">2x 256MB Generic PC3200 2.5-3-3-6</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th valign="top" scope="row">Video Card:</th>
<td valign="top" scope="row">ATI X800 XT</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th valign="top" scope="row">Harddisk:</th>
<td valign="top" scope="row">Maxtor DiamondMax 160GB</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th valign="top" scope="row">Power Supply:</th>
<td valign="top" scope="row">Antec TrueControl 550W</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th valign="top" scope="row">Software:</th>
<td valign="top" scope="row">Windows XP SP2, Catalyst 5.4</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="2">OC 3400 is 15x283 FSB, Mem Ratio 2:3 (=188 MHz)</td>
</tr>
</table>

SiSoftware Sandra

Higher score is better
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Raw CPU performance is the same between all AMD boards (within margin of error).

Lavalys Everest

Higher score is better
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The ULi chipset has better transfer speeds than the competition, but memory latency seems to be a tad higher.

SuperPi

Smaller score is better
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SuperPi stresses both memory and CPU. Here we see the nForce4 and ATI RS480 take a very slight lead.

PCMark 2004

Higher score is better
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PCMark04 favors Intel CPUs with HyperThreading a lot, the ASRock 939Dual-SATA2 delivers a very respectable score here too.

3DMark 2001

Higher score is better
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In 3DMark the ULi board is the fastest motherboard, especially when overclocked.

CineBench

Higher score is better
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All AMD motherboards show about the same speed, Intel systems with their Hyper-threading Technology are king here.

KribiBench

Higher score is better
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KribiBench is a software-only 3D renderer. Again, the ASRock board takes the performance crown.

Comanche 4

Higher score is better
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ATI's RS480 chipset is the fastest here, but nForce4 and ULi M1695 are very close behind.

Quake 3 Arena

Higher score is better
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Quake 4 is the only benchmark where you can see a bigger performance difference, almost 10% between the leading Sapphire board and the ASRock board tested here.

Rightmark Audio Analyzer

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We used Rightmark Audio Analyzer together with a loop-back cable to analyze the quality of the on-board audio solution.

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For easier comparison we summed up the individual scores of all tested boards (1: Very poor, 2: Poor, 3: Average, 4: Good, 5: Very good, 6: Excellent).
The sound quality of the 939Dual-SATA2 on-board audio is very respectable. It's better than all other tested nForce4 motherboards.

Summary

<table width="600" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="3" border="1">
<tr align="center">
<td bgcolor=#C0C0C0 align="left"><strong>Frequency response (from 40 Hz to 15 kHz), dB:</strong></td>
<td>+0.18, -1.12</td>
<td>Average</td>
</tr>
<tr align="center">
<td bgcolor=#C0C0C0 align="left"><strong>Noise level, dB (A):</strong></td>
<td>-80.8</td>
<td>Good</td>
</tr>
<tr align="center">
<td bgcolor=#C0C0C0 align="left"><strong>Dynamic range, dB (A):</strong></td>
<td>75.2</td>
<td>Average</td>
</tr>
<tr align="center">
<td bgcolor=#C0C0C0 align="left"><strong>THD, %:</strong></td>
<td>0.038</td>
<td>Good</td>
</tr>
<tr align="center">
<td bgcolor=#C0C0C0 align="left"><strong>IMD, %:</strong></td>
<td>0.079</td>
<td>Good</td>
</tr>
<tr align="center">

<td bgcolor=#C0C0C0 align="left"><strong>Stereo crosstalk, dB:</strong></td>
<td>-78.6</td>
<td>Very good</td>
</tr>
<tr align="center">
<td bgcolor=#C0C0C0 align="left"><strong>IMD at 10 kHz, %:</strong></td>
<td>0.140</td>
<td>Average</td>
</tr>
</table>

General performance: Good

Frequency Response

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/A.../images/fr.png

<table width="400" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="3" border="1">
<tr bgcolor=#C0C0C0 align="center">
<td align="left"><strong>Frequency range</strong></td>
<td><strong>Response</strong></td></tr>
<tr align="center"><td align="left">From 20 Hz to 20 kHz, dB</td>
<td>-7.85, +0.18</td>
</tr>
<tr align="center"><td align="left">From 40 Hz to 15 kHz, dB</td>
<td>-1.12, +0.18</td>
</tr>
</table>

Noise Level

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/A...ages/noise.png

<table width="400" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="3" border="1">
<tr bgcolor=#C0C0C0 align="center">
<td align="left"><strong>Parameter</strong></td>
<td><strong>Left</strong></td>
<td><strong>Right</strong></td></tr>
<tr align="center"><td align="left">RMS power, dB:</td>
<td>-74.2</td>
<td>-74.5</td>
</tr>
<tr align="center"><td align="left">RMS power (A-weighted), dB:</td>
<td>-79.9</td>
<td>-80.8</td>
</tr>
<tr align="center"><td align="left">Peak level, dB FS:</td>
<td>-54.9</td>
<td>-55.6</td>
</tr>
<tr align="center"><td align="left">DC offset, %:</td>
<td>0.44</td>
<td>1.80</td>
</tr>
</table>

Dynamic Range

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/A...s/dynamics.png

<table width="400" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="3" border="1">
<tr bgcolor=#C0C0C0 align="center">
<td align="left"><strong>Parameter</strong></td>
<td><strong>Left</strong></td>
<td><strong>Right</strong></td></tr>
<tr align="center"><td align="left">Dynamic range, dB:</td>
<td>+72.4</td>
<td>+73.5</td>
</tr>
<tr align="center"><td align="left">Dynamic range (A-weighted), dB:</td>
<td>+75.2</td>
<td>+77.7</td>
</tr>
<tr align="center"><td align="left">DC offset, %:</td>
<td>0.43</td>
<td>1.79</td>
</tr>
</table>

THD + Noise (at -3 dB FS)

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/A...images/thd.png

<table width="400" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="3" border="1">
<tr bgcolor=#C0C0C0 align="center">
<td align="left"><strong>Parameter</strong></td>
<td><strong>Left</strong></td>
<td><strong>Right</strong></td></tr>
<tr align="center"><td align="left">THD, %:</td>
<td>0.0407</td>
<td>0.0377</td>
</tr>
<tr align="center"><td align="left">THD + Noise, %:</td>
<td>0.0714</td>
<td>0.0731</td>
</tr>
<tr align="center"><td align="left">THD + Noise (A-weighted), %:</td>
<td>0.0686</td>
<td>0.0658</td>
</tr>
</table>

Intermodulation distortion

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/A...images/imd.png

<table width="400" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="3" border="1">
<tr bgcolor=#C0C0C0 align="center">
<td align="left"><strong>Parameter</strong></td>
<td><strong>Left</strong></td>
<td><strong>Right</strong></td></tr>
<tr align="center"><td align="left">IMD + Noise, %:</td>
<td>0.0805</td>
<td>0.0791</td>
</tr>
<tr align="center"><td align="left">IMD + Noise (A-weighted), %:</td>
<td>0.0644</td>
<td>0.0638</td>
</tr>
</table>

Stereo crosstalk

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/A...ages/cross.png

<table width="400" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="3" border="1">
<tr bgcolor=#C0C0C0 align="center">
<td align="left"><strong>Parameter</strong></td>
<td><strong>L <- R</strong></td>
<td><strong>L -> R</strong></td></tr>
<tr align="center"><td align="left">Crosstalk at 100 Hz, dB:</td>
<td>-75</td>
<td>-76</td>
</tr>
<tr align="center"><td align="left">Crosstalk at 1 kHz, dB:</td>
<td>-76</td>
<td>-78</td>
</tr>
<tr align="center"><td align="left">Crosstalk at 10 kHz, dB:</td>
<td>-74</td>
<td>-71</td>
</tr>
</table>

IMD (swept tones)

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/A...s/imdswept.png

<table width="400" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="3" border="1">
<tr bgcolor=#C0C0C0 align="center">
<td align="left"><strong>Parameter</strong></td>
<td><strong>Left</strong></td>
<td><strong>Right</strong></td></tr>
<tr align="center"><td align="left">IMD + Noise at 5 kHz, %:</td>
<td>0.0771</td>
<td>0.0736</td>
</tr>
<tr align="center"><td align="left">IMD + Noise at 10 kHz, %:</td>
<td>0.1369</td>
<td>0.1356</td>
</tr>
<tr align="center"><td align="left">IMD + Noise at 15 kHz, %:</td>
<td>0.2051</td>
<td>0.2094</td>
</tr>
</table>

Performance: AGP vs. PCI-E

When a motherboard had both PCI-Express and AGP in the past, the AGP port was implemented more as a hack, than a solid solution. One PCI (not PCI-Express) port was taken and connected to a PCI-to-AGP bridge chip which translated all signals. The major issues with this solution were that the bridge chip added big latencies to the bus and important features like Sidebanding and Fast Writes could not be implemented since they are not supported by PCI. Also the PCI bus is limited to 133 MB/s max. transfer speed, so these "AGP" ports were also limited to 133 MB/s, not much compared to 2.1 GB/s of a real AGP 8x port.

In order to determine if performance of the AGP port on the ULi M1695 is really working as advertised, we used a Radeon X850 Pro AGP and a Radeon X850 Pro PCI-Express in various benchmarks.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/A.../agpvspcie.gif

It is interesting to see that actually the AGP card seems to be a little bit faster. This could be caused by measurement inaccuracies or different memory timings in the VGA BIOS. However, what we wanted to verify, that AGP is a native implementation with excellent performance, has been proven to be correct by these benchmarks.

Fan Noise

With only passive cooling this board will be loved by noise-aware computer users. Even under high load there were no chirping sounds coming from the CPU power circuitry power regulation.

Overclocking

How much overclocking would you expect from the names "ASRock" and "ULi" ? After seeing what the BIOS offers, I did not have high hopes for overclocking.

With the latest v1.40 BIOS there we no issues getting to around 275 HTT, but after that, no go. The system would not even POST. At first I suspected the passive cooling on the chipset to be the limiting factor here, so I added an active fan on top of it, this did not do anything to the maximum overclock at all.
I think ASRock deliberately limited the overclock, so that the market share of ASUS' high-end overclocker boards is not touched.

The next step in my quest for 300 MHz x 9 = 2700 MHz was flashing a modded BIOS from OCWorkbench. I used Beta 2. This BIOS comes with a much bigger HTT selection range, no 275 MHz limit, 100 MHz 1:2 memory ratio and better default settings.

Also it changes the "Boot Failure Guard" behaviour. With the original ASRock BIOS the whole CMOS is cleared when the system fails to POST. The modded OCWorkbench BIOS just resets the overclocking related settings like HTT frequency, so you won't have to re-setup every setting in the BIOS.

With this BIOS I could easily get to 295 MHz, but the CPU was unstable beyond that, because the maximum VCore setting available in the BIOS is 1.450V, but my CPU needs 1.5V for 2700 MHz. After doing the CPU VCore voltmod described here, I could easily get the 2700 MHz needed to do the overclocked benchmarks.

Without BIOS limits I was wondering how much HTT the board and chipset can actually do. To make sure that neither the CPU nor the memory are limiting our overclock, the multiplier was set to 4x with a memory divider of 2:1.

After around 350 HTT the board started to act strange. It did no longer reboot properly, even though the rest worked fine. A solution to this was to power it off and power it on again, when it hung/crashed.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/A...lock_small.jpg
A maximum HTT of 380 MHz is very impressive, especially for a low-cost board with ULi chipset which isn't advertised as overclocking king.

<table width="100%" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" id="result">
<tr><th>http://www.techpowerup.com/images/dollar.gif</th>
<td>

The ASRock 939Dual-SATA2 can be found online for less than $70, which I find an unbelievable price for such a board.

</td>
</tr><tr>
<th>http://www.techpowerup.com/images/thumbup.gif</th>
<td>

Awesome price
AGP 8x and PCI-Express x16
Good performance
Good overclocker, but only after modding
Extra SATA-II port
Can be upgraded to Socket M2
Silent

</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>http://www.techpowerup.com/images/thumbdown.gif</th>
<td>

BIOS offers very little OC options
Needs modded BIOS and voltmods for serious overclocking
Only 100 MBit networking port
Slim accessories
No Firewire

</td></tr>
<tr><th>9.0</th>
<td>What can I say, look at that price. For $70 you get a full-fledged board which will facilitate the transition from AGP to PCI-Express with its two slots. You can use your "old" AGP card until you actually see any benefit from going PCI-Express, or have the money.<br />
Unlike other manufacturers' solution neither the AGP or PCI-E x16 port suffer from performance penalties. Both are native implementations. ULi has done a great job with this chipset. Everybody is talking about Intel and NVIDIA chipsets, then ULi comes and delivers a very solid and overclockable chipset.<br />
Sure, ASRock had to save money by putting only 100 MBit networking and no Firewire on the board but most people would not need those features anyway. A nice and useful addition makes the extra SATA-II port. Another nice option for upgrades is the CPU Card support for Socket M2. AMD will not introduce this new socket until early 2006, but it's good to know you will be able to use this board for a long time.<br />
If the board had better overclocking options I would give our Editor's Choice Award without thinking for a second. After flashing a modded BIOS and doing a voltmod, this board overclocks very well, but not everybody feels comfortable with soldering on his board.
</td></tr>
<tr><th></th><td>http://www.techpowerup.com/images/recommended.gif</td></tr>
</table>