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Update: This review has been updated with mention that ASRock plains to change the BIOS, and of course you can use a DVI-to-HDMI dongle for video out. In our rush to the Phenom II editor's day the scores also got flipped for a few numbers between the ASRock K10 and 780Full HD. Correct scores are now up. With high profile launches of AMD's 780G and 790GX chipset some may forget that Nvidia also offers a very formidable integrated graphics solution as well with the GeForce 8200 and 8300. We've looked at a few of these boards so far and today we have another to look at with the ASRock K10N78-1394. This ASRock board isn't a micro-ATX board as some might expect for a board with integrated graphics but instead is full ATX. The board uses Nvidia's GeForce 8200 chipset which is a little below their GeForce 8300 chipset which is also out right now.
The hardware bundle is the basics with two SATA cables, a molex-to-SATA power adapter, IDE cable, floppy cable, and I/O shield.
Here are the technical specs from ASRock. CPU - Support for Socket AM2+ / AM2 processors: AMD Phenom™ FX / Phenom / Athlon 64
This ASRock BIOS is similar to their others and allows you to load a number of pre-installed BIOS options. One thing we didn't like when overclocking adjusting the values returned to zero for the voltages which is a problem if you don't know the voltage of the Northbridge for the GeForce 8200 offhand. ASRock says this will be updated in a BIOS update.
We overclocked our Phenom 9950 BE to 3GHz, which is about average for what we've obtained for this CPU.
Here is our test system
Our test system was Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 with Catalyst 8.10 drivers and Forceware 180.
We've covered the GeForce 8200 Southbridge before and as usual with Nvidia chipsets it is fast with no problems. We decided to compare to another 780G ASRock board, this one with no sideport memory to see how the 780G and GeForce 8200 compete on a more level playing field.
The 8200 based K10N78-1394 does a lot better than we expected when you remove Sideport memory of the 780G from the equation but the 780G board still comes out on top.
World in Conflict is a popular strategy game and we used the built-in timdemo to benchmark the game. The 780G wins again and by a few more frames per second.
3DMark shows a slightly larger gap of 220 points between the ASRock baords. Again the 780G does come out on top with gaming.
PCMark tests all around and general PC performance and the graphics card is also stressed in this. As we can see the 780G system comes out ahead yet again.
Power consumption for idle was measured 5 minutes into the Windows desktop and load was with the Crysis GPU benchmark.
Both boards seem equal when idle but at load power consumption is a bit higher on the Nvidia board.
Pricing: Score: 80% | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Even though we've looked at a lot of ASRock motherboards there's still one that we have yet to look at, ASRock's A780FullHD which is basically a vanilla 780G motherboard. That said the board seems to be no slouch but doesn't have any sideport memory. Let's see how it performs. The board resembles other ASRock motherboards and other 780G micro-ATX boards. There's not much one say about the layout, it definitely works and nothing should get in the way with the only major cooling on the Southbridge and even then just a small heatsink. Even this though is more than enough for the SB700 which runs cool.
Onboard the card features two PCI slots, one PCI-Express slot, one 16X PCI-Express slot, 4 DDR2 1066 RAM slots, six SATA ports. External expansion slots include a VGA adapter, DVI adapter, USB ports, Gigabit LAN, and 5.1 audio. No E-SATA or Firewire here or Digital Audio out but pretty decent.
I/O ports on the back consist of a PS2 mouse and keyboard port, VGA-Output, DVI-Output (ASRock also includes a handy DVI-to-HDMI adapter), six USB 2.0 ports, an E-SATA port, Firewire, 1 Gigabit Ethernet jack, and analog HD audio output. Isn't it great that motherboard companies finally started putting 6 USB 2.0 ports on the back? Long overdue and now even on boards under $100.
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Here are the technical specs from ASRock. General
We see a fairly standard ASRock BIOS here which is quite good overall. One thing I like is that the multipliers no longer have to be keyed in and start at the defaults rather than the lowest value possible.
We're seeing fairly standard over clocks with all the 7xx chipsets from AMD and this ASRock even though MicroATX and a little cheaper overclocks quite well reaching 3.1GHz with the Phenom 9950 BE.
Here is our test system
Our test system was Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 with Catalyst 8.10 drivers.
We tested the transfer rates of our Western Digital 750GB to AMD's SB750 Southbridge. We compared this board to the high-end Asus board with the SB750 chipset and 790FX Northbridge with no integrated video.
Not a huge difference between a very expensive motherboard and a cheaper ASRock at least in Southbridge testing. Next we tested external USB 2.0 transfer rates with a WD Raptor hard drive.
Bit of a switch here in USB performance but nothing that can be accounted to variables in testing.
Next we tested game performance against Gigabyte's 780G motherboard.
As you can see you do lose quite a bit with the loss of Sideport memory from the board. If you're looking to do gaming you'll probably want to look at least a 780G with sideport memory if not a 790GX. Power consumption is up next. Idle measurements were taking at 5 minutes idle into Windows Vista desktop, load was measured with Valve's map creator benchmark which stresses all four cores.
Sideport memory adds slightly to the overall power consumption of the board.
Pricing: Score: 92% | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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We've looked previously at a number of ASRock AMD based integrated motherboards and today we have yet one more from the company who have been on a role lately. Today we'll be looking at another 780G based motherboard but this time one that mixes things up from their previous effort with the A780GXE/128MB. Since AMD launched the 780G chipset earlier this year there's been some confusion about SidePort memory, what motherboards have it and what don't, what size, and how fast it is. This is fairly important as well at least when it came to integrated graphics as without it there is a major drop off in performance. The ASRock 780GXE contains 128MB of DDDR2 sideport memory on board which can run at 1066MHz. This should help quite a bit with gaming scores or if you don't want to use any of your system's memory then it'll resolve that as well. The other major feature of the 780GXE board is support for 140W TDP processors which helps if you find one of these around. AMD is starting to phase out the 140W 9950BE to 125W now but who knows when that might creep up again the future.
The board's layout is quite good for a budget and integrated motherboard. Not much should actually get in the way here. One problem that might occur is if you're using high-end RAM which extends 3-4" in the air and a very-highend heatsink it might be hard to place RAM in the closet slot. Other wise it shouldn't be an issue. Not much cooling is needed for the 55nm AMD chipsets so the few heatsinks are more than adequate.
I/O ports on the back consist of a PS2 mouse and keyboard port, VGA-Output, DVI-Output (ASRock also includes a handy DVI-to-HDMI adapter), six USB 2.0 ports, an E-SATA port, Firewire, 1 Gigabit Ethernet jack, and analog HD audio output. Isn't it great that motherboard companies finally started putting 6 USB 2.0 ports on the back? Long overdue and now even on boards under $100.
Standard accessories are included here including I/O shield, a few SATA cables, IDE cable, and more.
We see a fairly standard ASRock BIOS here which is quite good overall. One thing I like is that the multipliers no longer have to be keyed in and start at the defaults rather than the lowest value possible.
Even without the advanced overclocking features of the SB750 chipset we were easily able to hit 3.1GHz stable on the ASRock with our power hungry 140W CPU which we raised the voltage on anymore. How other sites have such trouble getting up to 3GHz we're not sure of as with the BE processors we've had no problems.
Here are the spec from ASRock. CPU - Support for Socket AM2+ / AM2 processors: AMD Phenom™ FX / Phenom / Athlon 64 FX / Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core / Athlon X2 Dual-Core / Athlon 64 / Sempron processor
Here is our test system
Our test system was Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 with Catalyst 8.9 drivers.
We tested the transfer rates of our Western Digital 750GB to tested AMD's SB750 southbridge. We compared this board to the high-end Asus board with the SB750 chipset and 790FX Northbridge with no integrated video.
Pretty close but the Asus has a slight edge in hard drive tests.
Next we tested external USB 2.0 transfer rates with a WD Raptor hard drive.
Bit of a switch here in USB performance but nothing that can be accounted to variables in testing.
Next we tested game performance against Gigabyte's 780G motherboard.
So thanks to the high-clock of the sideport memory we see a very slight gain over the Gigabyte 780G motherboard.
Power consumption is up next. Idle measurements were taking at 5 minutes idle into Windows Vista desktop, load was measured with Valve's map creator benchmark which stresses all four cores. The Asus board was using a Radeon HD 4670 video card as it has no onobard graphics.
This shows clearly the potential power savings that onboard graphics offers. If you don't need higher-end 3D performance then a motherboard with integrated video is something you must seriously consider.
Pricing: Score: 95%
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