ASRock opinions

[Circa2000]

I recently Bought this, can anyone tell me if its a P.O.S.... I paid a pretty small price for it. Seems to work good so far.
ASROCK 939Dual-SATAII FSB1000,UliM1695+1567,4DDR,AGP8X+PCI-E,3PCI

 

[trenchtoaster]

Yeah I was looking to buy ASRock 939Dual-SATA2 Socket 939 ULi M1695 ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail, are they about the same?

 

[Circa2000]

I believe so yes... I read alot of reviews, some bad, some good, like most things these days,,, mine turned out to be good so far

 

[conroe]

I don't realy like mine. I guess if you don't want a exteme overclock it's fine. I moded mine for Vcore and Vdimm, but the cold boot issues drive me mad.

Hay but with AM2 support, both AGP and PCIe it realy is upgradable.

 

[smartel7070]

I got one for about 2 months now and I am very satisfied with it, they are not the fastest around but for the price (99$can) it is a very solid performer. sata + raid + sata2 for the price is

 

[conroe]

I was going to get a PCIe card for it, but I replaced the POS with a Biostar Tforce6100-939. It has SATA2 RAID, MUCH better sound(with the same chip?) okay video, and more voltage. If you did not know, the sound on the DualSATA2 is realy bad.

 

[smartel7070]

In my opinion NEVER go with onboard sound. Better to spend 25$ and get an OEM soundblaster. Onboard sound always suck compared to addin card.

 

[conroe]

I listen to internet radio on mine, and it made it sound realy bad. But even a X-FI will not make internet radio sound better than a well designed onboard sound. In my opinion NEVER use the DualSATA2's onboard sound!

 

[pengwin]

buy a SoundBlaster Live! it like 20 bucks

 

[trenchtoaster]

I got one for about 2 months now and I am very satisfied with it, they are not the fastest around but for the price (99$can) it is a very solid performer. sata + raid + sata2 for the price is

The one I was referring to is only 65 dollars --- http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813157081

Is it the same thing?

 

[Circa2000]

I get alot of static in my sound when i move my mouse and such.. So i think i will buy a soundcard. i didnt know you could get them so cheap tho.

 

[Rugger]

If you search around, you should be able to get a Soundblaster Audigy value for $40 or less - that would be the better option. I've seen some good deals like that on Benbargains.net lately.

 

[Circa2000]

I just started looking around, im in canada and so far i found the Creative Labs SoundBlaster Live! 24-Bit Sound Card for $49.95 .. rip off i think.

 

[Circa2000]

See. The problem is I already went about 300 dollars over my limit.. so i might take it easy for awhile...

 

[Battleofcarnage]

I bought that same asrock board refurb from newegg and worked fine untill i put a pci-e card in it and then i found out the pci-e didn't work. Darn refurb. Friend has one though and he loves it he is running a pci-e 6800gs in it right now and used to run a 9600pro. Runs great just don't get it refurb. Oh and the sound didn't bother me while i had it but i am only running old packard bell speakers lol.

 

[Rugger]

I understand over-budget and price differences between here and CA.

 

[conroe]

Sure it's not just incompatible with the PCIe card? I had a Rosewill 9600 that did not work in mines AGP slot. I had to use a ATi 9200. My AIW 9600 worked fine too.

 

[Battleofcarnage]

Yeah it was compatible because it was my friends 6800gs lol. And it worked fine in his. Also tried a 7800gt. Just a problem with the board, you take a chance getting a refurb so i just rmaed it lol.

 

[conroe]

I bought a second DualSATA2 referbished, it had a bad VRM. Vcore went up and down so much it was unstable at stock speed. I sent that back. The other two mobos I bought refurb(A Asus P5P800 for $46 and Biostar Tforce6100-939 for $43) are working fine.

 

[EllisD420]

Ive had this board for about 6 months now and i must say that i am very satisfied with it. Overclocking wise, i now have my Opty 165 in there running at 2.4Ghz @ 1.375 volts, HTT 266x9...thats about the limit unless you use a modded bios from OCW. Im kinda dissapointed that there arent a whole lot of voltage options in the bios, but thats what you get with a budget board. All in all, i would definetly recommend this for anyone that needs to bridge the gap between AGP->PCI-e or S939->AM2.

 

[trenchtoaster]

Good to know.

Now I can spend 400 dollars and get the dual motherboard and a nice processor and my computer will be as good as new.

Will I need a new power source too? http://www.xoxide.com/35tuposu.html

That is the exact one I have, I think 350w.

 

[Circa2000]

no no no get At Least 450W PSU.. I got a 500W

 

[EllisD420]

Depending on how much other hardware you are running in your system, a 350W brand name PSU might do it, but if you have a high powered video card, a few hard drives, an optical drive or 2, and plan on overclocking at all....you will need more than 350W IMO. I cant stress enough that it is highly recommended to not cheap out on a PSU, it will hurt you more than anything, especially if you plan to overclock.

 

[Rugger]

IIRC he has a 6800GS that he will be putting in the rig. I'd trust an Antec TP380W to do it, but would be more comfortable with a Fortron 450W or maybe even a Fortron 400W.

 

[trenchtoaster]

Hmm okay it is only 50 bucks I might as well. Alright, so 50 dollars for PSU, 65 for the motherboard, and like 300-400 for a CPU. Do you think an AMD X2 4200+ would be a nice choice? I definately want something to last for a while.

Then that should be it I hope. 1280 ram, with an extra slot to get another gig sometime, a dual core 4200+ processor, a 6800GS AGP video card, a 450watt PSU, and the AGP/PCIe motherboard.

Does that look okay as far as upgrading my computer goes?

This is my case by the way. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811144024

Hopefully I dont need a new case too =/

Let me know if I do =p