ASRock Mobo Supporting ''Zambezi'' Arrives Soon

something doesn't add up here...

The article says it will support quad Crossfire X...

But it also says there are only 2 pcie 2.0 slots...

And the picture shows 3 slots...

What is it? 2, 3, or 4?

Turbo Button has returned!!!
Now where did I put that old AT/XT computer case?

I wonder if the board thats picturd is the exact board. I doubt it.

Please, for the love of God, stop putting IDE/floppy connections on a new mobos!

why is doing the "Ati" logo on the MoBo????

Cool so people who have a Phenom 2 or Athlon 2 now can use it on the new mobo until they save up for the processor (BD). Very cool.

Looks interesting. Maybe I'll get it and then upgrade my RAM latter. We'll see how it looks when it comes out.

The first two slots are PCIe-16x, the last slot is electrically PCIe-4x, but physically it is 16x.

I don't know about the quad CrossfireX claim though...

Quad Crossfire ~ two, dual GPU cards populating the two PCIe2.0-16x slots.

^If that's the case, then any motherboard with a single PCIe-16x slot can claim Crossfire, eh? Marketing BS

Baby Jesus hates it when you go legacy. PCI and IDE? I'm not buying another motherboard that has either. I'd rather just have empty spaces on the MoBo. People, sata dvd units are $18. Ditch your quantum fireball. If you think that IDE/PCI are mandatory for a board in 2011, you are holding us back. I see many user reviews on the Egg that go something like this:

"I really think this 890 chipset based motherboard should have two IDEs, not just one."

"No PATA, XP installation from another machine was not happy."

Motherboard companies are listening. Be real. It's time to move on. There is no AMD board without PCI. Most AMD boards still come with ribbon cables in the box. There is something wrong with with this picture. At least a lot of Sandy Bridge mobos have ditched the 20th century.

AsRock had a contest recently to suggest new mobo ideas. I see that the suggestions to ditch the legacy devices are going unheeded. I think it's just common sense. If you're still using a eide hdd, you don't --just-- need a new motherboard. You need a clue.

Its not done yet... that isn't the motherboard?

QFT.

It amazed me that anyone would buy a brand new high end motherboard, to use with decade old hardware. But a quite recently built a PC for someone who wanted to re-use his old IDE disk drive. Some people are pretty stupid.

Why buy a 890FX board now instead of waiting for 990FX?

Maybe they are talking about supporting 2 6990 dual gpu cards for Crossfire X.

I use IDE HDD... and i have 2!
Why i have to lose this option?

^Maybe you could get a PCIe controller card

Or spend $50 on a 1TB SATA hard drive that would be faster and probably have 3x storage.

Why is the motherboard 890FX? I thought Bulldozer was 990 Northbridge?

Probably the reason why AMD is losing so many business from intel is because they don't have enough SLI motherboards to select from. It's mostly just Crossfire.

The chipset and CPU aren't tied at the hip. For example, there are boards that support AM3 chips but use the older 7xx northbridge. I am sure that at some point we'll see AM3 boards with a newer chipset, but in the meantime the 890FX is being utilized. Thankfully 890FX + SB850 has proven to be a solid combo. Of course the most important pieces are in the processor itself anyway.

I highly doubt it. Most systems sold on the market don't even have a discrete graphics card, let alone two or more. The enthusiast, DIY market is actually a relatively small portion of overall system (and therefore CPU) sales.

Besides, SLI support is up to Nvidia. If Nvidia decides to continue making chipsets for AMD CPUs, you'll see SLI boards. But I sort of doubt it, since on the GPU side Nvidia and AMD are in fierce competition.

example, I have a 790gx asrock mobo with an am3 processor. Not too long ago, 7xx was the standard for am3.

Too late. MSI already have an AM3+ mobo.

http://www.msi.com/product/mb/890F [...] CPUSupport

Use your mouse over the socket and you will see it.

8 cores...mhm. Tasty.

Zambezi is supposed to have a GPU on chip right? So I'm assuming that's what is used to do quad crossfireX?

The finally made those boards look good with a black CPU socket.

Why did it take them so long ? Intel has had it since the start of the 775 socket.

I didn't do any research on this board, but just wanted to say I think you can technically support Quadfire with 2 slots if utilizing dual-gpu cards (Radeon 5970 or soon Radeon 6990)

Actually, to my knowledge Zambezi does NOT have a GPU integrated on it. I do not think it is a fusion chip at all. I think Llano is the highest power fusion chip that is slated for release soon. People looking for Zambezi level of power will most definitely want a discrete video card, probably at least Radeon 6700 caliber or better.

Awesome! This is perfect, for me! The ASRock Deluxe3/Deluxe4 boards actually had everything I wanted, except for an AM3+ socket! I held off buying, but I'm so glad I don't have to wait for the 990FX to come out. Plus, the 890FX & SB850 are now proven parts and this is hopefully just a minor tweak to ASRock's existing board design.

BTW, I'm buying this for a home-built fileserver. AMD's I/O architecture is so much better for this than Intel's socket-1155/1156 CPUs, plus AMD Phenom II CPUs support ECC memory! It would cost me far more to build an Intel system with ECC and nearly this many PCIe lanes.

AMD may not have the fastest CPUs, but this thing has server-grade I/O and ECC memory. It's the perfect thing for home servers!


Edit: I have just discovered that ASRock doesn't support ECC memory in their Deluxe3 or Deluxe4 boards. I'll wait and see what they say about the Deluxe5, but it looks like I might be buying an ASUS. Which is unfortunate, because ASUS's boards have fewer PCIe slots and SATA ports. And I might have to waste one of the PCIe slots it does have by adding a SATA card, if I don't use an IDE boot drive.

For my next build, I ruled out any mobos that didn't have at least TWO PCI slots! I have 4 PCI cards that I might want to use in it: an 8-port serial card (for home automation), a HDTV tuner card, a SCSI card (have some old disks I might need to get stuff off of), and an expensive uncompressed digital video I/O card.

I also have plenty of IDE DVD-ROM drives, and I like not having to buy another just to get SATA. I might also use an old IDE hard drive for swap.

Just because a product doesn't fit your needs doesn't mean it shouldn't be built. And trust me - you can definitely find 890FX boards without PCI slots. You just need to look, instead of complaining.

Because I need to build a system ASAP, and it would suck to wait for 990FX! I want upgradability, especially since Orochi is supposed to be so good. Also, the 890FX/SB850 are stable parts and the 990FX adds almost nothing.