Tech Link (Motherboard): ASRock 775XFire-eSATA2/A/ASR i945PL Motherboard Review

PCStats reviews a great looking value motherboard that can also overclock decently. The motherboard is based on the Intel® 945P Express Chipset, that supports, of course, dual core. Nowadays, unless there's perfect business sense, it is almost always not a good idea to buy single-core processors. With processors running on the cheap even for dual core, it's always been a great buy to go out and get one, then partner it with motherboard that offers many amenities such as this one. Go get a glimpse at the review.

How many times have you done a little theoretical upgrade window shopping, only to find that all the motherboard brands you've never heard of are the ones within your budget? Companies like PCchips, Magic Pro, Acorp, Biostar, Jetway, and ASRock each crowd the value-oriented motherboard markets, but quality can vary wildly between them. Of these, ASRock (a division of ASUS) is one of the better known, having made made a mark for itself by serving up inexpensive motherboards with basic amenities, good build quality and reliability.

Source:PCStats

Tech Link (Motherboard): CrossFire for the masses?

HardwareZone has a review of an ASRock 775i915P-SATA2 Motherboard that look solid. ASRock offerings looks more and more solid each time I see their motherboard. I remember, it's the first board I've seen which combines Socket478 and LGA775 interfaces! And I've seen a combo of PCI Express and AGP 8x in the same motherboard. Wish I can have a feel for one of their latest boards in my lab =). Anyway, the motherboard being reviewed at HardwareZone has an ATI CrossFire implementation, and would you believe, it is running under an Intel 915P Chipset. Wooot =)...who would have thought this chipset can support CrossFire?

ATI's CrossFire technology has been around for a little over half a year now, but there is still a lack of availability for both CrossFire graphics cards and CrossFire ready motherboards. While both the AMD and Intel camps have strong SLI support in the form of NVIDIA's nForce4 SLI family of chipsets, we only have a trickling supply of Radeon Xpress 200 CrossFire Edition motherboards up till now, but nothing available en masse. Intel has just launched their 975X Express chipset with native dual graphics and CrossFire support. However, it would still be a little while off before these boards populate the market as well. With all this waiting going on for CrossFire to take off with native support, it seems that motherboard manufacturers themselves are getting tired and have taken matters into their own hands. Using existing PCI Express chipsets and with a little modding, we're beginning to see dual graphics motherboards that have rudimentary support for CrossFire.

Full Review: ASRock 775i915P-SATA2