ASRock 939Dual-SATA2: First Retail ULi PCIe/AGP
by Wesley Fink on September 7, 2005 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Gaming Performance
There were no glaring deficiencies in gaming when we tested the ULi Reference Boards, but we were surprised that AGP outperformed PCIe and wondered aloud whether some future manufacturer would better tune the PCIe performance. If you look carefully, it's clear that ASROCK has done just that. AGP performance is a bit lower than the outstanding results that we achieved with the ULi Reference, but PCIe has now risen to the top of the charts. PCIe gaming results are now among the best that we have seen with any AMD Socket 939 board.
It is clear, after our testing of both ULi Reference and ASRock boards, that the ULi M1695/M1567 is capable of both top AGP performance and top PCIe performance. This means the ULi boards have proven that they can be tops in both areas. The capabilities are there with the ULi chipset, but it is up to the manufacturer to tweak the BIOS and/or board to achieve top performance.
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touchmyichi - Friday, September 9, 2005 - link
think i'll have any luck w/ an XP-120?frodin - Thursday, September 8, 2005 - link
Wesley: Did you try checking/ replacing the BIOS backup battery? I have started experiencing coldboot/BIOS issues myself (and actually only when my flat is really cold(!)), and I am running everything @ stock with 2x 512mb Crucial Ballistix ram. Everest reads the battery voltage as 0.3v /this could of course be wrong), I'll try and replace the battery with another one that I know works in another board. I am running the 1.10 (stock) BIOS.Just a thought.
mindless1 - Monday, September 12, 2005 - link
Everest's report is unquestionably wrong, you'd lose all your bios settings long before the battery dropped so far as 0.3Vceefka - Thursday, September 8, 2005 - link
Now if ULi can include SATA II, NCQ and Gb LAN and someone makes a board with that chipset including 1394b (on a TI controller), I'd buy it.JustAnAverageGuy - Wednesday, September 7, 2005 - link
Would have liked to see some Battlefield 2 benchmarks, but I agree with the poster above saying that having 5 or 6 boards with the same chipset (and same results) is a bit redundant.- JaAG
Nighteye2 - Wednesday, September 7, 2005 - link
Considering the cold boot issues increase with 4 DIMMs, could they be specific to the RAM? Could the board be more compatible with other brands of RAM?Wesley Fink - Wednesday, September 7, 2005 - link
The RAM used for testing is always specifed on our test setup page, and I also mentioned it several times in the article. It is our standard test memory, OCZ PC3200 Platinum Rev. 2, based on Samsung TCCD memory chips. Samsung TCCD is also available from many other Enthusiast memory companies like Corsair, Mushkin, G. Skill, Patriot, Geil, and many others.Nighteye2 - Wednesday, September 7, 2005 - link
I know and read that. It's just that I've had an experience with RAM incompatibility myself. The RAM worked fine on other boards, without errors, yet gave several errors on the board I was using. Switching the RAM to another brand made the board work perfectly.It's been a while ago, so that's why I can't mention specifics, but not all boards are fully compatible with all sticks of RAM. Does ASRock recommend using RAM from several vendors, and if so, is the OCZ RAM on that list?
OvErHeAtInG - Thursday, September 8, 2005 - link
That's what I thought, it probably just doesn't like TCCD.WeaselBlade - Wednesday, September 7, 2005 - link
Anyone have any idea whether it will be possible to run an agp/pcie crossfire setup, using a PCIE master card and AGP slave?