Asrock 4CoreDual-VSTA (Socket 775) PCI-Express/AGP Mobo, Any problems?

wibble1

wibble1

wibble1

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I can't afford to do a full upgrade at once, so I was thinking of doing it in stages...

Has anyone had problems with the above board, any horror stories?

Does it work in okay in Vista etc?

Is this a good way to upgrade in stages ?

If i shove a Core Duo 6600 in it with my Ati XT1950 512mb AGP am i going to see a massive performance change?

Currently running AMD 3500 / DDR PC3200 1GB

Will this increase my box life a lot ?


Thanks
 
Its up to you. Which parts would you be looking to change?

I have just bought the board, and the 'normal' overclocking limit for the FSB is around 290-305 on DDR. (e.g. my e4300 runs at 9 X 290 = 2.6Ghz)

No major problems that I have heard about really apart from it not being a sensational overclocker.

With my Nvidia 6800LE I didn't see any increase in performance when I changed to this board, but the system does seem more responsive now, and runs a lot cooler than my old Athlon Barton 2500+ @2250Mhz :)

If I was you I would overclock your 3500 and your x1950xt and save the money up to do a decent (CPU/Motherboard/Memory/Gfx) upgrade when you have saved up. You can sell your old stuff when your ready. The reason I say that is that your current graphics card will run fine on the board, but you will not get the best out of anything better as its not a performance motherboard. The PCI-E express is only 4x and not the full 16x as well, which does reduce performance.

If you can't wait, then go for it, sell your old kit on ebay :)

Matthew
 
Dude, you're on to a winner there. I went from a P4 3Ghz with 1GB ram (single channel) with an x1950 pro AGP to that motherboard, same ram (although in dual channel) and same video card, and my 3dmark score more than doubled. The motherboard will run 290Mhz FSB no problem, although i've got mine to 305Mhz. I am now running a e2160 though (only 1MB cache). I highly recommend it for the price.
 
I was looking at going for a e6600, i heard they were good chips and good to OC, but if this board doesnt allow u to OC that much, is it still worth it?


At the moment, it takes me an average 5-6minutes to load up BF2142 and join a game, its ages. I'm just hoping for a real improvement...


I would only be looking at changing the chip atm.
 
Researched these boards myself.
The only known problem i have "read" about is a problem with cold boot due to the IDE not being recognised. Switching your HD to CS/cable select rather than having it on master has fixxed this problem for the majority of users though.
Apart from that the board seems a good stepping stone from AGP to PCI-E.

EDIT.
My comments relate to the 939 so may not be relevant.
 
If your gonna get this mobo, best to put a 800fsb chip in it and clock it. I put a E4400 in mine but would only go to 2.75Ghz on stock volts; most E2160s will get to 2.7 and at less than £60 is good value atm. Mobo OCs better with DDR than DDR2 and the AGP cards work well. Should work well with vista as it is DualVSTA by name. Mine gave me no poblems.
 
I've never had any real problem with these Asrock Dual/Vsta boards and I've got three of them. Never heard of any cold boot problem and I've been in the loop with these since the original Dual/Vsta last Sept/Oct. I have one with an e6600 in it, it's one of the less spectacular overclocks as it's only around 10% above it's 2400mhz stock speed.
My best suggestion is to get the e4400 to go with the Asrock, although it's only got 2mb cache as opposed to the e6600's 4mb you would only feel any benefit from the extra cache during movie encoding or other such number crunching.
The e4400 has a 200mhz bus speed and a 10x multiplier meaning if you set your Asrock's fsb to 290 (which is what they'll do stable) then you've got a 2ghz chip o/c to 2.9ghz.
 
will i still get good performance out of the e4400 and notice a difference compared to my 3500 + ?

what would be the difference in games ? minimal vs. 6600 ?

If i got for the overclocking option, what kinda CPU fan would I need?
 
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You will still see a noticeable increase over yoru current chip.

What CPU fan will you need? I am using the stock cooler atm as I am on a 6600 and have limited overclockability. 275fsb with DDR2 as opposed to 297 with DDR.

I would say that the stock cooler should be good enough as you should not requrie an increase in voltage so simply upping *** fsb will only incerase the heat generated by a very small amount.

Alternativly if you have a small room in yoru budget then this will do you:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-017-AR&groupid=701&catid=57&subcat=821
 
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