ASRock K10N78hSLI-WiFi

Since the launch of the GeForce 7 series of products Nvidia has for the most part executed it's product launches with attention and care. Products are usually at all retailers the day of the launch, reviews are plentiful, and the product is usually stable and ready to go. Unfortunately all of that hasn't been true for their integrated chipset, the GeForce 8200. A definite product launch never quite was and we've been waiting on a newer BIOS from Asus' 8200 motherboard for some time now while the 780G has been the champion of integrated graphics for the AMD platform. The boards though have been out for some time and today we have a new one to look at from ASRock who have been stepping up things as of late including with the ASRock K10N78hSLI-WiFi.   As with the 780a and other new Socket AM2+ chipsets Nvidia recently announced, the major change in this chipset is the inclusion of integrated video across the board. From the lowest-end to the highest. This is to allow for Nvidia to enable it's HybridPower technology across the board. What this does is enable for the primary PCI-Express graphics card to be disabled and for the integrated graphics to take over, thus saving power for what can be a very power hungry part of a computer. This function, however, requires a GeForce 9800 GTX or 9800 GX2 which makes it's use very limited for now until Nvidia applies it to more cards. Nvidia also allows for their GeForce boost technology which allows for SLI when a GeForce 8400GS or 8500GT is used with the integrated video. The ASRock still supports this function but onboard integrated video is not on the motherboard so if that is something you're looking for you'll want to look elsewhere. That said you can get much better video than the GeForce 8200 for $30 or less sot it isn't a huge burden for something better. Another major feature of the new Nvidia chipsets including the GeForce 8200 is the support at last for HyperTransport 3.0 which allows for much more bandwidth (5.2GT/s). This is built on a new 65nm manufacturing process which also greatly reduces the heat and power consumption compared to previous motherboards. The ASRock is cooled only by a small heatsink on the Southbridge of motherboard and it does the job excellently without the need for anything more. The board is even quite an overclocker as were able to reach 2.9GHz although this wasn't stable. This is helped by the solid state capacitors used by ASRock.   The board is ATX but not full sizing in at 12.0-in x 8.4-in and fairly light and small motherboard if packing a large number of features. Placement is fine for most of everything except for the ATX power plug which is in-between the the processor and the PCI-E 16x slot putting it in a somewhat uncomfortable position for those with larger heatsinks. We were able to sneak it by with our larger ZeroTherm heatsink/fan but if you are using one of the largest heatsinks out there such as the Tuniq Tower it could be a very tight fit.   The board is 5 phase and features PCI-E 2.0 support with one main graphics card 16x lane, two PCI-Express 1x slots, three PCI slots, 7.1 HD Realtek audio, 802.11g Wi-Fi included with, six USB 2.0 slots, six SATA ports which support RAID, one E-SATA port, one Gigabit Ethernet port, one IDE port, firewire onboard the motherboard, four slots for up to DDR2 1066. So it is very feature rich motherboard ready to handle pretty much everything you can throw at it. Accessories included with the ASRock include a Wi-Fi 802.11g module, one antenna for it, flopppy and ATA133 cables, 4 SATA cables, 1 SATA power adapter, 1 HDMI_SPDIF cable, and driver and software CDs.                       We flashed the BIOS from a pre-release to version 1.0 on their website which fixed a few problems we had and we recommend you flash your board as well to the latest BIOS on their website. The BIOS was quite flexible for a board of it's type allowing us to adjust the CPU multiplier, voltages for the chipsets and processor, the HT bus, and much more. As mentioned earlier overclocking on the board was quite easy and we achieved a respectable overclock with it.         As with the 780 ASRock Wi-Fi was a snap and worked excellently. Simply screw on the module to the header, install drivers, and find your access point and you're off. As a bonus you can also use your computer as an access point if you want. Our connection was good and we never experienced any drop in performance. We do tend to like the idea of onboard Wi-Fi over 2 Gigabit ports but that is a personal preference. ASRock's software for their 802.11g card is quite easy to use.   Software included was ASRock's OC Tuner which worked well enough adjusting settings in the BIOS but we feel that using the BIOS usually yields better results and is more reliable. Their intelligent energy saver was also included which requires AMD's Cool 'n Quiet to be enabled.   Let's move onto performance.                 Here are the specifications. 1. Support for Socket AM2+ / AM2 processors: AMD Phenom? FX / Phenom / Athlon 64 FX / Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core / Athlon X2 Dual-Core / Athlon 64 / Sempron processor 2. All Solid Capacitor design 3. Supports Hyper-Transport 3.0 (HT 3.0) Technology 4. NVIDIA® GeForce 8200 Chipset * FSB 2600 MHz (5.2 GT/s) * Supports Dual Channel DDR2 1066 with AM2+ CPU , and DDR2 800/667/533 with AM2 CPU, with 4 DIMM slots, maximum capacity up to 8GB * Supports NVIDIA® Hybrid SLI? GeForce® Boost feature * 1 x PCI Express 2.0 x16 slot (green @ x16 mode) * 6 x Serial ATAII 3.0 Gb/s connectors, support RAID (RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 0+1, RAID 5, JBOD), NCQ, AHCI and Hot Plug functions * 1 x eSATAII 3.0 Gb/s connector * Supports Gigabit LAN 10/100/1000 Mb/s * Supports 2 x IEEE1394 ports (one port on back panel, one header on board) * 1 x WiFi/E header * 7.1 CH Windows® Vista? Premium Level HD Audio with Content Protection, supports DAC with 110dB dynamic range (ALC890 Audio Codec) * Windows® Vista? Premium 2007 Logo Ready * Supports ASRock OC Tuner, Intelligent Energy Saver * Free Bundle: 1 x ASRock WiFi-802.11g Module and 1 x Antenna * ASRock 1394_SPDIF I/O: 1 x IEEE 1394 Port, 1 x Coaxial SPDIF Out Port, 1 x Optical SPDIF Out Port  Here is our test system. CPU AMD Phenom X4 9850BE Video Card Asus 9600 GT Memory Corsair XMS Dominator 2GB Hard Drive Western Digital 750GB Heatsink Zalmaan 9700 Display Samsung 20" LCD Our test system was Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 with all the latest driver revisions and product updates.  For general performance we used PCMark 05 which yielded a slightly lower result than the 780a Striker II from Asus.    PCMark 05 Score Asus Striker II Crosshair Formula 7206 ASRock K10N78hSLI-WiFi 7234 ASRock K10N780SLIX3-WiFi 6970 For gaming tests we used 3DMark which again showed the Striker II slightly in the lead.    PCMark 05 Score Asus Striker II Crosshair Formula 10956 ASRock K10N78hSLI-WiFi 11006 ASRock K10N780SLIX3-WiFi 10937               Conclusion: ASRock has another winner on it's hands with the K10N78h SLI Wi-Fi, although we are possibly a bit wary of their recent trend of removing integrated video support from chipsets that support it we can see a market for it since integrated video is very weak even the newer chipsets and is easily beaten by a $30 video card more often than not. They've included excellent accessories, features, and also a board that is very overclockable. Unfortunately the one major thing we don't have right now is a price. We'll update that when it does arrive in stores but for now it seems like a very good motherboard and choice for those looking for a Socket AM2+ system. Score: 90%   '); //-->

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Tags: ahci bios corei7 ddr2 firewire geforce gtx260 hypertransport overclocking phenom raid sata socket-am2 vista