ASRock 775Dual-VSTA Core2 Duo with AGP and PCI-E along with DDR1 and DDR2 slots.

[funboy6942]

Linkage

Ya'll know this is one hell of a board and this is one hell of a price shipped at $33

ADDED review to go over specs and overclocking abilities.

QUOTE from above review link:

After spending a a couple weeks with the 775Dual-VSTA board I have to say I really like it. When you consider we?ve just seen this $55.99 motherboard hold its own against the Intel 975 chipset in the situations we tested, a motherboard that is over 4 times more expensive at $242.99! I'm currently using it in my 24/7 system which should tell you a lot about the confidence that I have in it.

 

[Kromis]

Dammit, this just HAD to be OEM

Don't know about the e-tailer

 

[funboy6942]

I have personally ordered from them many times over many years and never once did I have a problem.

OEM just means no cables, driver, or back plate but still brand new. All of which you can get from Asrock for free or close to it. And you dont need a back plate, its in the back of the computer where no one looks nor does it stick out and become a eye sore

 

[nsiderTalon]

So I could stick this in my current PC and use it, then upgrade to a e6600, 3870, and 2GB DDR2 when I have the money to? I might have to jump on this...

 

[SynthDude2001]

Too bad it only has two DDR1 slots (i.e., I'd have to give up 2GB of my RAM) or I'd be very tempted. I noticed the same site has the 939Dual-SATA2 as well though, and I just may have to pick up an extra one while I still can...so thanks for the post!

 

[jalaram]

I've also heard that those are good Hackintosh boards.

 

[imported_ghostshell98]

holeee crap thats my everyday board , being going strong for over 2 years now with a pentium d 805 , very flexible board accepting chips up to 1066 and ddr 1 and ddr2 , there was a review done showing a very minor difference in certain applications when using ddr2 over ddr1 and this was the board used . anyway heck of a deal for 32 bux , drop in an e2200 and you got a pretty decent everyday surfing machine , could probably game a little bit too on it.

 

[Cabages]

WTF I had no idea a board like this existed. Ive been wanting to upgrade from s939 but for the cheap, this is the board for me.

AGP PCI-E, DDR DDRII on the same board just seems weird to me.

Thanks, ordered one.

 

[VirtualLarry]

"Bulk Packaged Item Only - Does not include accessories. No Backplate I/O Shield included."

Sounds like factory refurbs to me. OEM boards still include I/O backplates.

Still not a bad deal though. Be warned, these boards are horrible overclockers. A C2D chip deserves a better board. But for those of you that only run at stock speeds, this board is for you.

There are also limitations on what video cards will work with these boards. The newest/fastest boards are the ones with problems.

 

[QTPie]

Doesn't it have any SATA port?

 

[tbogstad]

make sure you flash to the latest BIOS as soon as possible, I had 2 of these boards a year ago, and had lots of small problems cause they had old bioses on them, but as soon as i flashed to the latest all the problems went away.

My brother has one with a E6300 and 7900GTX in it and 2 gb ddr2 ram.

and another friend has one with a E7160 and 7600gs and 2 gb ddr2 ram.

I had tried ddr1 ram in these, but never was it completely stable, but numerouse ddr2 ram sticks worked great.

you can overclock, but really only if you have a 800fsb CPU then you can got to 1066fsb no problem, and you might get to 1200 but even that is not easy.

by the way i am typeing this on a 754 socket board i get from B-tech today for $23.99 shipped, works great so far, no problems at all.

 

[country2]

Nice board, I got one (well it just got replaced with a abit IP53 Pro) Never had a problem with it in 2 years. Thought about selling mine to work as the computer at our testbench uses the same one and they were wanting a backup board.

 

[WT]

I just paid $35 to RMA my dead 775 VSTA back to Asrock ... crap. What lousy timing. Good board for this price, thats for sure.

Edit: 2 SATA ports on the board.

 

[jalaram]

OSX86 info link

 

[murphy55d]

if i didnt want to OC, what would be the best bang for buck processor to pair with this?

 

[VirtualLarry]

Do these boards support vcore adjustment?

Do they support Q6600 quad-core chips?

 

[happy medium]

x4 pci-e slot is a deal killer for me. It will start to bottleneck a 7800gtx or better.

 

[funboy6942]

I overclocked a E4300 on mine to 2.7 so I say its a damn good overclocker, on the very cheap. But thats My Opinion
Did great till I updated the mobo when using a flaky psu and killed my board. But till then, it did everything I ever asked of it.

And if OEM means refurbished, then you better get on Newegg's ass for selling oem stuff all the time, like CPU's with no heat sink as oem, and still call them new

That site it great at telling you what you get, check out some of their other stuff and it will say new, open box, or refurbished in the listings.

Check out Asrock, a division of Asus if you didnt already know, and look at their newest bios and see what they have added. It should tell you what CPU's are supported now on it you can flash it to when you get it.

 

[murphy55d]

Originally posted by: happy medium
x4 pci-e slot is a deal killer for me. It will start to bottleneck a 7800gtx or better.

this may be a dealbreaker then as well...

 

[freshspace]

Originally posted by: murphy55d

Originally posted by: happy medium
x4 pci-e slot is a deal killer for me. It will start to bottleneck a 7800gtx or better.

this may be a dealbreaker then as well...

Is this true? Why am I tempted to buy this board when I don't even have a chip to put in it? I hate you ATers. Alright, let's say that I do have a few dollar bills laying around. What would be a good overclocker chip that I can buy to match it up with this inexpensive board? I mean Funboy42 says he OCed using this board.

 

[nsiderTalon]

Originally posted by: freshspace

Originally posted by: murphy55d

Originally posted by: happy medium
x4 pci-e slot is a deal killer for me. It will start to bottleneck a 7800gtx or better.

this may be a dealbreaker then as well...

Is this true? Why am I tempted to buy this board when I don't even have a chip to put in it? I hate you ATers. Alright, let's say that I do have a few dollar bills laying around. What would be a good overclocker chip that I can buy to match it up with this inexpensive board? I mean Funboy42 says he OCed using this board.

The E2180? That's what I'm probably going with...

And exactly how much of a bottleneck would it be? Maybe this isn't even related (total noob), but I remember reading reviews that said the difference between AGP x8 and PCI-E x16 was little to none (same card).

 

[VirtualLarry]

For OCing, I'd suggest an E4600 or E2220. Not sure if these boards have vcore adjustment, you might have to do a vcore mod on your CPU if you want to hit 3.2. Most chips will do 2.8-2.9 on stock vcore.

 

[funboy6942]

I really do not think you will notice it too much. I mean if your a extreme gamer, why you eeven looking at this board anyway. Besides that I read somewhere that when in crossfire mode on a board that has one 4x and one 16x they both in CF mode go to 4x.

I may be wrong on this but if in cf mode it drops to 4x, then a single 4x slot cannot be that bad. But it you need to have the best then this isnt the board why even be looking at a $33 board and thinking it will perform at a $200 level, but if looking for cheap or ready to dip your feet into core 2 duo chip this is the perfect way to check out the waters without dropping a brick of gold, IMO. Its what I did to get my feet wet, with this same board, and Im glad I did, havent looked back going from AMD to Intel for my game rig one bit. Plus you dont need to go get DDR2 right away, though you can usually find 2 gigs of ddr2 for around $30 shipped. I used my stick of 1 gig ddr ocz 400 on mine tillI got a stick of ddr2 1 gig.

And again, it may not be the top $200~ board for overclocking but for $33 its damn good for what it is. You get good choices, like not having the pci buss go up with the cpu buss, voltage changes, pretty much all of what you need to dip your feet into trying that as well because it has protection so not to fry itself. It will reboot if set to high back into safe mode. Made my E4300 fly.

 

[murphy55d]

Well i'm still using an athlon XP 2800+, on a KT400 board. Radeon x1650XT AGP, and DDR1. I'd like to get a cheap upgrade but if I'm going to be limited to nothing better than a 7800GTX then i may not even go with this. I'm not looking for it to be best of the best but i dont wanna be limited too much either.

 

[funboy6942]

ADDED a link to review of the board, see op. Goes over anything you could want to know, including overclocking.