ASRock 939Dual-SATA2 - Socket 939 with PCI-E and real AGP and Socket AM2 upgrade path

[ncage]

Well guys it looks like i will be ordering the MB on thursday along with a 3800+ X2 Tolendo Core CPU. I was so worried about OC potential but i think that with the oc i have been seeing people get with this MB that it won't be *that* much difference than a Nforce4 ultra board (epox or dfi). Thanks to all those that helped me and were extremly helpful like SynthDude2001. Im hoping to get 260 HTT on my new x2 but we will see. Im saving money not only on the mb but on the video card also. I was going to swap my video card out on ebay for a pci-e version but thats just a hastle. Only thing i will really need to do is get another stick or ram because currently i have (3x512) and ive heard 939 MB don't work good with 3 sticks of ram so i will have to get a 4th because i don't want less than 1.5GB of ram. I think this MB is just good to pass up and the price of the x2's are down to a level that i can afford them.

ncage

 

[zizo]

I'm waiting for some new overclocking options for this board, otherwise I would've bought it right now. I think max vcore is 1.45 for non fx cpus, and it needs a hell of luck to get 2.6ghz with 1.45v out of x2 3800.

 

[phillyman36]

Ncage congrats im still debating. One question for you, where are you buying your x2-3800 cpu from?

 

[Fam Money]

Originally posted by: touchmyichi
newegg bumped up the price to 72 :/. I guess I'll just do Ewiz, they had pretty good resellerratings so i'm not too worried.

Mine just came from eWiz right before I left for work. It was well packed and everything seemed ok. Just trying to give you a bit more confidence with buying from as this was my first purchase from them as well.

I'll be putting everything together tonight when I get home from work, wish me luck.

 

[phillyman36]

Good luck with the build fam. I just checked Newegg is out with an autonotify. That sucks looks like ill have to go the Asus way

 

[sandorski]

Great thread! For some reason I didn't even think to check the Motherboard forum for info on this mobo. lol

If the posts discussing Cap quality is an indication, I'd say that Overclocking shouldn't really be considered for this mobo. The mobo will probably run forever at Stock speeds, but putting extra strains on the Caps could cause many mobo failures in a short(< 1 year) period of time.

 

[PingSpike]

I've bought from ewiz before, I even made a pretty good sized purchase for work from them maybe two years ago before they changed their name to ewiz. Their shipping was a little bit slow IIRC, but their prices seem good lately and the packaging and products were always in good shape.

 

[BlackPear1]

Originally posted by: zizo
I'm waiting for some new overclocking options for this board, otherwise I would've bought it right now. I think max vcore is 1.45 for non fx cpus, and it needs a hell of luck to get 2.6ghz with 1.45v out of x2 3800.

I don't know how much luck you need. I got my board & X2 3800+ (from eWiz) a couple of hours ago, put it together, flashed the latest BIOS and dialed it up to 2.5 GHz (SuperPi 32M stable) without much fiddling. I'm not really an oc'er so I've got to believe that someone with some skills could do a lot better.

 

[Stoneburner]

I really want to see more mobo's based on this chipset. Or maybe this same board with more features.

 

[zizo]

That's pretty good. Did you use 1.45v or stock voltage? The thing is that I don't want to go from 2.7ghz to 2.5 or 2.6ghz even if it's dual core. I'm just a gamer and can wait to see what comes up next.

 

[BlackPear1]

1.35 V. (default). The only thing I changed after the BIOS update and selecting "load default settings" was to switch memory from "automatic" to 200 MHz.

 

[SNiPeRX]

Ordered this motherboard and a 3200+ for 202 plus shipping. Can't wait you cant beat that deal for a venice and motherboard anywhere.

Going from my below sig to this setup is going to be great.

With my present setup I got 11,959 on 3dmarks 03 and 5,760 in 3dmarks 05. I am very interested on the performence I will get with this setup. Going to overclock with my water cooling so I should be able to hit decent speeds with my venice. What do you guys think.

 

[ncage]

Originally posted by: BlackPear1

Originally posted by: zizo
I'm waiting for some new overclocking options for this board, otherwise I would've bought it right now. I think max vcore is 1.45 for non fx cpus, and it needs a hell of luck to get 2.6ghz with 1.45v out of x2 3800.

I don't know how much luck you need. I got my board & X2 3800+ (from eWiz) a couple of hours ago, put it together, flashed the latest BIOS and dialed it up to 2.5 GHz (SuperPi 32M stable) without much fiddling. I'm not really an oc'er so I've got to believe that someone with some skills could do a lot better.

Do you know if have a toledo or manchester core? Also going to pm you with the same thing just in case you don't check the thread.

 

[phillyman36]

Hey I ordered the Asus A8n-sli prem but then cancelled because i still want to get some life out of my Bfg 6800 agp card. My new specs are

Asrock 939 mobo
Athlon 64x2-3800
2 sticks of 512 mb corsair value select ram
2 160 g pata drive (may switch to Sata)
Bfg 6800 agp
plextor 716 dvd burner
pioneer 109 dvd burner
Antec Neo power supply

Can some tell me the steps to overclock this cpu as ive never done it via the Bios. The x2 is 2mhz stock. I want to get it up to 2.2 or 2.4 but stable. (i want this to last a while)
Im using the stock fan.
thanks for any help and info

 

[BlackPear1]

@ncage - My 3800 has the Toledo core (CD).
@philly - In the BIOS just go to advanced/cpu configuration and change overclock mode to asynch (I'm not even sure that's necessary but I figured better be safe), then adjust the CPU frequency. I didn't do anything else except change memory clock from "auto" to "200 MHz" (I'm using DDR500 memory) and immediately was able to reach 2.5 GHz stable. There are other small voltage adjustments available as described in the AT review, but I haven't tried them yet. In fact, I don't know how far I can go at default voltages because I didn't attempt an oc higher than 2.5 GHz. Since you're using the stock cooler you might want to keep an eye on temps, but I doubt that there will be a problem (especially at 2.2) if your case is well ventilated.

 

[Qrlx]

I just setup my ASRock 939Dual, with Athlon 64 3000+ I suppose it works and all, but I'm kinda disappointed in the AGP performance.

My old system is an Abit NF7-S Rev 2.0 with Athlon 2500+. Both systems used the same Leadtek GeForce 6800 (non-pro) video card in stock configuration, same RAM (though I have the RAM at 200MHz in the ASRock and I kept it at 180MHz in the old Abit).

In 3DMark05, I'm getting 3587 3DMarks on the old system, and 3186 on the new. I wonder if the AGP slot is just not as fully functional on the ASRock board as it is on my Abit. I've tried the agp drivers, etc. from the ASRock site and from the ULi site; no matter what I do 3DMark05 hovers somewhere in the 3100 range. CPUMarks do go up, as I would expect, from 3402 on the Athlon to 4030 on the Athlon 64.

I'll keep plugging away... if anybody has any suggestions, I'm all ears.

 

[Zap]

I think the discrepancy in performance may have to do with an Nvidia video card on an Nvidia chipset, versus an Nvidia video card on any other chipset. The Nvidia parts may be tuned to work better with each other.

 

[BlackPear1]

Did you reload the Nvidia graphics driver after installing the AGP driver? My system was showing reduced video performance (w/PNY 6800) until I did that, now it seems to work as expected.

 

[Lord Banshee]

How are you guys installing the Nvidia Geforce Drivers and the AGP Drivers.

These are my methods

1) Reformat Hard Drive
2) Install Windows XP PRO SP2 OEM
3) Install ULi Driver Pack 2.1
4) Restart
5) Instal Forceware 77 drivers
6) NOOO!!!! IT froze again!!!

I have reformated twice already. What in the world am i doing wrong

 

[touchmyichi]

yeah, from what I've read you have to install the agp driver first then the actual video card driver.

BTW: After many posts here I have finally ordered the board , I feel like I have just joined some awesome club.

 

[Lord Banshee]

Thats what i did.

I wish you luck and hopefully you don't have this problem!

 

[Qrlx]

Here is how I installed stuff:

Windows XP
SP2
DirectX 9.0c August Update
ASRock drivers
NVidia video drivers
26 Windows Updates

I've uninstalled and reinstalled the AGP drivers, and the NVidia 78.01 drivers; one time I uninstalled the AGP drivers first; Windows blue-screened on reboot (heh). Booted into VGA mode and removed the NVidia drivers.

Since then I've installed the ULi Integrated 2.10 drivers, and the beta 78.03 NVidias, still scoring in the 3100 range.

Should I really be seeing a 10-15% drop in video performance because I'm no longer on an NVidia chipset? Is this what Via, etc. users have been reporting?

In case it makes any diff, I will try the Nvidia 77.xx drivers next...

Another thing that seems odd is CPU-Z says my RAM is at 128.6 MHz; for an FSBRAM ratio of CPU/14, whereas the BIOS reports 166 MHz (I slowed it down to default since my last post.) What's up with that? I realize I have crappy ram (Kingmax... it was cheap) but I didn't think it was that crappy.

 

[Lord Banshee]

Set RAM to 200?? unless you don't have PC3200.

that 128 could be whats hurting you. CPU-Z 1.3 works fine for my board.

It seems to let me install Nvidia 66.93 Driver.. What the crap!

 

[SynthDude2001]

Sorry I can't help you guys out with these issues more, but I don't have the board yet myself. I figure it won't do me much good until I actually have a CPU to put in it.

You may want to email Wesley (the guy who wrote the AT front page review of the board) and ask him what installation steps he took, since his results don't show any real degradation in AGP performance compared to NF4 solutions (on a 6800 Ultra).

 

[zizo]

quote:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by: BlackPear1

quote:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by: zizo
I'm waiting for some new overclocking options for this board, otherwise I would've bought it right now. I think max vcore is 1.45 for non fx cpus, and it needs a hell of luck to get 2.6ghz with 1.45v out of x2 3800.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



I don't know how much luck you need. I got my board & X2 3800+ (from eWiz) a couple of hours ago, put it together, flashed the latest BIOS and dialed it up to 2.5 GHz (SuperPi 32M stable) without much fiddling. I'm not really an oc'er so I've got to believe that someone with some skills could do a lot better.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Do you know if have a toledo or manchester core? Also going to pm you with the same thing just in case you don't check the thread.


If you found some toledo cores, would you let me know too. :thumbsup: