ASROCK K7S8X SiS 746FX Mainboard Review (1)
Overclocker 1 Mar 2003 updated 12 Mar 2003

K7S8X (updated benchmarks with 1.32a BIOS)

ASrock, a subsidiary of ASUS hopes to secure the budget sector to compete head to head with ECS which was rather successful with its low cost integrated solutions. With ASROCK joining the market, we will see another head to head competition for the market share.
(Related Reviews/Galleries : SiS 746FX Ref Board, ECS L7S7A SiS746 Mainboard, Iwill K7S2 Gallery)

ASROCK's K7 boards were previously based on earlier VIA chipsets but this has now changed as ASROCK K7S8X is based on a new chipset - SIS 746FX. If you have read our Reference board review of the SiS746FX, it is a good competitor to the nForce2 DC DDR chipset if low cost is the deciding factor in your purchase. In fact, in certain benchmarks conducted on the Ref board and another SiS 746 board, it even overtakes the Epox 8RDA+ based on the DC DDR in desktop applications and disk performance.

K7S8X has standard features as it aims to be a stable board with above average performance with a slightly lowly tuned ram timings. As the board does not come with important settings like RAS to CAS (2-2-5), it all depends on the manufacturer to tune it for maximum compatibility. Although this board does not have a multiplier control and voltage adjustments, the FSB range is amazing. You can choose from 100 ~ 248 at 1Mhz steppings.

This board has support for the following which are just enough for the normal user.

AGP slot – 1 AGP 8X/4X 1.5v slot
ASRock I/O – 4 default ready-to-use USB 2.0 ports (with one extra header, provide extra 2 USB2.0 ports)
1 default 10/100 Ethernet LAN RJ45 port
default Game/MIDI port, COM port, Parallel port, and Audio jack
5.1 channel 3D Audio
10/100 Ethernet LAN
6 PCI slots, PCI2.2 compliance
 

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