If you still
remember last year, we brought the first review of the K8S8X and later
K8upgrade-760GX. Both boards were very stable and fast. It was actually one of
the better selling entry level boards based on the SiS 755 and SiS 760GX
chipsets.
While most of the
existing users have gradually migrated to other chipsets due to the lack of
choices in chipsets, our readers will most likely be delighted by this model as
they have waited for ASrock to come out with a new model that can do moderate
overclocking, suitable for HTPC and based on the 756 chipset.
ASrock 939S56-M is
a microATX mainboard suitable for HTPC. It is based on the SiS 756 / 965L
chipsets. It supports the Socket 939 AMD Athlon 64x2, 64, FX, Sempron processors
with a FSB of 1GHz of HTT. It supports cool n quiet, 4 GB of Dual channel DDR
400. It has 1 PCi-E x16 slot and 1 PCI-Ex1 slot. In terms of expansion, this
board offers 2 IDE channels for connecting 4 IDE HDDs and 2 SATA ports for
SerialATA 1.5Gb/s, RAID 0,1,JBOD, SATA HDD Hotplug.
7.1 ch audio is supported using ALC850 codec. It has 4 ready to be used USB 2.0
ports with 4 more thru expansion cables. There is no GbE but it is equipped with
10/100 Ethernet LAN.
Finally, this board offers
voltage selections to the VDIMM, VCore. It also has settings for ASync PCI-E,
PCI option. This allows you to increase the HTT without affecting the PCI-E and
PCI frequency.
- CPU Frequency Stepless control
- CPU Vcore Adjustment
- AGP/PCI frequency control
- ASRock U-COP
- Boot Failure Guard (B.F.G)
Memory
- DIMM slots: 4
- Max. capacity: 4GB
Slots
- 1 x PCI Express x16 slots
- 1 x PCI Express x1 slots
- 2 x PCI slots
VGA
- n/a
Audio
- Realtek ALC850 8channel AC'97 audio codec
LAN
- Realtek RTL8201CL 10/100 Ethernet LAN PHY
- 802.3u, WOL supported
Connector
- 2 x SeialATA 1.5Gb/s connectors
supports RAID,0,1,JBOD, SATA_HDD Hotplug
- 2 x ATA 133/100/66 IDE connectors ( supports 4 x IDE devices)
- 1 x Floppy connector
- CPU/Chassis FAN connectors
- 20 pin ATX power connector
- 4 pin ATX 12V power connector
- Power/IDE LED connector
- CD audio in header
- Front panel audio connector
- 2 x USB 2.0 port pin header (to support extra 4 USB 2.0 ports)
- 1 x Game/MIDI port pin header
Rear Panel I/O
ASRock 8CH I/O
- 4 x USB2.0 ports
- 1 x RJ45 LAN port
- 1 x Serial port (COM1)
- 1 x PS2 Keyboard connector
- 1 x PS2 Mouse connectors
- 1 x Parallel port (LPT1)
- 2 x Audio ports ( Line In/Out, Mic In)
BIOS Feature
- 2Mb AMI BIOS with ACPI, SM BIOS 3.0, PnP
Support CD
- Drivers, Utilities, AntiVirus Software
- SATA driver and utility
Accessories
- Quick Installation Guide, Support CD, I/O shield
- Floppy/ATA 133 cables
- 1 x SerialATA data cable
- 1 x SerialATA 1-to-1 power cable
