OCWorkbench Exclusive Review - ASRock ConRoeXFire-eSATA2 on Intel Core 2 Extreme

[bluetooth]

ConRoeXFire-eSATA2

• LGA 775 for Intel® Dual Core Pentium® D / Pentium® 4 / Celeron® D, supporting Core™ 2 Duo Desktop (Conroe), Presler and Cedar Mill processors
• Intel® 945P Chipset

1. Supports FSB 1066/800/533 MHz processor, EM64T CPU and H-T Technology
2. Untied Overclocking : During Overclocking, FSB enjoys better margin due to fixed PCIE/ PCI Buses
3. Supports Dual Channel DDRII667/533 x 4 DIMM slots, with max. capacity up to 4GB
4. Supports ATI CrossFire™
5. 1 x PCI Express x 16 slot
6. Additional AGI Express slot to adopt 2nd PCI Express x 16 VGA card, and other PCI Express x4, x2, x1 interface cards
7. 1 x PCI Express x 1 slot
8. Hybrid Booster - Safe Overclocking Technology
9. Supports Gigabit LAN 10/100/1000 Mb/s
10. 2 x IEEE1394 headers
11. 4 x Serial ATAII 3.0 Gb/s, support RAID (RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 10, RAID 5 and Intel® Matrix Storage), NCQ, AHCI and "Hot Plug" functions
12. 2 x eSerial ATAII 3.0 Gb/s, support "Hot Plug" function
13. HDMI_SPDIF header, providing SPDIF audio output to HDMI VGA card, allows the system to connect HDMI Digital TV/projector/LCD devices.
14. 7.1 Channel with High Definition Audio
15. Windows Vista™ Premium Logo Hardware Ready
16. ASRock 8CH_eSATAII I/O: 2 eSATAII ports, 2 ready-to-use USB ports

CPU- LGA 775 for Intel® Dual Core Pentium® D / Pentium® 4 / Celeron® D, supporting Core™ 2 Duo Desktop (Conroe), Presler and Cedar Mill processors
- FSB 1066/800/533 MHz
- Supports Hyper-Threading Technology
- Supports Untied Overclocking Technology
- Supports EM64T CPUChipset- Northbridge: Intel® 945P
- Southbridge: Intel® ICH7RHybrid Booster- CPU Frequency Stepless Control
- ASRock U-COP
- Boot Failure Guard (B.F.G.)Memory- Dual Channel DDRII memory technology
- 4 x DDRII DIMM slots
- Supports DDRII 667/533
- Max. capacity: 4GBSlots- Supports ATI CrossFire™
- 3 x PCI slots
- 1 x PCI Express x 16 slot
- 1 x AGI Express slot (PCI Express x 4)
- 1 x PCI Express x 1 slotGraphics- n/a Audio- Realtek ALC888 7.1channel CODEC with High Definition AudioLAN- Gigabit LAN 10/100/1000 Mb/s
- PCIE x 1 Realtek RTL8111B
- Supports Wake-On-LANConnector- 4 x Serial ATAII 3.0 Gb/s connectors, support RAID (RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 10, RAID 5 and Intel® Matrix Storage), NCQ, AHCI and "Hot Plug" functions
- 2 x eSerial ATAII 3.0 Gb/s connectors (shared with 2 SATAII ports), support "Hot Plug" function
- 1 x ATA100 IDE connector (supports 2 x IDE devices)
- 1 x Floppy connector
- 1 x IR header
- 1 x Game header
- 1 x HDMI_SPDIF header
- 2 x IEEE 1394 headers
- CPU/Chassis FAN connectors
- 20 pin ATX power connector
- 4 pin 12V power connector
- SLI/XFire power connector
- CD in header
- Front panel audio connector
- 3 x USB 2.0 headers (support 6 USB 2.0 ports)Rear Panel I/OASRock 8CH_eSATAII I/O
- 1 x PS/2 Mouse Port
- 1 x PS/2 Keyboard Port
- 1 x COM Port
- 1 x Parallel Port (ECP/EPP Support)
- 2 x Ready-to-Use USB 2.0 Ports
- 2 x eSATAII Ports
- 1 x RJ-45 LAN Port
- HD Audio Jack: Side Speaker / Rear Speaker / Central / Bass / Line in / Front Speaker / MicrophoneBIOS Feature- 4Mb AMI BIOS
- AMI Legal BIOS
- Supports "Plug and Play"
- ACPI 1.1 Compliance Wake Up Events
- Supports jumperfree
- SMBIOS 2.3.1 SupportSupport CD- Drivers, Utilities, AntiVirus Software (Trial Version)Hardware Monitor- CPU Temperature Sensing
- Chassis Temperature Sensing
- CPU Overheat Shutdown to Protect CPU Life
- CPU Fan Tachometer
- Chassis Fan Tachometer
- CPU Quiet Fan
- Voltage Monitoring: +12V, +5V, +3.3V, CPU VcoreAccessories- Quick Installation Guide, Support CD, I/O Shield
- Floppy/ATA 100 cables
- 4 x SATA data cables (optional)
- 2 x SATA 1 to 1 power cables (optional)
- 1 x HDMI_SPDIF cable (optional)
- 1 x USB+1394 bracketForm Factor- ATX Form Factor: 12.0-in x 8.6-in, 30.5 cm x 21.8 cmOS- Microsoft® Windows® 2000/XP/XP 64-bit/Vista™ compliantCertifications- FCC, CE, WHQLThe specification is subject to change without notice in advance.
The brand and product names are trademarks of their respective companies.
Any configuration other than original product specification is not guaranteed.

[robinhull]

This board is on sale in UK for £56inc vat and is in stock as well!! Probably one of the first reasonably cheap conroe compliant motherboards on sale.

Rob H

[bluetooth]

I am aware. I post it in time for the Conroe launch.

[bluetooth]

ASRock ConRoeXFire-eSATA2

Introduction


ASRock ConRoeXFire-eSATA2 is one of the latest high spec board from ASRock which supports the upcoming Conroe 1066FSB processor including the E6x and X6800 processor. The XFire Series supports the ATi CrossFire technology using two ATi graphics cards for higher graphics performance with the first slot running in PCIe x16 and the second is a AGI Express slot running in PCIe x4.


This board support up to 4 slots of DDR2-533/667 modules. The chipset used supports all series of Intel LGA775 CPUs including the highest end Intel Core2 Duo Extreme (Conroe), the X6800 that runs clks 2.93GHz (1066FSB). Other processors supported are the the LGA 775 for Intel® Dual Core Pentium® D / Pentium® 4 / Celeron® D, supporting Core™ 2 Duo Desktop (Conroe), Presler and Cedar Mill processors, FSB 1066/800/533 MHz,, it also support Hyper-Threading Technology + EM64T CPU. The board also untied overclocking features allowing you to boost the performance by increase the FSB without affecting the PCI and PCIe bus speed.


This board is also VISTA Ready and comes with HDA 8ch audio using ALC888 codec. The board also comes with a HDMI_SPDIF connector which allows audio to be output through a HDMI graphics card. Using the ICH7R south bridge, 4 x Serial ATAII 3.0 Gb/s connectors, support RAID (RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 10, RAID 5 and Intel® Matrix Storage), NCQ, AHCI and "Hot Plug" functions. There are also 2 x eSerial ATAII 3.0 Gb/s connectors (shared with 2 SATAII ports) and support "Hot Plug" function. On top of that, the board supports 1394 (with external bracket) and Gigabit Ethernet.

Read more at
-> http://www.ocworkbench.com/2006/asrock/conroexfire-esata2/g1.htm

[bluetooth]

Watch out for the review with benchmark results posted in less than 12 hrs from now.

[bluetooth]

Review is onlien.

[robinhull]

Seen this on sale in a few online shops, price is about £57 inc vat in the UK, the board seems to have a limitation on the fsb to 300mhz, great board if you are going to run stock fsb but not a lot of extra fsb to get past the 266mhz fsb of the Core Duos. Looks a pretty feature rich having onboard esata, firewire and gigabyte Lan and the 945chipset looks pretty rock solid and well proved.
Quite happy at the moment running budget rock solid AM2 but the performance of core duo looks pretty immense.

Rob H

[casw1000]

Hi there, Firstly thank you for previewing the ConRoeXFire-eSATA2 board and for going into a good level of detail. I purchased one of these boards yesterday for the typical selling online price of £55inc vat.

I have a couple of questions if Bluetooth or anyone else who has a Retail version of this board could check.

1. The bios that shipped with the board, did it support conroe out of the box. {I know this was mentioned a few times in the review and, I am not questioning Bluetooth etc, just making sure i get the correct BIOS versions etc. Also, if the board is shipped with a pre conroe bios, I might not be able to flash it to a newer version as I have my E6400 conroe on order and I have nothing else to flash this with, prior to my CR. **Bluetooth what BIOS version was you using please** Thx.

2. I was planning to buy a Zalman CNPS9500-Led Aero Flower. Is there any known obstructions that would prevent a clear installation of this HSF. Please note, I have not bought this HSF and will hold off until I hear if this is good to install.

Thanks for any further feedback. Great looking board, feature rich, budget price - Good Job ASRock (so far). I normally go for the top end motherboards, so this is my first stab at the budget line of boards. It will be used solely for folding. If this turns out to be a good option, I will buy some more. :)
Thanks,

-casw1000
ps, first time here, great source of knowlege here - good job.

[bluetooth]

it is not a preview. It is a review.
it does support the 1066 fsb Core 2 Duo processors and Core 2 Extreme processor. You can refer to asrock.com.tw website for a list of supported CPUs.

For the test, i was usign p1.20. I wouldn't know if the Zalman fan can fit well as i do not own one.

[casw1000]

Bluetooth, Opps, my mistake. Sorry no offence meant.

As you mentioned in your review, the core 2 cpu's are supported, however I did check ASRocks website before asking the question here. http://www.asrock.com/support/CPU_Su...oeXFire-eSATA2

The link above is the supported cpu list for the reviewed board, and hence as it doesn't state Conroe, and I was trying to ensure I got my info correct before posting my question. I am guessing that given the P1.20 bios was released on the 14th which was when the NDA's expired, I recall. (depending where in the world you lived of course.) So it's most likely that ASRock have not updated the cpu support list, and that's it.

The only possible tell tale sign was the comment "Add new microcode 6F6/44." which could imply the Conroe CPU's, however if ASRock detailed what the changes entailed in a little more detail it would stop people guessing. Microcode doesnt really tell me much, but maybe I am not technical enough to understand this.

I have seen some other motherboards elsewhere that the etailors have a warning stating that the bios shipped on the board, may not be compatible with Conroe, and therefore would need a different cpu to carryout the firmware flashing to the supported Conroe bios, before Conroe would work. Also, the etailor would not accept this back as faulty goods etc.

So, please treat my post as a total N00be question and feel free to delete as you see fit.
-casw1000