What's up with these pictorial reviews? Are AT readers now considered too stupid to understand a real review? If I wanted pictures I'd visit Newegg and look at them. Some of us use actual reviews to determine if the motherboard is a good buy for our needs. Just because it has a P55 chipset doesn't make it identical to the other brands.
I'm a little worried about the position of the CLR CMOS button - I reach around to fiddle with a USB cable for one reason or other and accidentally reset the BIOS!? Tell me there is some sort of safeguard against accidentally pressing that button.
I am baffled that none of those new motherboards comes with onboard 1394b (Firewire 800), even on the high end models. The standard has been around for a while now and even a low end mac mini has a 1394b connector. Is there a specific reason why this standard isn't widely adopted by major manufacturers?
Firewire is being phased out as a mainstream connector, since USB 2 and on the horizon, USB 3 has a far wider adoption. There are no need for any other connector types.
Only special interest items, such as some older external HD's, older professional grade digital cameras and DVR's use firewire nowadays, and as such, there is no need for the connector on a mainstream motherboard.
What's wierd is that they include 1394a! Seriously, when you want the consumer to pay you $200 for the board, would you include 6 USB 1 ports? No. USB 2. Same with firewire: Firewire 400? No, Firewire 800. It's far better than USB 2 and I'll bet there are a lot of folk out there with an external firewire 800 HDD that will be annoyed at small data transfer rate they get, especially since this board is all about
USB2 is in the chipset. This gets brought up in the majority of Motherboard review comments - most users don't care about FW. So it is tossed in for emergency use/feature check off, but not FW800 to keep the cost down.
Can some one explain me why this motherboard doesn't has a northbridge (and its heatsink of course) and the MSI previewed earlier does?... I know that now the memory controller is in the CPU , so the northbridge shouldn't exist anymore...
But let me say something, ASRock is really getting over the top with their new motherboards, really nice layout and colors. Dual Lan connectivity, 16 phase power, power on/reset/clear CMOS…. All the stuff of very high end motherboards at an excellent price and quality. Im really impressed.
Nice, ASRock - it's good to finally see a company realize that forcing all users to upgrade their cooling solutions isn't something we appreciate. It would have been even better if Intel would have realized that before designing the new socket... though I suppose the low-end coolers won't be able to cope with Core i5/i7 heat output. Maybe I'll finally upgrade from my aging Q6600 @ 3.3GHz in a few months? Heh... right, like I'd even notice the difference in my day-to-day computer use!
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sanmike - Friday, February 19, 2010 - link
that Netflix was willing to reimburse their customers - without us begging or demanding. It's rare that you see customer service like that. http://www.forexsystema.com/blog/">http://www.forexsystema.com/blog/http://www.autoforextradingsystem.org/blog/">http://www.autoforextradingsystem.org/blog/
blwest - Wednesday, August 12, 2009 - link
What's up with these pictorial reviews? Are AT readers now considered too stupid to understand a real review? If I wanted pictures I'd visit Newegg and look at them. Some of us use actual reviews to determine if the motherboard is a good buy for our needs. Just because it has a P55 chipset doesn't make it identical to the other brands.UNHchabo - Wednesday, August 12, 2009 - link
I think they're under NDA not to release any benchmark results.jasonbird - Friday, December 25, 2009 - link
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flipmode - Tuesday, August 11, 2009 - link
I'm a little worried about the position of the CLR CMOS button - I reach around to fiddle with a USB cable for one reason or other and accidentally reset the BIOS!? Tell me there is some sort of safeguard against accidentally pressing that button.deanx0r - Monday, August 10, 2009 - link
I am baffled that none of those new motherboards comes with onboard 1394b (Firewire 800), even on the high end models. The standard has been around for a while now and even a low end mac mini has a 1394b connector. Is there a specific reason why this standard isn't widely adopted by major manufacturers?Rasterman - Wednesday, August 12, 2009 - link
Since most people don't care about FW why would they spend $5/$10 per board to implement it? Just buy a $10 FW card and use whatever MB you want.joos2000 - Tuesday, August 11, 2009 - link
Firewire is being phased out as a mainstream connector, since USB 2 and on the horizon, USB 3 has a far wider adoption. There are no need for any other connector types.Only special interest items, such as some older external HD's, older professional grade digital cameras and DVR's use firewire nowadays, and as such, there is no need for the connector on a mainstream motherboard.
philosofool - Tuesday, August 11, 2009 - link
What's wierd is that they include 1394a! Seriously, when you want the consumer to pay you $200 for the board, would you include 6 USB 1 ports? No. USB 2. Same with firewire: Firewire 400? No, Firewire 800. It's far better than USB 2 and I'll bet there are a lot of folk out there with an external firewire 800 HDD that will be annoyed at small data transfer rate they get, especially since this board is all aboutgsuburban - Sunday, August 16, 2009 - link
In addition, 1394b is not very popular and has a different connector to the device.strikeback03 - Tuesday, August 11, 2009 - link
USB2 is in the chipset. This gets brought up in the majority of Motherboard review comments - most users don't care about FW. So it is tossed in for emergency use/feature check off, but not FW800 to keep the cost down.joos2000 - Tuesday, August 11, 2009 - link
And with DVR, I mean digital camcorders. Slip!Hapikern - Monday, August 10, 2009 - link
Can some one explain me why this motherboard doesn't has a northbridge (and its heatsink of course) and the MSI previewed earlier does?... I know that now the memory controller is in the CPU , so the northbridge shouldn't exist anymore...But let me say something, ASRock is really getting over the top with their new motherboards, really nice layout and colors. Dual Lan connectivity, 16 phase power, power on/reset/clear CMOS…. All the stuff of very high end motherboards at an excellent price and quality. Im really impressed.
anandreader - Monday, August 10, 2009 - link
I gather the cmos clear button just resets the settings but not the actual bios. What kind of bios security is there on the board?JarredWalton - Monday, August 10, 2009 - link
Nice, ASRock - it's good to finally see a company realize that forcing all users to upgrade their cooling solutions isn't something we appreciate. It would have been even better if Intel would have realized that before designing the new socket... though I suppose the low-end coolers won't be able to cope with Core i5/i7 heat output. Maybe I'll finally upgrade from my aging Q6600 @ 3.3GHz in a few months? Heh... right, like I'd even notice the difference in my day-to-day computer use!n7 - Monday, August 10, 2009 - link
s775 cooler compatibility is a very nice thing to see.Considering how simple it appears to be to accommodate that, it's disappointing this is the only board to date i've observed that features this.
Kudos to AsRock for incorporating yet another impressive backwards compatibility feature.