ASrock 775Twins-HDTV is one of the first boards we come across that uses the ATi RC410 single channel P4 chipset supporting the LGA775 processors. Supporting the LGA775 for Intel Dual Core Pentium XE and Pendium D processors with FSB 1066/800/533 with EMT64T, Hyper threading. The board is based on the ATI RC410 + ULi M1573 south bridge. With a flexible memory layout, it supports both DDR and DDR2. So you can still use your own memory sticks. Up to a memory of 2GB is supported either using DDR or DDR2. This flexibility reminds us of the VIA PT880Pro board we reviewed earlier. The good thing about this board is that it comes with an integrated graphcis.

In terms of graphics expansion, it comes with a PCIex16 slot for add on PCIe graphics card. If you want to save some money, the ATi Radeon Express 200 already comes with an integrated X300 video core supporting PS 2.0 and DX 9 and you can use up to a max of 128MB Shared memory. There is also a Fast Ethernet, 7.1ch audio, 4 USB, 4 SATA 1.1 RAID 0/1/0+1/JBOD ports supported by the ULI m1573 south bridge.

In the benchmark department, we ran it against the big players like Intel and VIA chipset boards and found that ATi RC410 suffers a bit in performance. This is largely due to its single channel architecture. The difference is not really that much of a concern if you consider the features that comes with the board. This is also the first ASrock board that comes with FAN control within the BIOS. Being the first board supporting Component out, it seems like a good choice for those who wants to build a quiet and simple HTPC. Most importantly, the Component out HDTV card comes bundled with the package and you can hook it up to TV with component IN (auto sense). It would be good if there is a card for S-Video and/or RCA out as most TV are equipped with these jacks instead of Component IN.

Overclocking wise, the board did not come with extensive voltage adjustments but it does come with adjustments to overclock the internal video core or external PCIe bus. The large range of CLK also allows one to experiement with difference RAM type and speeds, whether running in SYNC or ASYNC mode.

Overall, this board appears to serve its purpose. The early BIOS might have some voltage issues as it was default to LOW. This has been rectified and it is fine.
 

Pricing

Discuss

Pros

• Component Video out
• 8 ch audio
• Fan Control

Cons

• No Wi-Fi
• No 1394
• No GbE

Ratings

Here are my ratings out of 10 stars.