[OCWORKBENCH.COM] ASrock 939SLI32-eSATA2 Intro 1/5

If you have read our 939SLI-eSATA2 review, you wouldn't be surprised the power of the ASrock board with the ULI m1697 board. Not only can it run SLI in Dual 8x mode, it is really a big challenger for the NF4 SLI chipset since the price is definitely way lower and brings down the cost of owning a SLI system

Some readers are quite particular about the feature set of the board. ASrock now dishes out another high end version of the board 939SLI32-eSATA2. As its name implies, this board has a better feature set than the 939SLI-eSATA2. In fact, the most important additions are the Gigabit Ethernet, 1394 and also Dual PCIe x16 SLI support. The board comes with 2 PCIex16 slots which allows SLI to be run in a 16x + 16x configuration in contrast to 939SLI-eSATA which can only be configured to run in a 8x + 8x mode. What that means is that there is ample bandwidth for high end cards.

On top of all this, the 939SLI32-eSATA2 just like the 939SLI-eSATA2, supports eSATA2 ports. This allows you to hook up eSATA2 enclosures which allows SATA HDD to be connected externally without compromising the speed in contrast to the lower performing USB or 1394 interfaces. The board also features the Future CPU port which allows one to upgrade to the new AM2 940 pin processor in the near future.

The mainboard comes with 4 ports of Serial ATA II 3.0Gb/s, RAID 0, 1, 0+1, JBOD and RAID 5, and "Hot Plug" functions, and 2 ATA 133 IDE ports, 2 ports of eSATAII 3.0Gb/s (shared with 2 SATAII ports), support "Hot Plug" function. 5.1 Channel with High Definition Audio, 1394 and Gigabit Ethernet LAN is supported. The board is also Windows Vista Hardware Ready ROHS compliant.

Socket 939 for AMD Athlon 64/64FX/64X2 processor
( Detailed support list is available on www.asrock.com/support/index.htm )
ULi M1697 + M1695 Chipset
Supports FSB 1000MHz (2.0GT/s), Hyper-Transport Technology and AMD Cool 'n' Quiet Technology
1 x Future CPU Port (Supports CPU upgrade from AMD K8 939-Pin CPU to AM2 940-Pin CPU through AM2CPU Board)
Untied Overclocking : During Overclocking, FSB enjoys better margin due to fixed PCIE/ PCI Buses
Supports Dual Channel DDR400, 4 DIMMs slots
Hybrid Booster - ASRock Safe Overclocking Technology
Supports Gigabit LAN 10/100/1000 Mb/s
2 x PCI Express x 16 slot
1 x PCI Express x 4 slot
1 x IEEE 1394 Port
4 ports of Serial ATA II 3.0Gb/s, RAID 0, 1, 0+1, JBOD and RAID 5, and "Hot Plug" functions, and 2 ATA 133 IDE ports
2 ports of eSATAII 3.0Gb/s (shared with 2 SATAII ports), support "Hot Plug" function
5.1 Channel with High Definition Audio
Windows Vista Hardware Ready
ASRock eSATAII+1394 I/O : 2 eSATAII ports, 1 x IEEE 1394 Port