ASrock AM2NF4G-SATA2 is the new variant of K8NF4G-SATA2 we reviewed earlier this year. With the integrated video and low cost yet feature rich chipsets, AM2NF4G-SATA2 is probably the first entry level board to support the AM2 CPU.

As it uses the 6100 NB, it supports integrated NV44 graphics supporting PS 3.0 and has a max share memory of 128MB. The board also comes with Realtek ALC 888 7.1 ch audio codec with HDA and Realtek PHY RTL 8201CL for Fast Ethernet connection. The board is also equipped with 2 SATA II 3.0Gb/s supporting RAID 0,1,JBOD and "Hot Plug". The board also comes with CPU temperature sensing, CPU overheat shutdown, fan tachometer, chasis fan tachometer, cpu quiet fan and voltage monitoring. The board is also Windows Vista Ready

Performance levels are good and on par with the big boys using the newer 5xx series chipsets. The board has a number of o/c options which you could test on. In our tests to push for high CLK, we are unable to go beyond the 202MHz mark. I suspect there could still be bugs in the engineering bios that needs work. We will iron out the o/c issues with ASrock and update you guys on that.

Installation is quite straightforward for this board mATX board. I like the fact that it works out of the box. Even if you don't want to spend the money on a graphics card, you can use the on board VGA for the time being before you buy a better say 7300GS to decode WMVHD and hooking up to your HDTV. The board also uses passive heatsink and it is barely warm to touch. Most importantly, the board is claimed to be VISTA ready thus you wouldn't have problems later on.

Overall, the board exhibits a very basic yet practical feature set that appeals to those who wants a build a silent and yet powerful system based on the AM2. I would recommend it this board for its cost/performance ratio.

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