Exclusive Review of ASRock K10N750SLI-WIFI nForce 750a SLI mainboard

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ASRock introduces the first nForce 750A SLI mainboard. This mainboard supports the Socket AM2+ / AM2 processors: AMD PhenomTM FX / Phenom / Athlon 64 FX / Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core / Athlon X2 Dual-Core / Athlon 64 / Sempron processor. It features alll Solid Capacitor design and supoprt Dual Channel DDR2 1066 with AM2+ CPU, and DDR2 800/667 with AM2 CPU, with 4 DIMM slots up to a maximum capacity up to 8GB.
This board comes with 2 x PCI Express 2.0 x16 slots (green @ x16 mode, blue @ x8 mode). It can run in SLI mode in a Dual PCIe x8 configuration. Alternatively, it can run with one 8500 or below card to run in Hybrid SLI mode with the inbuilt IGP (which has no independent output).

Other features on this board includes 6 x Serial ATAII 3.0 Gb/s connectors, support RAID (RAID 0, 1, RAID 0+1, RAID 5, JBOD), NCQ, AHCI and Hot Plug functions, - 1 x eSATAII 3.0 Gb/s connector, Gigabit LAN 10/100/1000 Mb/s, 2 x IEEE 1394 headers (one port on back panel, one header on board). In addition, it has a 7.1 CH Windows® Vista™ Premium Level HD Audio with Content Protection, supports DAC with 110dB dynamic range (ALC890 Audio Codec), DTS (Digital Theater Systems).
In terms of expansion, the board comes with 1 x WiFi/E header. The backplate also has 1 x Coaxial SPDIF Out Port, 1 x Optical SPDIF Out Port, 1 x eSATAII port, 1 x RJ-45 LAN Port with LED, 1 x IEEE 1394 port, 6 x USB 2.0 Ports.

For those who wants to o/c the board, there is the ASRock OC Tuner. With the software IES ( Intelligent Energy Saver), you can also see the power savings in realtime.

IES is first implemented on ASRock K10N750SLI-WiFi. It is based on AMD PSI (Power State Indicator) spec, which is a function for AM2+ platform to improve energy efficiency by disabling extra phases when CPU is at light loading. The exclusively designed Intelligent Energy Saver can effectively increase Voltage Regulator Efficiency by 16% and decrease its Voltage Regulator power consumption by 48% without reducing CPU performance and reliability.

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