ASRock 775XFire-eSATA2

Conclusion:

Even though ASRock had implemented "Untied Overclocking Technology" onto the 775XFire-eSATA2, it certainly did not help in our overclocking process, as we were unable to successfully boot after raising the frequency beyond 215MHz. Certainly, the lack of voltage adjustments with the motherboard had hindered the overclocking abilities, along with the lack of emphasis by ASRock engineers to design a highly overclock-able solution. However, this is not to say that the ASRock 775XFire-eSATA2 is a worthless motherboard as it is quite the contrary. In fact, it would have likely been the first ASRock Editor's Choice Award from Phoronix -- if it were not for the overclocking challenges we faced as well as the motherboard being limited due to the i945PL Chipset. Intel's 945PL Chipset, unfortunately, lacks serious options that its LGA-775 supportive siblings offer. The options range from supporting 1066MHz FSB processors to most notably, DDR2-667. Although we cannot attest to the quality of ATI's CrossFire on the 775XFire-eSATA2, due to the lack of supportive Linux display drivers, the motherboard does officially support the technology; however, its multi-GPU benefits will likely be stricken due to the PCI Express x4 bottleneck with the secondary graphics card. As the i945PL is not officially certified by ATI, ASRock had pulled into action a PCI Express x16 signal from the Northbridge while they had pulled in a PCI Express x4 signal from the Southbridge, which they have called AGI Express. Yet another feature making its way onto the 775XFire-eSATA2 are eSATA capabilities, or rather external SATA 2. With ASRock's present implementation of eSATA, it is simply an adapter on the rear I/O panel that allows you to connect Serial ATA hard drives from the exterior side of your PC. Unfortunately, rather than utilizing an additional SATA controller dedicated for these ports, it is required to bridge the SATA ports using an included cable. In our various tests with the eSATA 2 interface, we had no troubles running a hard drive or using an external enclosure such as the Data-Tec DS350, and transfer speeds had not suffered as they were ultimately powered by the ICH-7R Southbridge. The need for external SATA is certainly growing, and other manufacturers have begun placing SATA ports on the I/O panel, but we hope ASRock will be able to better revise this technology to cut down on the internal SATA wiring to tidy-up the internal chassis appearance as well as allowing further storage capabilities. Finally, onto our performance results the 775XFire-eSATA2 was quite competitive with the real-world benchmarks. In the various Linux games, and other timed tests, the ASRock 775XFire-eSATA2 had performed exceptional beating out its 775Dual-915GL and 775Dual-880Pro siblings. In some instances, the ASRock part had even outperformed the flagship Abit AW8. However, in a portion of the benchmarks that are considered synthetic, the i945PL had its lead stolen in a feisty battle. On the topic of Linux compatibility, the motherboard had worked flawlessly in our set of tests with LM_Sensors being the only exception. Ultimately, many new features made their way into this motherboard from ATI CrossFire support to eSATA 2 capabilities, along with Untied Overclocking Technology, and a fair amount of improvements all around the board. However, even though its performance was competitive when gaming, it is important to keep in mind that the overclocking abilities will only satisfy the light-hearted. Although this may not be the choice for those looking for blazing fast results, this is certainly one of the better budget LGA-775 motherboards to have come along in months, and is one of the top ASRock motherboards we have ever tested. At the time of writing, the various Internet retailers have not begun shipping the motherboard but keeping up with ASRock's pricing scheme, the motherboard will likely sell for approximately $60-80 USD and should be available around the world in the very near future.