ASRock 775Dual-880Pro

Over the past year, we've seen a greater number of products and innovations come out of ASRock than we've ever seen before. In fact, when browsing the halls of Computex Taipei this year one of our stops for Phoronix was at ASRock's booth. Although they didn't have as many wares on display as Gigabyte or Abit, they did have a fair selection of their "Dual" series on display, which were originally shown off at CeBit this year. Some of these motherboards on display were the 939Dual-M2, which supports AMD's future M2 socket, K8Upgrade-VM800, and the 775Dual-880Ultra. Today with us, we have the 775Dual-880Pro that brings some interesting offerings to the table. For the computer enthusiasts on a tight upgrading budget, some of the enticing features ASRock engineers have bundled into the motherboard include support for PCI Express and AGP 8x graphics cards and support for DDR and DDR2.

Features:

PROCESSOR
· LGA775 for Intel Dual Core Exteme Edition/Pentium D/Pentium 4/ Celeron D processors
· FSB 1066/800/533MHz
· Support Hyper-Threading Technology
· Support Intel EM64T processors
CHIPSET
· Northbridge: VIA PT880 Pro
· Southbridge: VIA 8237R
HYBRID BOOSTER
· CPU Frequency Stepless control
· ASRock U-COP
· Boot Failure Guard (B.F.G)
MEMORY
· Dual Channel DDR memory technology
· Support DDR-II 667/533/400, DDR 400/333/266
· DIMM slots: 4 (DDR-II x 2, DDR x 2)
· Max. capacity: 2GB for DDR-II, 2GB for DDR
SLOTS
· PCI Express Graphics slot: Compaitble w/ PCI Express x16 VGA card
· AGP8X/4X slot (1.5V only)
· 4 x PCI slots
AUDIO
· Realtek ALC850 8 channel AC'97 audio codec
LAN
· VIA 6103L 10/100 Ethernet LAN PHY
· 802.3u, WOL supported
I/O
· 1 x PS2 Keyboard
· 1 x PS2 Mouse
· 1 x Serial Port (COM 1)
· 1 x Printer Port (LPT 1)
· 1 x 8 Channel Audio Port (MIC-IN, LINE-IN, LINE-OUT)
· 4 x USB 2.0 Ports, (2 optional USB 2.0 port via header)
· 1 x RJ 45 LAN Port
CONNECTOR/HEADER
· 2 x SATA 1.5Gb/s connectors
· 2 x IDE connectors (ATA 100/66 mode)
· 1 x FDD connector
· 1 x ATX Power connector (20pin)
· 1 x +12v ATX Power connector (4pin)
· CD/AUX audio in header
· CPU/System Fan connector
· Front panel audio connector
· Game Port header
BIOS
· AMI 4MB Flash ROM with ACPI, SM BIOS 3.0, PnP
DIMENSION
· ATX (12" x 9.6")
CERTIFICATIONS
· FCC, CE, MS WHQL

Contents:

Bundled inside the ASRock packaging, we found the 775Dual-880Pro motherboard, a quick installation guide, support CD, Ultra ATA 133/100/66 IDE ribbon cable, 3.5" FDD ribbon cable, one SATA cable, one SATA power cable, and the ASRock I/O panel. As most of us are aware, ASRock targets their hardware at the budget consumer, thus leaving out additional motherboard accessories that can often be found with Abit, ASUS, and DFI motherboards. One of the areas we've generally seen ASRock skimp on and the past, and continue to do with the 775Dual-880Pro, is the packaging. Unlike some manufacturers who separate all of the contents into individual cardboard compartments thus ensuring near perfect protection, ASRock and a few other manufacturers simply slides a cardboard divider between the motherboard and its peripherals. Nevertheless, the ASRock motherboard arrived to our location in pristine condition.