ASRock 939Dual-SATA2

Running along the bottom edge of the PCB are the front panel headers, 3-pin fan connector, two USB 2.0 headers, and one FDD connector. The expansion slots at the rear of the motherboard are three PCI, one AGP 8x, one PCI Express x1, one PCI Express x16, and finally ASRock's exclusive expansion slot for AMD's future socket; the M2. This yellow slot looks much like a AGP port and is designed to interface with a future CPU port bridge card that will likely offer two DDR2-667 slots, one AMD M2 CPU socket, and a new Chipset. This design is similar to what was implemented in the K7Upgrade and K8Upgrade series that offered Socket A (462) support with 754 and 939 AMD processors. The notable ASICs in the expansion slot area include a Realtek RTL8201CL 10/100 ethernet controller, ICS 952505AF, Realtek ALC850 7.1 channel audio CODEC, and finally a Winbond W83627HF-AW Super I/O controller. Immediately above the future CPU port is a great deal of jumpers that will need to be altered when installing a CPU bridge card.

Next up we have the Socket 939 CPU area. A LOTES retention frame is used on the CPU socket area but in addition to the two center points for heatsink mounting ASRock also has a hole in each of the four corners. The processors supported by the ASRock 939Dual-SATA2 at this time are AMD's Athlon 64 FX, Athlon 64, and Sempron series. Supported by the motherboard is also Hyper Transport Technology and AMD Cool 'n' Quiet Technology. Next to the CPU socket is a wealth of power circuitry and the ATX 20-pin and 4-pin power connectors. Thanks to ASRock's intelligent design, they have not yet needed to implement any 24-pin and 8-pin connectors on its motherboards, which remains to be the case for both their AMD and Intel solutions. Near the power circuitry is also the 3-pin CPU fan connector.

At the rear of the motherboard are two PS/2 (keyboard & mouse), one LPT printer, one COM, six audio, four USB 2.0, and one 10/100 ethernet port. Overall, ASRock did yet another phenomenal job locating so many various onboard components in such a small area while still making the motherboard viable to work with. One of our disappointments with ASRock's design, which we point out repeatedly, is their lack of 3-pin fan connectors. With the 939Dual-SATA2, there is simply one CPU fan and one system fan connectors.