ASRock 775Dual-VSTA & AM2V890-VSTA

Since ASRock was established in 2002 with the 3 C's -- Creative, Considerate, and Cost-effective -- we have seen their motherboards continually improve. Even while their low price point remains the same, the designs for these motherboards are constantly improving as we have seen over the past year. Some of ASRock's recent motherboards even support ATI CrossFire and NVIDIA SLI, along with Gigabit Ethernet, and Firewire IEEE-1394. One of the integral parts of their designs has been boasting backward compatibility -- such as Conroe-supportive motherboards supporting DDR1/DDR2 and PCI Express/AGP. Coming shortly from ASRock will be the "Alive" series, which delivers on several enthusiast motherboard features. ASRock's latest motherboard line-up leads us to the VSTA, which are a group of motherboards optimized for Microsoft Windows Vista. Today at Phoronix we have taken the 775Dual-VSTA and AM2V890-VSTA for a short preview; GNU/Linux compatibility conflicts prevent us today from sharing the complete results.

Features (775Dual-VSTA):

Processor
· LGA 775 for Intel Core 2 Duo/ Pentium XE / Pentium D / Pentium 4 / Celeron D, supporting Conroe processors
· FSB 1066/800/533 MHz
· Supports Hyper-Threading Technology
· Supports Untied Overclocking Technology
· Supports EM64T CPU

Chipset
· Northbridge: VIA PT880 Pro/Ultra
· Southbridge: VIA VT8237A

Hybrid Booster
· CPU Frequency Stepless Control
· ASRock U-COP
· Boot Failure Guard (B.F.G.)

Memory
· Dual Channel DDR/DDRII memory technology
· 2 x DDRII DIMM slots
· Supports DDRII667/533
· 2 x DDR DIMM slots
· Supports DDR400/333/266
· Max. capacity: 2GB

Slots
· 4 x PCI slots
· 1 x PCI Express Graphics slot
· 1 x AGP slot

Audio
· Realtek ALC888 7.1 channel audio CODEC with High Definition Audio

LAN
· VIA PHY VT6103
· Speed: 10/100 Ethernet
· Supports Wake-On-LAN

Features (AM2V890-VSTA):

CPU
· Socket AM2 for AMD Athlon 64FX / 64X2 / 64 and Sempron Processors
· Supports AMD's Cool 'n' Quiet Technology
· FSB 1000 MHz (2.0 GT/s)
· Supports Untied-Overclocking Technology
· Supports Hyper-Transport Technology

Chipset
· Northbridge: VIA K8T890 CF
· Southbridge: VIA 8237A

Hybrid Booster
· CPU Frequency Stepless Control
· ASRock U-COP
· Boot Failure Guard (B.F.G.)

Memory
· Dual Channel DDRII memory technology
· 4 x DDRII DIMM slots
· Supports DDRII800/667/533
· Max. capacity: 8GB

Slot
· 3 x PCI slots
· 1 x PCI Express x16 slot
· 1 x PCI Express x4 / x1 slot
· 1 x PCI Express x1 slot

Audio
· Realtek ALC888 7.1 channel CODEC with High Definition Audio

LAN
· VIA PHY VT6103
· Speed: 10/100 Ethernet
· Supports Wake-On-LAN

Contents:

As we have been accustom to seeing from ASRock, the contents for the 775Dual-VSTA and AM2V890-VSTA were quite slim. Included with both products were the respective user's manual, driver CD, ribbon FDD cable, ribbon IDE cable, 4-pin molex to SATA power adapter, Serial ATA data cable, and I/O panel.