ASRock 4Core1333-Viiv

The northbridge on this motherboard is Intel's P965, which is cooled by a passive aluminum heatsink. Unlike Gigabyte, ASUS, and the other enthusiast brands that build all sorts of cooling contraptions with heatpipes that run from the southbridge to northbridge to the VRM, ASRock just uses passive aluminum heatsinks. Granted, this cooling is sufficient if not overclocking and does save on manufacturing costs.

The processors supported by this motherboard include the Intel Core 2 Quad, Core 2 Extreme, Core 2 Duo, Pentium XE, Pentium D, Pentium 4, and Celeron LGA-775 CPUs. This P965 motherboard is compatible with quad-core Intel Kentsfield processors, including processors that use a 1333MHz FSB. However, when running with a 1333MHz Front Side Bus, the motherboard will operate in an overclocking mode. This motherboard is also Intel Viiv Ready. In the upper left hand corner of the motherboard is the ATX12V 4-pin power connector.

At the rear of the motherboard are two PS/2, one serial, one parallel, four USB 2.0, one eSATA 2.0, one 10/100/1000 ethernet, one IEEE-1934 Firewire, and six audio ports. As always, it's great to see integrated eSATA, Firewire, and Gigabit ethernet on these budget motherboards. The LAN is powered by Intel's PHY 82566DC.