The ASrock K7S8X-E based on the SIS 748 chipset displayed marvellous performance in disk related desktop applications in the CCWS and BWS benchmark. This is to be expected as the older 746/746FX displayed very good disk access scores. In terms of 3D applications, the difference is only merely within 1-3% in most benchmarks except in Quake 3 which is an OpenGL application. The performance is slightly lower than the reference board but it could be tuned up further in BIOS.

This board has basic feature set. The North Bridge on board is SiS 748, South Bridge is SIS 963L. This board supports up DDR-400/333/266 Memory with up to 2 DIMMs of DDR400, up to 3 DIMMs of DDR333/DDR266 (1 GB per DIMM with max. memory size up to 3 GB). Cmedia 9739 6 channel audio codec is used on board. I/O controller is Winbond W83697HF. Down underneath are 6 PCI and 1 AGP 8x slot. The board only comes with 2 channels of IDE interface supporting up to 4 HDDs. Two fan connectors can be found on board, one near CPU and the other is for chassis.

Overclocking wise, it doesn't come with very basic overclocking features. It is a basic board more targetted at the OEM/SI people. I have been wondering why ASrock do not make a better overclocking board based on the chipset. Well, is it because of ASUS. Well, I do not know. Anyway, the board does provide a FSB of up to 248MHz which you can select. With no voltage tweaks, the maximum FSB I can get the board to run steadily using relaxed timings without any modifications is 208Mhz. I have seen the board POST at 218MHz but hangs in a blue screen. That shows the potential if you intend to do the mods to the board.

K7S8X-E is the first manufacturer to release SiS 748 into the retail market. Considering the low price of the mainboards, will it be more worthwhile or not, the decision is yours. You can visit our K7S8X Guide in our ASrock forum on how to mod the board if you are interested.

Suggested Retail : US59.00 on pricewatch.com

Discuss

Pros 好处:

• 6 Channel audio
• USB 2.0 
• Low Price
• 10/100MBps LAN

Cons 坏处:

• No IDE RAID
• No SATA
• No Voltage adjustments Vcore, Vdimm.
• No Multiplier control

Ratings

Here are my ratings out of 10 stars.

Price/Performance Award