This is the third board from the Upgrade series. K8Upgrade-1689 offers an alternative to the Combo-Z which allows users to upgrade to the Socket 939 through the 939Board later. This greatly reduces the cost of ownership for those who are undecided as you can purchase the 939Board in the future.

In the BIOS, there are also options of ASync 166,133,100 operation and that should go into most retail boards. HTT width can be set to operate in 8/16 (S754) or 8 bits (S939). HTT freq can be set to 1GHz, 800MHz , 600Mhz, 400 MHz. As it is a single chipset with no north south pairs to talk to, this reduces the latency and would provide a swifter computing experience.

In general, the performance is comparable to the Combo-Z. This could be due to the fact that when we pair it up with 939Board, HTT width is set to 8bits for both directions. The 3D performance is a bit lacking and I think it could be due to AGP driver issues. On the issue of PCI/AGP Fix, I have tested the board and it seems to hit the wall at 225MHz (max FSB 300MHz). This is when I lower the multiplier to 8 and increasing the FSB to beyond 220. There are also no voltage adjustments for DIMM, The only available is for the Vcore and it is up to 1.55v.

Installation is simpler compared to the ASrock K8Upgrade-760GX board, it is easier to set the jumpers on the K8Upgrade-1689 to use the 939Board as there are located near to one another and they are clearly labelled. The voltage levels of the DIMM seems to be higher as I have no issues running CAS 2, 5-2-2 using the Corsair XMS3500C2 which does not work at such aggressive timings as it required 2.7v. (BIOS P1.20)

In terms of features, this board sports 8 USB 2.0 ports (4 at the back, 4 via extensions), 7.1ch audio by Realtek ALC850. It also comes with SATA ports which can be used to form a RAID 0, 1 array.

Overall, an upgradeable board with good performance and price.

Suggested Retail Price

Discuss

Pros

• Socket 754->939 upgradeable thru' 939Board
• 8 X USB 2.0 
• Single chipset

Cons

• No IDE RAID
• No Voltage selections
• Too many dip switches

Ratings

Here are my ratings out of 10 stars.

Product Innovation