ASrock 939A8X-M is the no frills ULi M1689 implementation. Without the upgradeable options, it has slight performance advantage compared to the Combo-Z and K8Upgrade-1689 board.

In our test, we compared the performance to other ULi M1689 boards, VIA K8T800Pro and NF3 boards. We found that this board scored much better than the ULi M1689 reference board. In fact, in 3DMark2001SE and 3DMark2003, it puts the rest of the boards to shame.

Features wise, 939A8X-M supports the basic requirements of most mATX users. It has 4 ready to use USB 2.0 ports and 4 more can be added on through brackets. There is also a 8 Ch audio and Fast Ethernet. This is definitely more than enough for users wanting to build a small entertainment PC.

Those who loves to overclock will be able to find the FSB, Multiplier, Vcore, VDIMM adjustments etc accessible within the BIOS itself. We only managed to push the FX-53 to up to 222MHz x 8. Well, those using Winchester 3000+ might have more luck than me.

One thing I like about this board is its small size. Another thing is that the ULi M1689 heatsink is very cool despite running SuperPI in aggressive memory mode. Running CAS 2, 5-2-2 isn't a problem as the vdimm can be set to 2.72v.

For a low price of ~60 USD (based on RMB495), this is definitely a cheap way to get high performance.

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Pros

• 8 ch audio
• USB 2.0 
• Chipset is cool

Cons

• No USB extension brackets provided
• Floppy connector position

Ratings

Here are my ratings out of 10 stars.