Introduction

According to trends, most people will tend to stick to their old PCs for around 2-3 yrs. While most mainboards may last as long as that, warranty would have already expired by then. The issue is that, everything breaks down but the CPU is still working. To find a replacement board is not an easy task. This is especially true for those who are still running on Socket 939 processors.

Who says that an aging processor can be fed with new technologies? ASRock saves the day by introducing ASRock 939A785GMH128M, the first board in the world that features a AMD Socket 939 with AMD 785G chipset.

This new mainboard fits the AMD Socket 939 for AMD Athlon™ 64FX / 64X2 / 64 processors (if you still have one lying around) and it supports up to Dual Channel 4GB of DDR400 (so you can still reuse your old DDR sticks). As it's chipset features an integrated AMD Radeon HD 4200 graphics, DX10.1 class iGPU, Shader Model 4.1, Max. shared memory 512MB and sideport memory for iGPU. you can save on your graphics card. With a support model, ATi Hybrid CrossFireX can be enabled on this board too.

The board has 1 x PCI Express 2.0 x16 slot (green @ x16 mode), three VGA Output options: D-Sub, DVI-D and HDMI (supports HDCP function with DVI-D port). It supports full HD 1080p Blu-ray (BD) / HD-DVD playback with DVI-D port.

In terms of connectivity, it has 5 x SATAII 3.0 Gb/s, support RAID (RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 10 and JBOD), NCQ, AHCI and "Hot Plug" functions  and 1 x eSATAII Port. There is on board GbE and 7.1 ch hd audio. On top of all these, it supports ASRock Smart BIOS, OC DNA, OC Tuner, IES, Instant Boot, Instant Flash. The board is also EuP ready.

The features are in line with the current AM3 boards. On the next page we take a look at some benchmarks and the see if this board is overclockable.

• Socket 939 for AMD Athlon™ 64FX / 64X2 / 64 processors
• Solid Capacitor for CPU power
• AMD 785G + SB710 Chipsets
• Supports Dual Channel DDR 400/333/266 with 4 DIMM slots, maximum capacity up to 4GB

• Integrated AMD Radeon HD 4200 graphics, DX10.1 class iGPU, Shader Model 4.1, Max. shared memory 512MB
• Integrated 128MB side port memory for iGPU
• Supports ATI™ Hybrid CrossFireX™
• 1 x PCI Express 2.0 x16 slot (green @ x16 mode)
• Three VGA Output options: D-Sub, DVI-D and HDMI
• Supports HDCP function with DVI-D port
• Supports Full HD 1080p Blu-ray (BD) / HD-DVD playback with DVI-D port
• 5 x SATAII 3.0 Gb/s, support RAID (RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 10 and JBOD), NCQ, AHCI and "Hot Plug" functions
• 1 x eSATAII Port
• PCIE x1 Gigabit LAN 10/100/1000 Mb/s
• ASRock Smart BIOS, OC DNA, OC Tuner, IES, Instant Boot, Instant Flash
• EuP Ready
• 7.1 CH Windows^® Vista™ Premium Level HD Audio (ALC888 Audio Codec)
• Windows^® Vista™ Premium 2008 Logo Ready
• I/O Panel : 1 x VGA/DVI-D Port, 1 x VGA/D-Sub Port, 1 x HDMI Port, 1 x Optical SPDIF Out Port, 4 x Ready-to-Use USB 2.0 Ports, 1 x eSATAII Port, 1 x RJ-45 LAN Port with LED

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