ASRock Innovates Socket 939 Motherboard with AMD 785G Chipset

[btarunr]

This creation by ASRock is bound to surprise you. The motherboard specialist used a present-generation AMD 785G + SB710 chipset to drive a socket 939 motherboard, called the ASRock 939A785GMH128M. That's right, socket 939, supporting some of the oldest processors in the Athlon 64 and Sempron 64 series. The socket 939 CPU is powered by a 5-phase power circuit. It is wired to four DDR memory slots, supporting dual-channel DDR memory at speeds of up to DDR-400 MHz.

The AMD 785G chipset packs an ATI Radeon HD 4200 class integrated graphics processor with 128 MB SidePort memory, while the SB710 southbridge provides 5 internal SATA 3 Gb/s ports, and one eSATA port. The expansion slots on this micro-ATX motherboard include one PCI-Express 2.0 x16, one PCI-E x1, and two PCI slots. The IGP connects to its displays using DVI-D, HDMI, and D-Sub. 8-channel audio, and gigabit Ethernet make for the rest of it. There is no word on the availability or pricing as yet.



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[Fitseries3]

are you serious?

 

[eidairaman1]

Hey there are still many 939 Users out there, so get over it.

 

[MrMilli]

Handy for SI's as a replacement board.

 

[JrRacinFan]

Now this is very very interesting ....

You are probably looking at one of the best s939 overclocking boards now. What I find even more interesting is how they used the 785G to incorporate a 16x2.0 slot for 939 users.

Very innovative.

 

[soldier242]

yeah i am using S939 in my barebone, but seriously they didn't need to build a new board for that

is there some market for this?

 

[bogmali]

Hey there are still many 939 Users out there, so get over it.

AMEN

 

[DaJMasta]

Hey there are still many 939 Users out there, so get over it.

But how many are looking to upgrade and keep their processor? Even the highest end X2 on a system like that would perform like a $65 or so dollar chip now (I'm pretty sure the X2 Regor would trash them clock for clock), and while you may have some DDR lying around, it's quite cheap to move up that.

So while it's interesting, and shows the flexibility of AMD's chipset architecture - when could it be cost effective to go with this as an upgrade?

 

[mechtech]

Well it is nice to see though, within my family there is 4 s939 builds, so if a mobo does die at least I may have a replacement, instead of a mobo, ram and cpu.

 

[cdawall]

i wonder how it will clock...

 

[TheLaughingMan]

Well it is mATX and a very well built board. Considering the 785G....I say they are shooting for people with 939 AMD's and DDR laying around to build a budget HTPC out of this thing.

I may actually know two people who would be interesting in this if the price is right....say $70 to $85.

 

[Spectrobozo]

yes... this can make sense to some users, let's say the guy have a 939 PC, with a 939 cpu + ddr1 and a old AGP vga, the motherboard stops working, so he can buy this thing and put the system working again, and with lower power consumption and a more modern "gpu" (with dx9c, DX10 and UVD2)...

 

[ShRoOmAlIsTiC]

Im still running 2 939 boards, I already bought a 4350 for one but for the other this would be great. they are also getting old and chipset fans are taking a crap and what not. I use one for htpc and one for wifes work computer. both have the old 165 and 170 opterons in them. If these arent too pricey I might have to get one or even two.

 

[mdm-adph]

Give me a Socket 754 board with a 785G chipset and we have a deal.

 

[erocker]

Give me a Socket 754 board with a 785G chipset and we have a deal.

I have three unused s754 chips that would love that! Either way this is a great idea. Instead of selling off your old CPU or throwing it out, give it new life in your living room.

 

[mdm-adph]

I have three unused s754 chips that would love that! Either way this is a great idea. Instead of selling off your old CPU or throwing it out, give it new life in your living room.

Man, I know -- did a lot of people go straight from s754 to AM2? Because I never bought anything that was s939, but I've got several s754 chips.

 

[eidairaman1]

Ya after my new machine is built im thinking of retiring the DFI LP NF2 Ultra-B with Athlon XP-M 2500 since I can't push it further than 2.2GHz (anything higher crashes- probably chipset/vrm cooling related) and Dropping in a 939 Board and CPU.

 

[tonyd223]

media pc? get the price right and it should be chaeper than a HDMI equipped graphics card - and it's got SATA ports - so my old 4200X2 can find a home other than the Asrock 939Dual it's currently on.

So, a good idea but only if the price is right... £30-ish

 

[TheLaughingMan]

Man, I know -- did a lot of people go straight from s754 to AM2? Because I never bought anything that was s939, but I've got several s754 chips.

I honestly, don't know, but the 939s were great chips. the 939 6400 Black held onto several memory bandwidth/latency titles until triple channeling came along. That chip was a monster.

Please ignore....incorrect information. No excuse, that was just a fail.

 

[tonyd223]

that chip was DDR2 and it's an AM2 chip not 939??????

 

[devguy]

Those of you with the infamous Opteron 1xx serious chips, this is your dream come true!

I skipped every two generations of sockets on AMD. My first socket (excluding slots) was the K7 (XP). Then, I skipped s754 and went to s939. Finally, I've skipped AM2 and went to AM2+. I'll probably skip AM3 and wait it out for AM3+ (if there'll be such a thing)!

 

[newtekie1]

But how many are looking to upgrade and keep their processor? Even the highest end X2 on a system like that would perform like a $65 or so dollar chip now (I'm pretty sure the X2 Regor would trash them clock for clock), and while you may have some DDR lying around, it's quite cheap to move up that.

So while it's interesting, and shows the flexibility of AMD's chipset architecture - when could it be cost effective to go with this as an upgrade?

Upgrades aren't the only reason people buy computer parts. Replacement of failed parts is a huge market, and this fits in the market perfectly.

Socket 939 rigs were great, and still offer very acceptable performance today, especially for most home users that don't play games. The problem is that the parts tend to fail after so long, motherboards being a notorious failure point that is usually difficult to find a replacement for on EOL hardware, and even harder to find a cheap and good replacement.

The fact that s939 was the short period where AMD actually performed better than Intel, and many system integrators started switching to using AMD. There was a relative flood of s939 Pre-builts hitting the market. Pre-builts with weak motherboards, that tend to blow caps after 3-4 years of use... I still see one of two of these in my shop a week...

So this gives people the option to replace just the failed motherboard, and keep the good processor and RAM, instead of replacing the whole machine. People don't like replacing the entire machine if they don't have to, especially when the current machine still fills the need.

Man, I know -- did a lot of people go straight from s754 to AM2? Because I never bought anything that was s939, but I've got several s754 chips.

I don't know, I skipped 754 and went straight from Socket A to 939. Man, I still miss that 939 machine...Operon 148, 2GB DDR-500, x800GTO2...the glory days!!! Probably still my favorite build.

 

[mtosev]

nothing new for ASRock as they also made a new S478 mobo.

http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?Model=P4i945GC&s=

 

[DaMulta]

Well I guess people that spent the BIG BUCKS on the fast 939 don't want to give them up just yet....but still lol

 

[suraswami]

hopefully they have a way to enable ACC and make sempron single core to a dual-core proc or increase the cache to full size etc lol.