ASRock Designs LGA1156 Motherboard Based on Intel P67 Chipset

[btarunr]

ASRock is known to mix and match sockets and chipsets to come up with some interesting hybrids that give users access to latest features offered by the chipset. A recent example of this is a socket 939 motherboard based on the AMD 785G chipset (read here), which gives users of socket-939 Athlons access to a fast IGP and PCI-Express 2.0. The company's latest such innovation is the P67 Transformer. This is a socket LGA1156 motherboard, it supports existing Core i5/Core i7 "Lynnfield", and Core i3/Core i5 "Clarkdale" processors, but is based on the Intel P67 Express chipset. The board gives users access to some advanced features of the P67 chipset, but won't support LGA1155 processors.

So what's in it for you? Well, the P67 PCH embeds a PCI-Express 2.0 hub compared to P55/H55, which pack an older PCI-Express 1.1 hub. The older hub is known to heavily bottleneck devices such as USB 3.0 and SATA 6 Gb/s controllers that use only a single PCI-E lane (since PCI-E 1.1 has 250 MB/s per direction bandwidth, compared to 500 MB/s on the PCI-E 2.0). So significant is this bottleneck, that some motherboard designers even used bridge chips that convert the P55's PCI-E 1.1 x4 port to two PCI-E 2.0 x1, for USB 3.0 and SATA 6 Gb/s controllers. The PCI-E x16 slots however, are wired to the processor and are Gen 2. ASRock's board hence gives you two USB 3.0 and two SATA 6 Gb/s with an alleviated bus bottleneck.



The P67 Transformer is a standard ATX board with an LGA1156 socket, four DIMMs for dual-channel DDR3, one PCI-Express 2.0 x16 slot for graphics, three PCI-E x1, and two PCI. Storage connectivity includes two SATA 6 Gb/s, four internal SATA 3 Gb/s, eSATA. There are two USB 3.0 ports, a number of USB 2.0 ports, gigabit Ethernet, and 8 channel HD audio. ASRock claims that this board is capable of extremely high memory overclocking capabilities. It masked the rated DDR3 frequency capability on the motherboard, and is challenging you to guess it on its Facebook page. A lucky winners gets one of these boards. The P67 Transformer will be out in early December. A YouTube video related to the board can be watched here.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[function69]

I used to own an ASrock mobo that had both AGP and PCI-E graphic slots, proved very useful as it was a transition time when AGP cards were pretty cheap, but still offered comparable performance. Later I switched to a PCI-E card without the need to buy a new mobo. I think it's great there's a company out there that's not afraid to experiment, keep it up ASrock!

 

[Frick]

I used to own an ASrock mobo that had both AGP and PCI-E graphic slots, proved very useful as it was a transition time when AGP cards were pretty cheap, but still offered comparable performance. Later I switched to a PCI-E card without the need to buy a new mobo. I think it's great there's a company out there that's not afraid to experiment, keep it up ASrock!

Aye, the Dual Sata 2 is one of my favourite motherboards of all time. Crazy people over there.

 

[(FIH) The Don]

didnt they make a 939 board on 785g chipset aswell crazy sons of b******

 

[gumpty]

Interesting.

I do like the layout of the PCI-E slots. Leaving the slot below the PCI-E x16 blank is sensible - use it's lanes elsewhere where it wont be blocked by the GPU nine times out of ten.

Not sure if it'd be worth the extra cost over a vanilla P55 board.

 

[Maban]

I would think that Intel would say no to this.

 

[bear jesus]

An interesting idea and nice to see something a little different but there is no way i would buy this, to me boards with LGA1155 are all that interest me right now.

 

[AndreiD]

ASRock motherboard designers are gods among men.

 

[InnocentCriminal]

I'm entering!

 

[Andy77]

didnt they make a 939 board on 785g chipset aswell crazy sons of b******

And 790GX... last month I replaced a 939 mobo for a guy and I used just that ASRock 790GX one, the 785G were apparently out of stock. It was the cheapest way of getting him his pc working for internet, casual games, watching some sports, casual stuff.

 

[LAN_deRf_HA]

My brother had an asrock 939 board that had a slot for an add on AM2 socket.

 

[meirb111]

i have a 775Dual-VSTA more then 3 years works great didnt cost much
does the work well

 

[finndrummer]

I see no interest in buying such a motherboard.

 

[InnocentCriminal]

I see no interest in buying such a card.

D'you mean board?

 

[finndrummer]

D'you mean board?

sorry, edited.
But in French we call it "carte mere" means "mother card"

 

[InnocentCriminal]

sorry, edited.
But in French we call it "carte mere" means "mother card"

Arrrh. You learn something new every day.

 

[OneCool]

I hold all of my motherboards like that guy too

 

[_JP_]

I used to own an ASrock mobo that had both AGP and PCI-E graphic slots, proved very useful as it was a transition time when AGP cards were pretty cheap, but still offered comparable performance. Later I switched to a PCI-E card without the need to buy a new mobo. I think it's great there's a company out there that's not afraid to experiment, keep it up ASrock!

I'm using one as I type this.
All in all it's great, but the PCI-e bottleneck is a bummer , everything else is great...
GO ASROCK!

 

[bear jesus]

I hold all of my motherboards like that guy too

I only hold dead boards like that

 

[InnocentCriminal]

Notice how he's got some anti-static foam underneath and not the outside of an anti-static bag? It greatly annoys me that rest motherboards on the outside(s) of those bags. It's only the insides that are anti-static.

 

[tkpenalty]

This really begs the question, what is the point of skt 1155?

 

[p_o_s_pc]

it looks like he is picking up a dead cat to me.
I hold all my dead motherboards and dead animals like that.

 

[fusionblu]

Interesting, these guys might just do the same with making a socket 1366 motherboard based on the X68 chipset. ^^

Still I would like to see the reviews on this socket 1156 P67 motherboard when it has officially been tested by various sources. ^^

 

[temp02]

Aye, the Dual Sata 2 is one of my favourite motherboards of all time. Crazy people over there.

That is still my main system motherboard, works great.
Despite using (or at least they used to) cheap components, ASRock board are really well engineered and assembled.

Also here is an installation helper video that came on the CD that shipped with the board, always made me laugh

 

[micropage7]

few words, looks nice but not so attractive