ASRock 939A785GMH/128M

[dkm777]

Hi,

I'm planning a nostalgia rig and all that is needed is a motherboard. I have an Athlon 64 3000+ lying unused and the ASRock 939A785GMH/128M caught my eye. Buying used would be good economically but there's always the risk of caps going bad any day. The problem is that this particular version with SidePort memory is hard to find. Is SidePort memory worth the hassle? The machine would be used for playing old games that don't work on 64-bit Windows and I do want to use onboard graphics to keep the rig as simple as possible.

 

[IGemini]

I was looking into the same board a while ago because I wanted to turn a 4000+ into a cheap HTPC platform. Alas, they never released it on this side of the pond and they go for close to $150 on ebay to get them here.

The Sideport memory would help but I wouldn't say it's a necessity. At best it might save from allocating any RAM to the iGPU. I'd be less worried about buying this board used since it's pretty much the newest board ever released for socket 939, being less than three years old.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

If you're playing older games with it, an older GPU like a Rage 128 might not be a bad idea, actually.

You don't need to use the Sideport if you don't want to though.

 

[dkm777]

Looks like I wasn't clear in my OP - I want to buy this board new, because buying a different used board (like an nForce 4 based one) has the risk of bad caps. The funny thing is that the shop I buy most of my computer related things has the SidePort version listed, but it's out of stock. The price difference? 39 American cents . I have no idea why they even bother with the regular version. Another reason that I'm so concerned about SidePort is that I only have two non-matching DDR sticks for a total of 1GB. I'd lose the dual channel advantage and the graphics performance would be even worse.

 

[chubbyfatazn]

I only have two non-matching DDR sticks for a total of 1GB. I'd lose the dual channel advantage and the graphics performance would be even worse.

1GB/2 = 2x512MB... am I missing something? Just because they're unmatched doesn't mean they won't run dual channel so long as you put them in the right slots.

 

[dkm777]

Yes, they are 512MB, one has chips one one side only, while other is double sided. When they were last used in an nForce 4 board it refused to post with them installed in a dual channel configuration.