ASRock 939Dual vs Asus A8N5X

[evanx]

I know that ASRock is a up-and-coming subsidiary of Asus.
I have worked with both brands before but not these 2 boards.
The ASRock uses ULi while Asus uses Nvidia's nForce.

Which is the better chipset and why? Especially since the price points for these 2 boards are very close (at least in my area, they cost the same).

Thank you.

 

[SynthDude2001]

I'm not familiar with that particular Asus board, but in general I'd say the nForce (assuming you're talking about nForce4 here) is a better chipset. However, if you need AGP support, the ASRock board is really your only choice unless you want an older NF3-era board (and is a good one to meet that need), and I'm quite happy with mine.

 

[evanx]

I am upgrading to a PCI-e card so NF3 isn't an option. The plus point I see here is that the ASRock board allows me to use SATA2 and a rather capable ULi chipset while the Asus board is quite stable and a mature NF4 chipset with few compatibility problems.

 

[grooge]

If SATAII is your main reason, then you're wasting time..

SATAII don't bring speed difference, but rather more feature. The interface speed may be doubled from SATA150, but drive has yet to catch up with SATA150 ..

 

[will889]

AsRock 939 Dual is mostly an option for those that wish to actually run an AGP card now and later transition to PCIe without switching mobos. If you will already have a PCIe card the Asus would seem more logical. ULI is now owned by nVIDA as well.

 

[morkus64]

i'd recommend the a8n-sli (vanilla) instead of either (i say this having owned the asrock)

 

[OhioDude]

I can only speak in regards to the ASRock, having never used the A8N5X. I put together my system in January using the 939Dual, mostly because I had recently picked up an ATI X800 Pro vid card and needed AGP support. I have had absolutely zero problems with this board. The ULi chipset is fast and the board has been rock solid stable. I would without a doubt buy this board again should I need AGP support with a Socket 939 cpu. (I should mention that I do not overclock my system so I can't comment on how well it overclocks.)

Wesley Fink gave the 939Dual high marks when he reviewed it here on AnandTech.

http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2524

That being said, I would PROBABLY go with an nForce4 board if I didn't require the AGP interface.

BTW - If you do decide on the 939Dual, you will want to use 10t for RAS precharge mem timing per the AT review. The ULi chipset operates most efficiently with that tRAS setting. My entirely unofficial benchmark testing bore that out as well.

 

[nJett]

I second what OhioDude said - I went with the 939Dual only because I needed AGP and it ran AGP8x full speed WITH a PCIe slot for when I can afford a new vid card (and the AM2 slot was a cool bonus!) - that said I've been nothing but happy with my board so far. Install went perfectly and system has been rock solid stable. I've OC'd my A63 3000+ to just over 2.2ghz without issue which is great too
As far as the ULi chipset goes - it's given me no grief. The on-board sound is good enough for my purposes, I've heard of some people hearing a buzz from it but I can't detect anything unusual even with headphones cranked up. I probably also would have gone with an nforce4 board if I didn't need the AGP+PCIe which only the 939dual provides but I have no regrets at all about my 939dual.

 

[Towermax]

I looked at both boards and ended up with the Asus A8N5X. I didn't need the AGP slot and SATA 3.0 didn't offer me anything I need right now. All the reviews I could find on the Asus board were highly positive, and I've been very happy with it. It's running a 3800X2 at 10X240 for a nice 20% overclock at stock voltages.

One caution: this board, like a few other nForce4 boards, does not like ATI's X1600 series of video cards. Anything else should work fine. I had to RMA three different cards before Asus told me there was "probably" an incompatibility. 30 page thread on this topic on the Sapphire Forums.