ASRock Conroe865PE

[VirtualLarry]

http://www.asrock.com/product/ConRoe865PE.htm

http://detail.zol.com.cn/86/85649/pic.shtml

This is my "dream board" for Conroe - I can keep my DDR and use it (up to 4GB!), and likewise my AGP card, all with the known stability of the i865PE chipset and plenty of std PCI slots. Essentially, it's a semi-recent platform design, but with support for the newest CPUs.

So why can't I find this board? All Google links point to chinese sites. Once I even found a link to www.newegg.com.cn (China!), to buy this board, but no such luck at the US NewEgg site. :|

 

[Gary Key]

It should be in the States within 10 days, have a review of it going up next week. Nice board for the money....

 

[butch84]

Any updates on availability in the states yet? I'm looking for one too.

 

[Gary Key]

Originally posted by: butch84
Any updates on availability in the states yet? I'm looking for one too.

No, have two outstanding requests to ASRock on this currently. I want the board for a personal build myself.

 

[oiges]

Yihaaaa,

very good to hear that review is planned.
I have gathered my findings on the quest for core 2 duo + 4 x DDR I + overclocking in
http://users.telenet.be/oiges/

Clockgen had beta that would support similar pll as clockgenerator on the motherboard.
cpucool guy confirmed he supported winbond pll that has same register settings.

Maybe these tools can help in overclockability or maybe the review just shows it is bad overclocker. I am curious. The unique added value is that you guys can compare by putting same cpu on different motherboard and isolate the motherboard to investigate its limits.

Good luck with the review! I will be checking out anandtech regularly

 

[Conky]

I'm looking forward to this board review too.

My 775Dual-VSTA, although a nice stable board, doesn't overclock nearly as well as I would like. If this ConRoe865PE overclocks like I think it will then it's my next motherboard.

 

[Yregouth]

2 x Serial ATA 1.5 Gb/s connectors (No Support for "RAID" and "Hot Plug" functions ) :Q

 

[jester700]

Originally posted by: Beachboy
I'm looking forward to this board review too.

My 775Dual-VSTA, although a nice stable board, doesn't overclock nearly as well as I would like. If this ConRoe865PE overclocks like I think it will then it's my next motherboard.

I suspect it'll be hard locked to 300fsb like the 775i65G. Still, of the boards so far, it's my choice to OC an E4300 in a few months as a system upgrade.

 

[Conky]

Originally posted by: jester700

Originally posted by: Beachboy
I'm looking forward to this board review too.

My 775Dual-VSTA, although a nice stable board, doesn't overclock nearly as well as I would like. If this ConRoe865PE overclocks like I think it will then it's my next motherboard.

I suspect it'll be hard locked to 300fsb like the 775i65G. Still, of the boards so far, it's my choice to OC an E4300 in a few months as a system upgrade.

If the ConRoe965 is truly locked at 300fsb I will just stick with the 775Dual-VSTA because I can do 290fsb stable with it now and runs surprisingly well.

In the mean time I will be saving up my pennies for some DDR2, a PCI-E videocard, and a motherboard yet to be produced.

 

[lookin4dlz]

I'm looking forward to a review of this, and/or any other board that supports DDRI and AGP. Hopefully soon as I need a new computer!

 

[VirtualLarry]

this seems to indicate that the Conroe865PE is indeed locked to a 300Mhz FSB. I still want one though.

This shows an e-mail from asrockamerica, saying that they won't sell this board in the US. WTF?!?! How could ASRock be so bone-headed. Plenty of people with old-but-good gear want to upgrade to Conroe and keep as many of their existing parts as they can. Plus, nobody else seems to make a Conroe board that's a full-size ATX, with plenty of PCI and DDR slots.

 

[ugrakarma]

The positive thing about it is that it does work and it didn't require much fiddling around. The negative side is the typical you get what you pay for argument but with asrock limited bios options and crappy overclocking is the norm so nothing unexpected there. If you plan to overclock don't get this board but it's decent enough interim board if you want to keep your agp and ddr1 for a while longer and save more for the costly ddr2 / pci-e jump.

 

[eplebnista]

We need to all email ASRock USA Sales Department and ask them why they are not selling the Conroe865PE in the USA. <- (mainly to show them there is interest in the USA for the board)

 

[conorj80]

I received a similar reply after inquiring when this board would be available in the US.
"This model is not available in US Region. Thanks !!"
This seems to be the only board available with 4 ddr dimm slots and core 2 duo support. Hopefully Asrock will change their mind but I'm not holding my breath.

 

[vailr]

The ASRock ConRoe865PE is being sold in Australia; some of this list of vendors ("TechBuy" is one) ship internationally and accept Paypal for payment:
Text
Prices are in Australian Dollars.
1 AUS$ = 0.75 US$

asrock conroe865pe mini-review

 

[CupCak3]

any word yet on this being available in teh US?

 

[eplebnista]

Originally posted by: CupCak3
any word yet on this being available in teh US?

Probably not ever.

 

[CupCak3]

i wish some good reviews of this board would go up. i'm almost tempted to order this board of australia

 

[vailr]

I did a "tentative order" (selecting Paypal as the payment method) from TechBuy for the ASRock ConRoe865PE board.
The total delivered price was: $139.23 AUS$ ($104.42 US$).
Ideally, I'd prefer an 875 chipset board made by Abit, with an overclock-friendly Bios.
However, I believe Intel has curtailed production of the 865 & 875 chipsets. Which may be a
factor in ASRock's decision to not offer the board in N. America.

 

[CupCak3]

well let me know how that turns out for you vailr


if this board could hit 400fsb or so i'd probably buy 2 or 3... lol



/me comes back to reality

 

[vailr]

Originally posted by: CupCak3
well let me know how that turns out for you vailr

No: didn't actually send a Paypal payment; ended up cancelling.

I did check another vendor, OZdirect.com, which sends out a AUS$5.00 off coupon for signing up as a customer. So their final shipped price is slightly less than TechBuy's price, for the ASRock Conroe865PE. They also offer a $14 cheaper shipping option via slow container ship, which takes approx. 65 days delivery time to a U.S. address...

 

[eplebnista]

Originally posted by: vailr


No: didn't actually send a Paypal payment; ended up cancelling.

I did check another vendor, OZdirect.com, which sends out a AUS$5.00 off coupon for signing up as a customer. So their final shipped price is slightly less than TechBuy's price, for the ASRock Conroe865PE. They also offer a $14 cheaper shipping option via slow container ship, which takes approx. 65 days delivery time to a U.S. address...

Thanks for the info and effort vailr! :beer:

 

[CrispySilicon]

So did anyone ever pick one of these up and test it?

 

[emilyek]

Dunno, but I want that board with PCI-E.

I've got no desire to get rid of my GSkill DDR.

 

[tcsenter]

Originally posted by: CrispySilicon
So did anyone ever pick one of these up and test it?

ASRock 775Dual-VSTA is superior in every respect, except for max. memory support (2GB v. 4GB) but you get PCI Express in return.