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The ASRock 4Core1600P35-WiFi+AP (what a mouthful !) gives users the choice of using either DDR2 or DDR3 ram.

INTRODUCTION

As you are aware, ASRock is famous for quality budget motherboards. They have been closely linked with Asus, and some have even said that ASRock motherboards are made by Asus themselves. Maybe there is some kind of truth in it, as we know that ASRock motherboards are produced from the same factories as Asus, using the same engineers. I've previously spoken to an ASRock representitive a while back, and they did admit that ASRock is owned by Asus. And that ASRock's main products are directly aimed at the budget/mainstream market ... leaving the high-end and enthusiast products to Asus.

Our past experiences with ASRock motheroards have been good. They are usually built to a high standard, and offers many of the features found on some expensive high-end motherboards. However, what you will find with ASRock, is that their motheboards seem to be one generation behind. I mean, right now the latest chipset from Intel is the X38, and soon it'll be the X48 in a few months time. And what you will notice, is that ASRock's flagship mothewrboard is still using the Intel P35 chipsets. I guess being a budget motherboard maker ... you'll get last year's technologies at a much lower price.

A low price doesn't mean low quality or a lack of fetaures. ASRock motherboards may not ustilise the latest chipsets, but they do offer lot of features found on some of the high-end motherbaords. Take for example the 4Core1600P35-WiFi+AP, which we're about to review. It features things like eSATA connectors found on the ATX I/O panel, onboard WiFi, SATA Raid, HD audio, gigabit ethernet, firewire, as well as offering support for 1600FSB, Crossfire configuration, DDR2 and DDR3 ram. This great news for users who's already got DDR2 ram ... with this combo motherboard, you now have the option to upgrade to DDR3 ram at a later stage. 

What I find generally with ASRock motherboards, is that they usually don't overclock that well, and the available options in the BIOS are very limited. But we can't expect too much from a motherboard that's aimed at the budget/mainstream market. Another quite amusing thing I found with most ASRock motherboards ... is that they're still using jumpers for FSB selection. Boy! remember those jumper days ... one would think in this day and age, that most motherboards nowadays would be jumperless.

             

It will be interesting to see how the 4Core1600P35-WiF+AP will perform. We'll be using our Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 processor, 2Gb of OCZ DDR2-1066 ram, as well as 2Gb of Kingston DDR3-1800 ram. Other components we'll using include a Radeon HD3870, Coolermaster M700 PSU and a OCZ Vendetta CPU cooler. We're expecting the ASRock to perform similar to other P35 motherboards, but how well will it overclock ...

OK, let's take a closer look at the specifications of the ASRock 4Core1600P35-WiF+AP ...