Author Topic: ASRock Dual VSTA + Core 2 Duo, favorite upgrade path everThis is it, after using AMD (Read 420 times)

Connection · « **on:** October 28, 2006, 05:50:26 AM »

This is it, after using AMD chips for longer than I can recall, I've become a total Intel suck up. And props to ASRock too for what is (so far) one of the best upgrade paths I've ever taken.

The ASRock Dual VSTA allows you to use either an AGP or PCI-E video card, and you can also choose between DDR and DDRII. Best of all, it goes for $50 online. So I moved my Geforce 6800 Ultra and 1GB of PC3500 to a C2D, from a paltry Athlon XP.

It didn't take more than 20 minutes before I decided it was best for everyone involved to overclock the chip to E6600 speeds, and it ran four hours of Prime 95 torture test. I'll leave it there since its not crashing so far. My Athlon XP wouldn't last ten minutes on Prime, yet I ran it that way for three years and never gave me fuss.

So far the CPU tests are as fast as AMD's best stuff on the Sisoft Sandra benchmark, and within 10% of other Core 2 Duo rigs online. What made me happier is to see every game I've tossed at it run like butter, even with lots of multitasking.

IL-2 Sturmovik is silk even on the most chaotic battles, and I can play Battlefield 2 while I burn a DVD.

Tomorrow if I'm not too busy playing games I'll run and post some benchmarks. I'm like a kid on Christmas, I cant wait to play Aces High and use FRAPS to record the action, is there anything I should watch out fore with an Intel dual core and AH?

Schutt · « **Reply #1 on:** October 28, 2006, 05:55:01 AM »

CC watch out for knives in your back and burglers in your house

Apart from that is good for upgrading if you want to keep old graphics card (and have a good agp one) also with current memory prices its good to be able to use the old ram.
Just next generation Graphics cards (which i guess are available by mid 2007) might run a bit slow due to getting pciex4 only and when you somehow end up wanting four ram sticks you cant.

Krusty i think has it too and says it works great, he already mentioned the great upgrade possibilities.

Probably one of the cheapest ways to get a conroe running and being faster than any non conroe processor.

MrRiplEy[H] · « **Reply #2 on:** October 28, 2006, 06:17:54 AM »

Asrock has brought many innovative products lately to the market. One feature I liked was motherboards that supported the use of mobile Intel cpu's through a socket conversion etc.

The downside with versatility though is often a loss in performance i.e. you won't get 100% the performance out of your hardware as there are compromises made to include both AGP and PCI-E typically. I'm not sure if this is the case with the Asrock in question but similar issues have been found in the past.

Ghosth · « **Reply #3 on:** October 28, 2006, 08:47:35 AM »

I've got the same or similar Mboard in my system although with an AMD processor. Rock solid, smooth as silk and has yet to show a single problem.

Best of all with the Venice core it runs so cool I don't constantly have to monitor temps.

Good Mboard if you want to keep your options open.
Ohhh and one of the only motherboards in the current generation that still has drivers for Win 98. (sorry love my dual boot 98/xp)

MrRiplEy[H] · « **Reply #4 on:** October 28, 2006, 11:40:55 AM »

Here's an anandtech article for people who are looking for a cheap upgrade path using the Asrock. They found out that you get little to no real life performance hit by using your old DDR1 ram.

http://www.anandtech.com/printarticle.aspx?i=2810

Sancho · « **Reply #5 on:** October 28, 2006, 06:10:11 PM »

I have this board and love it. It's is a good way to go if you want to move up to core 2 duo and its awesome CPU performance but are happy with the rest of your components. Far cheaper than buying new RAM, video card, power supply, etc.

Krusty · « **Reply #6 on:** October 28, 2006, 09:03:56 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by MrRiplEy[H]
Here's an anandtech article for people who are looking for a cheap upgrade path using the Asrock. They found out that you get little to no real life performance hit by using your old DDR1 ram.

http://www.anandtech.com/printarticle.aspx?i=2810

VERY interesting! Good to know I can keep my DDR400 for a while longer. I was afraid I'd need to upgrade to DDR2 when I got a conroe, just for performance's sake.

handy169 · « **Reply #7 on:** October 29, 2006, 12:29:27 PM »

athlons XP where not really a good chip to compare with anything. as far as being low price and better then celerons. when comparing Athlon Xp's to AMD 64's its like day and night. and any pent 4 or conroe chip would run circles around it. when comparing athlon 64's to conroe .. only when you get to the high in conroe will you find a difference. but when doing that your shelling out money to get that performance. so unless your getting a high end conroe, athlon 64's X2 are better.

Connection · « **Reply #8 on:** October 29, 2006, 07:30:06 PM »

This Core 2 Duo with DDR ram benchmarks faster than the fastest AMD in Sisoft Sandra, that is just with a $50 motherboard.

Krusty · « **Reply #9 on:** October 30, 2006, 10:47:41 AM »

Handy, one thing you're overlooking here...

The low-end conroes are just as good as the highest end Athlon 64s (if not out-and-out better), but they do it with stock cooling, with LOW temperatures (even at load) and with a fraction of the power consumption. That means less heat, less heat, and less heat. Less wear and tear, longer life on the chip, and better overclockability.

I've heard of a lot of folks overclocking their Athlon64s, needing huge expensive cooling kits because it generates more heat than... well my space heater. Conroes overclock like crazy on stock heatsinks. To *me*, and I'm an uneducated slob on the matter, that sounds like a far far better chip.

Why is the Prescott accepted as one of the worst Intel chips around? Becuase it gulps juice and creates lots of heat. Well so do AMD chips, compared to even the lowest of the Conroe line.