ASRock K7S8XE versus Soltek 75FRN2L ("Golden Flame")
It was last year when users first became aware of the ASRock trade mark. That time, many leading manufacturers showed increased interest in the value sector of motherboards market. Among them was Asustek who established Hua Ching, a daughter company. The basic idea of the founders was to target ASRock produce at the users and organizations on the budget.
But the market sector in question had been tightly filled by ECS (Elitegroup), so to achieve some tangible results ASRock marketing division were up to concentrate efforts on producing motherboards built on cheap and very cheap chipsets. These are primarily SiS produce as well as such outdated chipsets like VIA KT266A and Intel 845D.
Clearly, of special interest are motherboards based on SiS chipsets because with their low price they feature advanced functionality on par with their higher-end counterparts. For instance, SiS 748 is another chipset that features support for new AMD processors of 200(400DDR) MHz bus. Up till now, only nVidia nForce II (rev C1) has featured such function.
In this review, we'll be rounding up two motherboards built on the mentioned chipsets. These are ASRock K7S8XE (SiS748) and Soltek SL-75FRN2-L (nForce II, rev C1).
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ASRock K7S8XE
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| Chipset |
SiS 748 |
| Processor |
Athlon XP FSB 100/133/166/200MHz
Duron FSB 100MHz |
| Memory |
PC1600/2100/2700/3200 |
| HDD |
UltraDMA/133 |
| Additional |
Audio CMI9739A
6 USB 2.0
10/100M LAN |
| Price: |
n a |
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Soltek SL-75FRN-L
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| Chipset |
nVidia nForce II |
| Processor |
Athlon XP FSB 100/133/166/200MHz
Duron FSB 100MHz |
| Memory |
PC1600/2100/2700/3200 |
| HDD |
UltraDMA/133 |
| Additional |
Audio ALC650
6 USB 2.0
10/100M LAN |
| Price: |
90$ (Price.ru) |
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Curiously enough, recently Asustek made a U-turn in its attitude towards the low-end sector. That was then when the company decided to produce motherboards not under the ASRock trade mark, but use the already known and widely popularized Asus mark. This is how the -X series appeared (which we have already rounded up one - Asus A7V8X-X based on the KT400 chipset), and Hua Ching lost Asus support and had to take part in the competition on its own.
ASRock K7S8XE Specifications
| ASRock K7S8XE |
| Processor |
- AMD Athlon/Athlon XP with the bus speeds 100/133/166/200 MHz;
- AMD Duron with the bus speed 100MHz;
- Socket 462; |
| Chipset - SiS748 |
- North Bridge SiS 748;
- South bridge SiS963L;
- Interbridge bus - MuTIOL (1 GB/s bandwidth); |
| System memory |
- Three 184-pin slots for DDR SDRAM DIMM
- Maximum memory capacity up to 3GB
- Support for PC1600/2100/2700/3200 |
| Graphics |
- AGP slot supporting the 4x/8x modes |
| Expansion options |
- Six 32-bit PCI Bus Master slots;
- Six USB 2.0 ports (4 integrated +2 additional);
- Integrated audio AC'97;
- LAN controller 10/100 Ethernet |
| Overclocking options |
- FSB adjustable between 100MHz and 248MHz in 1MHz Increments. |
| Disk subsystem |
- 2 channel UltraDMA/100/66/33 Bus Master IDE (with support for up to 4 ATAPI-devices)
- Support for LS-120 / ZIP / ATAPI CD-ROM |
| BIOS |
- 2MBit Flash ROM
- AMI BIOS v6.00PG with support for Enhanced ACPI, DMI, Green, PnP Features and Trend Chip Away Virus |
| Miscellaneous |
- One FDD port, one serial and one parallel ports, ports for PS/2 mouse and keyboard
- STR (Suspend to RAM) |
| Power management |
- Wake-up on modem, mouse, keyboard, LAN, timer and USB
- Standard 20-pin ATX (ATX-PW) power connector |
| Monitoring |
- Processor temperatures, voltages and rotation speeds of the two fans are all monitored |
| Dimensions |
- ATX form factor, 245mm x 305mm (9.63" x 12") |
Package
Package bundle
- 1x Motherboard;
- 1x software & drivers CD;
- x1 ATA-133 cable, 1x FDD cable;
- A Quick Setup Manual in multiple languages;
- 1x rear panel cap.
The package bundle is worth the price of the produce: only the basic and most essential items are available. The urge towards saving affected even the user's manual which is a small brochure with a very brief description of the motherboard. As a tradeoff, the description is duplicated in all major languages.
Besides the documentation, the box has only a drivers CD, cables and a cap for the rear panel. Upon a closer look at the directory structure on the CD you can find a similarity to Asus produce. Even the graphic interface is the same.
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Content: |
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- Specifications
- Layout
- BIOS, monitoring
- Overclocking and stability
- Soltek 75FRN2-L Board Features
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Performance and conclusions
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Top Stories: |
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VGA Card:
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CPU & Memory:
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