This is one of the oddest cpu/motherboard combo I have ran across.

The ASRock 775Dual-VSTA LGA775 can support not only the new Core 2 Duo, but it can also support DDR1 and DDR2 RAM modules as well.

I thought when it said that this board (on the Core 2 Duo platform none the less) is able to support DDR1 400 was a typo, but it's not. Apprently there is 2 slots that are DDR1 and 2 slots that are DDR2. Each DDR1 and DDR2 slots can hold up to 2gigs of ram each. Go figure.

But it's nice for anyone using an older AMD user or Intel system user that uses 1gig or 2gigs of DDR1 RAM that wants to build a new pc without worrying about their DDR1 RAM becoming useless.

Link

http://anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2810&p=3

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+ OC 2.7ghz
2GB Dual Channel DDR 3200
Nvidia 7900GT
SATA II 2x 200gig 7200rpm 16mb cache RAID-0
Gigabyte Nforce 4 SLI

Now that is just plain freaky! Conroe, Presler, Dual Cores, pc3200 and DDR2? Geez, make up your mind! Also that is a VIA chipset, unless they have done a whole redesign i doubt any "serious gamer" would purchase this, but perhaps a gamer thats on a "serious budget" though...lol.

Personally, when I go to the doctors, I see a specialist, not the Ear-Nose-Mouth wannabe Doc down the street.

Nice find though Cobra.

AsRock has been known to come out with odd but unique motheroards. Remember the Socket 754/939 motherboard that AsRock came out with 2 years ago?

I give props for AsRock and who knows, maybe they might come up with a motherboard that you will be able to use DDR1 RAM on an AM2 board as well. Cause if you bought 2 gigs of DDR1 RAM not too long ago which is a 200 dollar investment, then the last thing you want to do is throw it away or sell it on ebay 3/4 less then what you paid for it.

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+ OC 2.7ghz
2GB Dual Channel DDR 3200
Nvidia 7900GT
SATA II 2x 200gig 7200rpm 16mb cache RAID-0
Gigabyte Nforce 4 SLI

A very valid point indeed.

What's even amazing is the fact that the low Latency of the DDR 400 RAM combined with the Core 2 Duo yeiled good results. So good that the DDR 400 thanks to it's low latency surpassed DDR2 667 in half of the games that were being memory benchmarked. But overall it was a tie in the end in preformance between these 2 ram types.

So it just goes to show you that DDR1 is still very much alive and well.

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+ OC 2.7ghz
2GB Dual Channel DDR 3200
Nvidia 7900GT
SATA II 2x 200gig 7200rpm 16mb cache RAID-0
Gigabyte Nforce 4 SLI

Yeah, I noticed that. Although if I was going to upgrade to a Core2 setup, I would definitely want a great performing Mobo that was specially engineered For the CPU I wanted. That of course means the whole sha-bang. Being as, I currently own a socket 478 motherboard, Prescott CPU, AGP Card and a pair of pc3200's. So I'd make an effort to get quality parts that were designed from the ground up to work with each other, that includes a overhaul of all components. In my Case A whole new rig. That way I still have a complete system afterwards (the one I'm replacing).

Nonetheless, I do give props. I Remember When 775LGA was introduced there were a few Hybrid motherboard aswell, with a last gen chipset the wasnt ment for the 775 CPU's.

Ohhh, and dont get me started with that one mobo ( the name eludes me right now) that supports both Intel and AMD CPUs. When you wanted to change processors you would just reboot to the selection screen.

I agree if i'm going to build another system it's going to be from the ground up and not bits and pieces from my old one. When the AMD Quad-Core 64's come out on the AM3 socket with DDR3 support, I plan on selling this curent system either in the paper or on ebay.

But I can see what AsRock is doing and that is creating a board for people that have a tight budget that can't afford to spend 500+ dollars on a new system and want to build a new system for as little as they can while at the same time using some of their other parts from their older system to cut back the cost even further. Also AsRock seems to be targeting entry level namebrand pc's as well. I have seen a few namebrand pc's use AsRock boards in their budget line take in to account that this and is the cheapest board that I can find that supports Conroe core. So you know that this board will soon be in a few namebrand pc's budget line along with the Core 2 Duo E6300 and E6400 cpus.

Yeah I think ECS came out with that pentium 4/Athlon XP board it was a special pci hardware that the Athlon XP could run on a pentium 4 socket 478 board.

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+ OC 2.7ghz
2GB Dual Channel DDR 3200
Nvidia 7900GT
SATA II 2x 200gig 7200rpm 16mb cache RAID-0
Gigabyte Nforce 4 SLI

Oh and another thing that I forgot that slipped my mind is the fact that this board also comes with PCI-X16 and a "real" AGP 8x/4x slots. How crazy is that?

This board is pretty much a backwards compatible board.

I'm going to give mad props to AsRock. Some may find what they did odd, but I find it pretty Innovative.

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+ OC 2.7ghz
2GB Dual Channel DDR 3200
Nvidia 7900GT
SATA II 2x 200gig 7200rpm 16mb cache RAID-0
Gigabyte Nforce 4 SLI

Yeah, completely versatile. All of last gens tech plus todays current tech, inventive indeed.

Concerning AMD's roadmap, when will AM3 socket with DDR3 support be available? I guaranty you that once AMD does eventually unveal its next CPU successor, Intel will pull out of its sleeves a Quad 4x4 real quick to counter that. I would not hold it past Intel to do such a thing either. They problaly have a 4x4 right now, and are waiting for AMD to make thier move, like Chess.

Heck if AMD releases its AM3 socket Q4 2007 or Q1 2008, then I might wait. But those Core2's are just so desirable right now, mmm, mmm, delicious, but for someone in your position though, with your relatively new hardware, I can see why you would wait.

Prescott 2.8Ghz Oc'ed @ 3.6Ghz; 5:4 ratio
Abit Is7-E Motherboard, i865-PE Chipset
Muskin pc3200 Enhanced, 412Mhz; 2.5-3-3-6
Pny 6800nu; 430Mhz 820Mhz; 16p,5vp
Two 36Gb Raptors in raid0 a

I have heard that AMD may pull a shocker and debute AM3 with DDR3 support in Q1 of 2007, but as of right now that's more of a rumor then anything else. When AM3 will be exactly released is foggy, but most signs are pointing to late Q4 of 2007 or early Q1 of 2008.

I don't think Intel will do a 4x4 type of setup, because Intel doesn't want to copy AMD, just like AMD doesn't want to copy Intel. I just think that Intel will continue to Improve upon the Core 2 Duo, until their quad-core processor comes out which will prob be named Core 3 Quatro.

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+ OC 2.7ghz
2GB Dual Channel DDR 3200
Nvidia 7900GT
SATA II 2x 200gig 7200rpm 16mb cache RAID-0
Gigabyte Nforce 4 SLI

Well, it would be super easy for intel to slap on one more monolithic chip on a fab waffer to produce a quad core Conroe. Similar to what they did with the 8xx series CPUs were intel just put two prescotts together and called it dual core.

Nobody will be copying anyone, thats is just the eveatualy route that technology will progress to.

Heres some news that suggest that AM3 CPUs will have both DDR2 and DDR3 support on the integrated memory controller. DDR3, like DDR2, has 240-pin, but the two formats are not pin-compatible.

It seems AMD is going to keep its K8 architecture for a while (2008), only revising it along the way. This also infers that Conror will hold the preformance crown for a long time.

http://dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=2388

Prescott 2.8Ghz Oc'ed @ 3.6Ghz; 5:4 ratio
Abit Is7-E Motherboard, i865-PE Chipset
Muskin pc3200 Enhanced, 412Mhz; 2.5-3-3-6
Pny 6800nu; 430Mhz 820Mhz; 16p,5vp
Two 36Gb Raptors in raid0 a

From what toms hardware reported, the AM3 processors will be backwards compatible with the AM2 motherboards, but you will lose Hyper Transport 3.0 which is only compatible with AM3 motherboards. Now the AM2 processors are not compatible with the AM3 motherboards, because the AM3 processors will have one less pin then the AM2 processors; sound familiar?

The design may not change but the architecture will. AMD is going to 65nm which will enable them to reach higher speeds along with Hyper Transport 3.0 which will allow them to increase the GHz transfer rate. Not to mention quad-core support.

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+ OC 2.7ghz
2GB Dual Channel DDR 3200
Nvidia 7900GT
SATA II 2x 200gig 7200rpm 16mb cache RAID-0
Gigabyte Nforce 4 SLI

Supporting two types of memory on a motherboard is nothing new. My wife's computer supports DDR or PC100 RAM. And, I have a very old machine (Pentium 166) running Linux which can use PC66 and SIMM modules. I'd say that board is circa 1996.

Michael J

I take back what i said in post #10. With some new info. K9 tech will first only be available in servers.

"K9. Due to launch in 2007, K9 should be a quad-core chip appearing under the Opteron brand name in servers. It will feature a new core design, DDR3 memory, and contain L3 cache, which will let server designers build systems using up to 32 processors. (Current cache settings allow for only eight processors per system.) AMD road maps indicate quad-core chips for desktops will initially appear in 2008." -Computer Power User

Prescott 2.8Ghz Oc'ed @ 3.6Ghz; 5:4 ratio
Abit Is7-E Motherboard, i865-PE Chipset
Muskin pc3200 Enhanced, 412Mhz; 2.5-3-3-6
Pny 6800nu; 430Mhz 820Mhz; 16p,5vp
Two 36Gb Raptors in raid0 a

Yeah, it isn't nothing new but the fact that you can throw in DDR1 ram on a redesigned from the ground up processor like the Conroe Core with a picky VRM, is pretty innovative to say the least considering how they had to design it.

I don't think AMD is concerned about the way things are right now. They saw this coming so it wasn't like Intel shocked them. I'm sure they knew about the Core 2 Duo before anyone else did. If you read what one of AMD's spokesmen said about this, he stated that AMD doesn't have the capacity that Intel does in it's chip sector to pull a rabbit out of the hat so to speak, and it takes more time for them to develop something innovative then Intel. So instead they bought the oldest gpu maker and by doing so that is going to target Intel’s gpu sector which is the largest supplier of gpu chips in the world right now and go after them hard. I know it sounds funny that Intel is the largest gpu chip maker, but they design gpu chips for many types of electronics from GPS to DVD players. Good move by AMD to go after Intel which has been up to this point dominate in that sector of electronic gpus.

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+ OC 2.7ghz
2GB Dual Channel DDR 3200
Nvidia 7900GT
SATA II 2x 200gig 7200rpm 16mb cache RAID-0
Gigabyte Nforce 4 SLI