alienware
Banned
Review time, and I promise to behave myself 
Today I am going to do a rundown of the Asrock ALiveXFire-eSATA2 R3.0. It's quite a mouthful really.
Recently I read the review of Crossfired 5770s and absolutely loved the part about value beans. It was good to read something full of humour and imagination. Not that I was in any way biased by being a Crossfire 5770 owner of course
But that review really got me thinking. Which I suppose was something intended by its author. It had the desired effect, then. So, today my review should help to make those value beans taste all the better then. I certainly hope so !.
So yes, where were we? The Asrock ALiveXFire-eSATA2 R3.0. A while back when I decided to get back into gaming I started looking around for bits and bobs with which to slowly piece together a computer. I didn't have tons of cash but I had a few things on my checklist. I wanted 4 cores and I wanted a stock clock of 3ghz. Anything more than that was a bonus but I did not want to have to overclock my way to the magic marker. Looking around it seemed that AMDs new range of 45nm Phenom 2 processors was a good way of achieving my goal without breaking the bank.
I initially decided on an SLI set up and purchased a 280 GTX. Shortly after I brought a suitable motherboard (the Asus Crosshair 2) and was saving my pennies for a second 280GTX. Sadly in a Chris Tarrant "But we don't want to give you that !" moment I was down a GPU and had to rethink my entire strategy. Looking around at my choices made things quite simple and I brought a 5770. I wanted Direct X 11 support and after my recent experiences with Nvidia I wanted to go red. Many years ago I stuck with green all the way and it proved to be quite a costly and sometimes embarassing time for me.
So my first 5770 arrived with me and I immediately fell in love. Now I know that some people use benchmarks and figures to show how great a product is but I didn't. All I did was put in the 5770 and play some games, and what was immediately apparent to me was that this wee 5770 performed so well I hardly noticed any difference at all.
So now I had my sights firmly locked on Crossfire. After doing a lot of reading I made my mind up. Aspects of Crossfire just seemed so much better than SLI (like the fact Crossfire apparently scales in any game without the need for a driver... Mostly...) helped to seal the deal. I was now on the market for a Crossfire motherboard (much to my annoyance I should add !). I was broke. I had to pay to RMA my 280GTX and in the interim had purchased a 5770 which had wiped me out for the short term. I got a phone call from the company the 280 had gone back to and they said yes it was dead but no, they couldn't send a replacement as they didn't have any. Some fisticuffs ensued and I ended up settling for a second 5770 worth £50 less than I had paid for my 280. Licking my wounds I started to pile up boxes and accumulate parts.
So, broke and a bit annoyed (but very excited by the prospect of seeing two of these little giants strapped together in harmony) I began doing what I do best. Spending hours and hours sitting at the computer looking at motherboards sniffing out a super bargain. In the end I found the Asrock ALiveXFire-eSATA2 R3.0 for £30. Yes you read that right, a Crossfire capable board that will run the latest Phenom X4 CPUs (recent check says no X6 - ED) with DDR2 (as I had lots and RAM prices had shot through the atmospheric barrier) and offer pretty much everything I needed. Here are the specs from Asrock's site.
And a down 'n' dirty close up.
So I ordered it and patiently awaited delivery. Thankfully it arrived sooner than I thought and I took it out of the box. My immediate impressions were -
Hmm, not bad. But those capacitors don't look up to much.
Who in the heck put the ATX connector and AUX power for the Crossfire THERE?
Ooo, it's a wee bit narrower than my Asus, giving me more room.
Included with the board is a funky little card that terminates the second PCIE port if you are only using the one. I won't go into too much detail because I am reviewing this board on the merits of Crossfire capability, not a single GPU configuration. It's basically called a PCIE switch card, though.
The board comes with few accessories but does include a 2 port USB back bracket. Asrock proudly boast about this on their site and although a bit silly I can see why. How you even got anything in the box other than air for this price is quite a thing. Before you rush to order one though there are a couple of things I should point out, just so that you know.
1. This is based on the 480x chipset which was the first ever Crossfire capable chipset. It's been around for about four years. This means that the second PCIE slot is limited to 8x or half the speed of the first one when you run Crossfire. I spent many many hours researching this and having full speed slots doesn't gain that much. From what I read you gained about an extra 1000 marks on your 3dmark in Vantage. Sounds like a lot right? well, not when you are hitting almost 15,000 with the cards in Crossfire. You also would never notice something like that in game unless you can detect a difference of 1-2 FPS.
2. Because of said chipset the hyper transport and north bridge speeds are a lot slower than the latest chipsets. However, the multiplier and FSB are the same and again, it doesn't make an enormous difference. Remember that at £30 it's not going to be 100% perfect, these are value beans after all !
Shortly after setting it all up and running 3dmark Vantage I put out these results. This was with everything at stock speeds and out of the box. Nothing was overclocked and I was running the 10.2 Catalysts.
Which is about what I was expecting after reading around many websites.
Not content on leaving it there though I decided to run ATTO to test my SSD. Nothing to do with Crossfire but to compare the SATA controller to the one in my Crosshair 2.
Which was ever so slightly lower than what I scored on the Asus but could have been down to disc degradation as my drive did not support the TRIM function at that time.
As pointless as it is here is a Windows Rating in Windows 7 with the system running around the Asrock.
Sadly I don't have lots and lots of benchmark results to show you of games running. I can, however, provide real life stats of what setting up the 5770s in Crossfire did in real world terms. My game of choice was of course the marvellous Dirt 2 by Codemasters. I went into the menu and cranked everything as high as it would go and then took this shot. I didn't have FRAPS installed at the time so forgive me for that. So yeah, a single 5770 running with the exact same hardware on an Asus Crosshair 2.
And then the same hardware (I will list it at the bottom) in the Asrock with dual 5770s in Crossfire.
Quite incredible really and really took my by surprise. I mean, I knew that these new fangled 5 series were good and even better in Crossfire due to the fantastic scaling offered but I was expecting a 70% gain, not almost 100% !
So, to wrap my review up I will do the good and bag thang !
Good.
It's £30. You didn't read that wrong and I didn't make a typo. This Crossfire capable board really does cost only thirty pounds. Asrock are still fully supporting this board and I have recieved three bios updates since buying it. I think that says a lot about a company who could quite easily ditch a four year old board and concentrate on pastures new. Even though it's not the latest technology it still produces real world results in both gaming and anything else you would expect from a motherboard. This really is value beans right here.
Bad.
I haven't mentioned this before because I would guess this has now been sorted, but the bios that comes on the board (rev 3.0 hence the namesake) does not support 5 series by default. This means that you will need a spare GPU kicking around that it does support in order to perform the needed bios flash. The layout of the board also leaves a lot to be desired and the north and south bridge coolers are not going to set the world on fire. The capacitors do look a bit cheap and there are no flashy coolers over them or the VRMS. This leads me to feel that it wouldn't be the best overclocker on the planet. Asrocks never are. However, I don't bother to overclock for most of the time and only do so when running benchmarks. I have had my 940 stable @ 3.6ghz which isn't that bad.
It also does not support the X6 Phenom. Which again isn't terribly bad as people who are investing in six cored CPUs would probably want to spend £150 or so on a spangly SATA 3 USB 3 and so on motherboard.
Today I am going to do a rundown of the Asrock ALiveXFire-eSATA2 R3.0. It's quite a mouthful really.
Recently I read the review of Crossfired 5770s and absolutely loved the part about value beans. It was good to read something full of humour and imagination. Not that I was in any way biased by being a Crossfire 5770 owner of course
But that review really got me thinking. Which I suppose was something intended by its author. It had the desired effect, then. So, today my review should help to make those value beans taste all the better then. I certainly hope so !.
So yes, where were we? The Asrock ALiveXFire-eSATA2 R3.0. A while back when I decided to get back into gaming I started looking around for bits and bobs with which to slowly piece together a computer. I didn't have tons of cash but I had a few things on my checklist. I wanted 4 cores and I wanted a stock clock of 3ghz. Anything more than that was a bonus but I did not want to have to overclock my way to the magic marker. Looking around it seemed that AMDs new range of 45nm Phenom 2 processors was a good way of achieving my goal without breaking the bank.
I initially decided on an SLI set up and purchased a 280 GTX. Shortly after I brought a suitable motherboard (the Asus Crosshair 2) and was saving my pennies for a second 280GTX. Sadly in a Chris Tarrant "But we don't want to give you that !" moment I was down a GPU and had to rethink my entire strategy. Looking around at my choices made things quite simple and I brought a 5770. I wanted Direct X 11 support and after my recent experiences with Nvidia I wanted to go red. Many years ago I stuck with green all the way and it proved to be quite a costly and sometimes embarassing time for me.
So my first 5770 arrived with me and I immediately fell in love. Now I know that some people use benchmarks and figures to show how great a product is but I didn't. All I did was put in the 5770 and play some games, and what was immediately apparent to me was that this wee 5770 performed so well I hardly noticed any difference at all.
So now I had my sights firmly locked on Crossfire. After doing a lot of reading I made my mind up. Aspects of Crossfire just seemed so much better than SLI (like the fact Crossfire apparently scales in any game without the need for a driver... Mostly...) helped to seal the deal. I was now on the market for a Crossfire motherboard (much to my annoyance I should add !). I was broke. I had to pay to RMA my 280GTX and in the interim had purchased a 5770 which had wiped me out for the short term. I got a phone call from the company the 280 had gone back to and they said yes it was dead but no, they couldn't send a replacement as they didn't have any. Some fisticuffs ensued and I ended up settling for a second 5770 worth £50 less than I had paid for my 280. Licking my wounds I started to pile up boxes and accumulate parts.
So, broke and a bit annoyed (but very excited by the prospect of seeing two of these little giants strapped together in harmony) I began doing what I do best. Spending hours and hours sitting at the computer looking at motherboards sniffing out a super bargain. In the end I found the Asrock ALiveXFire-eSATA2 R3.0 for £30. Yes you read that right, a Crossfire capable board that will run the latest Phenom X4 CPUs (recent check says no X6 - ED) with DDR2 (as I had lots and RAM prices had shot through the atmospheric barrier) and offer pretty much everything I needed. Here are the specs from Asrock's site.
And a down 'n' dirty close up.
So I ordered it and patiently awaited delivery. Thankfully it arrived sooner than I thought and I took it out of the box. My immediate impressions were -
Hmm, not bad. But those capacitors don't look up to much.
Who in the heck put the ATX connector and AUX power for the Crossfire THERE?
Ooo, it's a wee bit narrower than my Asus, giving me more room.
Included with the board is a funky little card that terminates the second PCIE port if you are only using the one. I won't go into too much detail because I am reviewing this board on the merits of Crossfire capability, not a single GPU configuration. It's basically called a PCIE switch card, though.
The board comes with few accessories but does include a 2 port USB back bracket. Asrock proudly boast about this on their site and although a bit silly I can see why. How you even got anything in the box other than air for this price is quite a thing. Before you rush to order one though there are a couple of things I should point out, just so that you know.
1. This is based on the 480x chipset which was the first ever Crossfire capable chipset. It's been around for about four years. This means that the second PCIE slot is limited to 8x or half the speed of the first one when you run Crossfire. I spent many many hours researching this and having full speed slots doesn't gain that much. From what I read you gained about an extra 1000 marks on your 3dmark in Vantage. Sounds like a lot right? well, not when you are hitting almost 15,000 with the cards in Crossfire. You also would never notice something like that in game unless you can detect a difference of 1-2 FPS.
2. Because of said chipset the hyper transport and north bridge speeds are a lot slower than the latest chipsets. However, the multiplier and FSB are the same and again, it doesn't make an enormous difference. Remember that at £30 it's not going to be 100% perfect, these are value beans after all !
Shortly after setting it all up and running 3dmark Vantage I put out these results. This was with everything at stock speeds and out of the box. Nothing was overclocked and I was running the 10.2 Catalysts.
Which is about what I was expecting after reading around many websites.
Not content on leaving it there though I decided to run ATTO to test my SSD. Nothing to do with Crossfire but to compare the SATA controller to the one in my Crosshair 2.
Which was ever so slightly lower than what I scored on the Asus but could have been down to disc degradation as my drive did not support the TRIM function at that time.
As pointless as it is here is a Windows Rating in Windows 7 with the system running around the Asrock.
Sadly I don't have lots and lots of benchmark results to show you of games running. I can, however, provide real life stats of what setting up the 5770s in Crossfire did in real world terms. My game of choice was of course the marvellous Dirt 2 by Codemasters. I went into the menu and cranked everything as high as it would go and then took this shot. I didn't have FRAPS installed at the time so forgive me for that. So yeah, a single 5770 running with the exact same hardware on an Asus Crosshair 2.
And then the same hardware (I will list it at the bottom) in the Asrock with dual 5770s in Crossfire.
Quite incredible really and really took my by surprise. I mean, I knew that these new fangled 5 series were good and even better in Crossfire due to the fantastic scaling offered but I was expecting a 70% gain, not almost 100% !
So, to wrap my review up I will do the good and bag thang !
Good.
It's £30. You didn't read that wrong and I didn't make a typo. This Crossfire capable board really does cost only thirty pounds. Asrock are still fully supporting this board and I have recieved three bios updates since buying it. I think that says a lot about a company who could quite easily ditch a four year old board and concentrate on pastures new. Even though it's not the latest technology it still produces real world results in both gaming and anything else you would expect from a motherboard. This really is value beans right here.
Bad.
I haven't mentioned this before because I would guess this has now been sorted, but the bios that comes on the board (rev 3.0 hence the namesake) does not support 5 series by default. This means that you will need a spare GPU kicking around that it does support in order to perform the needed bios flash. The layout of the board also leaves a lot to be desired and the north and south bridge coolers are not going to set the world on fire. The capacitors do look a bit cheap and there are no flashy coolers over them or the VRMS. This leads me to feel that it wouldn't be the best overclocker on the planet. Asrocks never are. However, I don't bother to overclock for most of the time and only do so when running benchmarks. I have had my 940 stable @ 3.6ghz which isn't that bad.
It also does not support the X6 Phenom. Which again isn't terribly bad as people who are investing in six cored CPUs would probably want to spend £150 or so on a spangly SATA 3 USB 3 and so on motherboard.
