Asrock Quality

Speaking about longevity a friend of mine used that legendary Asrock PCI-ex/AGP combo mobo (iirc it was on ULI chipset ? ) for 4-5 years.

It was exactly the DUAL SATA2
http://www.asrock.com/mb/ULi/939Dual-SATA2/

My first Asrock board too.

And people suggesting Asus because they are better

I think ASUS is better, but when it comes to "longevity", you have to ask yourself "does it matter how long it CAN live or rather how long do i need it for?" And beyond a certain point, it'ìs overkill. It's a bit like "polished plastic bracket is nice. But does it really matter to how well the heatsink is held whether the plastic bracket is polished or not?"

Or "do i really need leather seats for my car?"

For instance, Gigabyte has UltraDurable. A feature is more copper. Now, it makes sense. More copper = less electrical resistance = less heat on the PCB and more tarnish resistance for copper. But, how important are these are motherboard killers? The PCB temperature has an importance, in that the socket temperature may rise lower and thus the board may throttle later and let you achieve a bit higher overclock than a board with less copper. Also you will probably gain some degrees on mofest temperature, but nothing too critical for the lifespan of the board as whole. Mofsets are rated for over 100C. The tarnish on copper is for practical purposes irrelevant. For example, i had an electrical water heater, pulling 1500W. At some point, the wire failed. The copper inside was so tarnished that you could make it fall into pieces just by rubbing it with your hands. This happened after 45 years more or less. A better copper cable could have lasted 50, 65, i don't know. But does it matter? By the time copper is so tarnished to kill the board, the CPU will be like a Pentium MMX. The board will have died earlier probably due to some capacitor (solid caps eventually fail too, they just don't blow up).
 
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I read alot of bad stuff about ASROCK on the overclocking forums so I avoided them just because of that even though the LOOK nice and have nice box designs =)
They OC just fine at least on the ones I have used.
 
Asrock, made its fortune and reputation targeting the non overclocker crowd. You, overclockers, have your particularities. That is also why you pay more. But, Asrock has with most models (a model may be bad design, it can happen), developed the art of saving on production costs, by balancing well, where to cut, keeping in mind the price range, the probable identity of the user that will buy the specific model and a hierarchy of what is more imporant for the above criteria.

For example, i 've been buying cheap Asrocks since s939 days. I avoided the ultracheap, because they have dangerously weak VRMs, although on most boards, they have the throttling safety mechanism, that will prevent fire. But there are exceptions.

This year, for the first time i bought an ultra-cheap one (below 50 euros). This one:

http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1039814606&postcount=23

It works fine. But i bought it, knowing what to expect from that board, this is why i took the risk on an ultra low price. Given my past history with ASrock boards, what immediately caught my eye was:

- It uses the "old" blue PCB colour, which i had last seen in s939 boards.
- The plastic, especially in the retention bracket looks visually very cheap. Like a chinese cheap toy or something. It has a "rough" look, it doesn't seem as "polished" as my 970 asrock, but it is perfectly stable. Also, contrary to my 970 extreme3, the bracket isn't held in position by metal screws, but by those plastic thingies, that look like push-pins.
- The heatsink that you see is the same heatsink that they used in s939 boards that i have.
- The VRM phase is very weak. Few chokes, few mofsets (2 next to each choke).
-Electrolytic caps everywhere, not even the "solid caps for CPU power", that my matx 790g has.

But at the end, it's a 95W board for 37,50 euros and more important, what is the most probable market target? An overclocker? No. A gamer? No. An office. I mean, you can't really expect too much. So i put a low TDP Athlon in there and it has no problem.

It is a recurring theme in Asrock to recycle old stock. I see in new boards the same heatsinks that i had in s939 boards or 780/790 boards. They just paint them with new colour or cover them with some metal piece with logo for aethetics, but under, it's the same old heatsink. Or, as i said, as soon as i saw the PCB of that board, i had a flashback and thought "i am back in socket 939 era".

They must have huge stocks of some stuff they can use on different boards and a good management strategy of material.
On the other hand, if you are an overclocker, in the recent years, Asrock does have boards for you too. But you will have to pay a premium. If you pay less, you can also expect to lose some Mhz in overclock.

But, longevity, should be the lesser issue, since, overclockers that are hardcore enough to know the details of a board, won't stay with that board for over 5 years. They will have upgraded. Still, as i showed in another post, there are people that have been overclocking dual SATA2s since 2005 and still have them running. At some point, an electrolytic capacitor will blow. But it will be the most natural death that a board with electrolytic capacitors will have. An ASUS that was bought at the same time for more money, will probably have better caps. But that's why it costed much more.

Asrock today, may have weaker VRMs on cheap boards, but unless you go ultracheap, the VRMS are good quality, enough to avoid fire. And the solid capacitors even on low boards, are Nichicon, which is one of the top 3 japanese manufacturers. It may be that they are lower lifespan capacitors than the "gold" ones, but at the end, they 're better than electrolytic, no matter how you see it. And the caps, were always the primary source of failure of a motherboard, with electrostatic discharge coming second.

That's all. You want something more "durable"? You can pay more and get the "Fatal1ty" or whatever they call them. But Asrock's selling point was never "excellence above all". It was "get the best bang for your buck".

I bought the Asrock 970 extreme3 for 63 euros (4 of them). I know it's 4+1, but i don't overclock. But i got SATA3, USB3, digital PWM (the voltage of the CPU is literally like stuck. At first i thought the monitoring program had frozen) and solid caps. What other board gave the same for less money? It's thin. So were my previous Asrock boards, but they still run. As for flex, i have seen it in a 790g i have, it had a flex out of the box, part of it has to do with how much time they leave it in the "oven", but still runs fine. I have seen it flex when trying to install the PSU 24 pin cable, but just a bit of care (like, put your finger underneath to support it, just in case) and it's nothing destructive.

I too, had a mystical fear of Asrock back in 2005, because i had never heard of it and ASUS guys were snearing at them, but, 8 years later, i m happy with them. I consider them "smart buy" and i don't like throwing money out of the window just to satisfy my vanity or buy overkill boards or features. I know what i want, what to expect for the price, i am happy.

Sorry for yet another long post, i don't work for Asrock. :D I just don't understand why in the USA, there is this fear each name Asrock is mentioned. I understand an overclocker wants high end features, wants to get the last Mhz he can get, but, ASrocks have been out for many years now, google for European fora, people, including budget overclockers use them since ages and they aren't simply a catastrophe waiting to happen. If Asrock is no3 manufacturer now, it means, someone has been buying them. Maybe not so much in USA, but if they were unreliable garbage, by now they would have shut down.

I 've seen they have problems in quality control of boards coming out DOA from factory, but at the end, it's a risk worth taking, at least for me, considering the potential benefits.
And, with the price of new hardware, how many of you, will you actually keep your boards for over 10 years for example? If many people still use 8 year old Dual SATA2 and the most common issue of those that failed was blown caps, now with solid caps, they should at least get the same lifespan too. Being thin, unless we talk of a model with serious design flaw or defective batch, is more of psychological problem. Like i said, i was to buy a cheap Corsair PSU and remember "The cables are minimum gauge rating, they are very thin". How many times have you read "My PSU has a cable that doesn't provide power anymore. I think it was thin so it was cut? Or "a power cable of my PSU was thin and the copper inside tarnished to the point it no longer conducts electricity well, so my HDD won't spin".

If you want the best of the best, bragging rights, the best overclock you can get, buy ASUS. If you have more modest needs and want smart buys, Asrock is the best option.

Speaking about longevity a friend of mine used that legendary Asrock PCI-ex/AGP combo mobo (iirc it was on ULI chipset ? ) for 4-5 years.

Mine together with Sandy 2500K is working close to 2 years now

And people suggesting Asus because they are better

After my DFI Lan Party Ultra D died, I switched to the budget OC market and ran Biostar, which, for the most part clocked awesome for the money, had solid power, but lacked features, and when the new Biostar boards came out they didn't support a 1055T without being flashed to support it so I gave ASRock a go. Like I have said in the past, and like you mentioned, the only thing you can kock them ASRock on is their VRM's and PCB's... My PCB on the 880G scratched just from having my video card installed, the finish on the board wasn't all that great and the VRM's cost me a couple hundred ghz and I was on air.....

for 99% of people out there, an ASRock board is fine, but like you mentioned for OC'ers, there are better boards for the money, and like I did now, I would gladly have solid VRM's and less features than vice versa.

As for ASUS being better, it offers the same features as an ASRock board, but has solid caps and VRM's, ASUS is to Lexus as ASRock is to Toyota.
 
Ive probably used asrock builds in about a dozen builds. I love their feature set at their price point, when it comes to overclocking I feel they have held me back a bit. Ive had a few die too, then seemed premature -- their warranty tends to be 1 year when MSI and some others are 3 years.

My rankings are like this: 1, gigabyte, 2 asus, 3 MSI, 4 asrock 5 biostar (i like all five brands in some fashion) I am still using an asrock confire xfire esata2 board with an overclock E6700.
 
I currently have an AsRock X79 Champion Fata1ty board and it works fine, except that it has problems running all the RAM with 8 slots occupied. Sometimes the board won't even POST properly and using the XMP Profile will only see 4 DIMM slots which is annoying.
 
I currently have an AsRock X79 Champion Fata1ty board and it works fine, except that it has problems running all the RAM with 8 slots occupied. Sometimes the board won't even POST properly and using the XMP Profile will only see 4 DIMM slots which is annoying.

Just a shot in the dark. Instead of using the XMP profile, try this for once: Open CPU-Z, go to SPD and see what jedec configuration is the immediately lower from your XMP profile. For example if your XMP is 1866 and the immediately lower Jedec is 1600, go for the 1600. Write down on a paper the numbers you see in CPU-Z. Go into BIOS and put those numbers and command rate 2T. See what happens. If your problem is solved, try raising command rate to 1T. Also check the manual to see whether the board has limitations when all slots are occupied.

I had the same problem with my 1090T. The XMP is for 1600Mhz 2T, but the last Jedec is 1333 1T. At 1600 it has random BSODs after high stress (video encoding for hours). At 1333 1T, it runs fine.
 
Sorry for yet another long post, I don't work for Asrock. :D I just don't understand why in the USA, there is this fear each name Asrock is mentioned.

Great post. I don't buy Asrock because I use my systems for work related tasks (I don't game or OC) and I need it to be solid for a minimum of 5 years. After that I sell it or it goes to family and I want it to last another 5 years for them. However, it is all perception. I perceive Asus to be better because of the thicker board material, big coolers on the VRM, better capacitors, yadda, yadda.

Is it really better? I have no idea, but going to all the trouble to build my own systems I like to think I have the best. I went through the busted capacitor era with Gigabyte. I still have a very old BioStar in a router that is going through the same issue now. I don't want to replace it but I have to. So, I do keep my systems beyond most people's idea of useful life. What's another $100 over 5 years? Seems worth it to me.

If I was building for only 2 years ... well, I like nice things and don't want to live in a just good enough world.
 
Great post. I don't buy Asrock because I use my systems for work related tasks (I don't game or OC) and I need it to be solid for a minimum of 5 years. After that I sell it or it goes to family and I want it to last another 5 years for them. However, it is all perception. I perceive Asus to be better because of the thicker board material, big coolers on the VRM, better capacitors, yadda, yadda.

Is it really better? I have no idea, but going to all the trouble to build my own systems I like to think I have the best. I went through the busted capacitor era with Gigabyte. I still have a very old BioStar in a router that is going through the same issue now. I don't want to replace it but I have to. So, I do keep my systems beyond most people's idea of useful life. What's another $100 over 5 years? Seems worth it to me.

If I was building for only 2 years ... well, I like nice things and don't want to live in a just good enough world.


I understand perfectly. Psychological reasons and different upgrade strategies are always important part of any purchase. I usually update my MAIN computer's motherboard about every 3 years, maybe a little more. And the old board , goes to secondary computers that get updated with various frequency. What becomes too old, i give it to friends with older machines that have low requirements and don't want to spend money on computer.

My oldest cheapo Asrock with electrolytic capacitors is now 8 years old, but it's run by a friend that i gave it to and i am about to give away another that is 7 years old. But i have seen in fora OC'ed cheap Asrocks (DUAL SATA2) with electrolytic caps that blew at 5-6 years.So i consider 5 years a safety margin for cheap ones with electrolytic caps and OC.

With solid caps, i expect them to live much longer and for non overclockers, having a good airflow and dusting off case, is IMHO more important than having a slightly bigger VRM heatsink or thickness. A capacitor's lifespan is doubled for every 10C of temperature drop. That's why a non OCer's cap will most certainly live longer, since it's under less stress and thus heat. I expect my newer 970 with all solid caps to break my longevity record.

Anyway, to each his own. I have my own psychological weakness, i want to have a spare for everything, so i always keep at least 1 spare motherboard (depends on how many boards for a socket i intend to keep), because you never know what accident can happen. So instead of buying 1 board that costs 130 euro, i will buy 2 that cost 65 each. Best case, it will save my behind in case one dies. Worst case, some friend of mine may eventually, by a series of fortunate coincidences inherit an unused board.

P.S.: If you don't want to replace your Biostar board, you can bring it to an electronic's working shop and ask to recap it. In USA you actually have the owner of "BadCaps" website, who i think recaps boards sent to him by mail. I don't know how much he will charge you, but it's perfectly doable. By replacing all caps, you get a "reset" on the lifespan meter as far as capacitor life is concerned. It will work like new.
 
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Actually i just found myself that "10C drop = double life" is valid only for electrolytic.

Nichicon solid caps (which is what Asrock uses) have:

Since the polymer is a solid, it also gives longer life, not following the classic Arrhenius formula. Instead of doubling life with every 10°C drop in temperature, the lifetime will be 10 times longer for every 20°C decrease in temperature.

http://www.digikey.com/us/en/ph/nichicon/AlumCondPolymer.html

All series are rated 2000h at 105C. This means, at 85C life is 20.000h (2,2 years). At 65C, life is 200.000h (22 years).

At this point, i think something else will fail before that. Maybe some chipset on the board or mofset...
 
Decided to give ASRock a try when I went to upgrade my son's PC. Gotta say, it's got alot of features and looks amazing. Board wasn't as flimsy as I expected after reading complaints online. So far it's been solid with no issues.
 
Since 9/11 and 11/11 I've had a Extreme4 Gen3 and Extreme7 Gen3 boards. The 4 runs a 2500k @5.0, the 7 2600k @5.2. Both boards have been 100% stable and trouble free. I've had MUCH better luck with Asrock than Asus or Gigabyte.

When the original Extreme4 review was posted I pm'd Kyle and offered to send my board to them for a second opinion as I felt they simply got a bad board. My board exhibited none of the issues they ran into.

As far as being flexible I'll admit the Extreme 4 does flex a little. The Extreme7 does not. But I mount my boards securely in a case so once its installed flex is a moot point to me.

When I buy hardware I try to find the best deal on quality and price. I have zero brand loyalty just have a few that I automatically rule out due to past issues, Corsair, EVGA and Asus.

I've contacted Asrock a few times asking questions and always got a prompt courteous reply. Haven't used their RMA service so I can't comment on that.
 
When the original Extreme4 review was posted I pm'd Kyle and offered to send my board to them for a second opinion as I felt they simply got a bad board. My board exhibited none of the issues they ran into.

As far as being flexible I'll admit the Extreme 4 does flex a little. The Extreme7 does not. But I mount my boards securely in a case so once its installed flex is a moot point to me.

I suppose this is the reviewed board:

http://www.hardocp.com/image.html?image=MTM2MDA0MTk0MGcwVjltT1B4cHlfNl80X2wuanBn

I admit, the board seems thinner than even mine, but at this point, i wonder whether there is an optical illusion from the photograph or just plain defect. The flex is abnormal too. A normal out of the factory flex, is symmetrical. The board is lower in center and rises up towards the edges, being lighter. It's because at some point they put them in the oven. If you let the board a bit longer than necessary, it starts flexing from the heat and when it cools down, the flex remains. But flex should be symmetrical.

The "mounting flex" that i have seen, occurs when the board is a bit shorter than standard ATX size or mATX, at which point, the outer edge of the motherboard, that usually has the PSU 24pin plug, has no support underneith it, there is no screw between it and the rim of the board. So when you try plug the cable, the board starts bending. I put my pinky under the edge of the board and support it.
 
You can google old models and see for yourself. I have posted an example of my own local fora, where people still use the 939 DUAL Sata2 (a 55 euro board), put SSDs on it. etc. My own Asrock 939 boards still work, so do the 790g.

The problem is old boards was usually electrolytic capacitors. Now with all solid caps, this becomes secondary. The flex, unless severe enough to damage the circuitry or interrupt the continuity of the copper inside the board, should be irrelevant to the longevity, within reasonable limits. It is a bit similar to reviews of PSU that comment: The wires are thin, are the minimal allowed specification. Well, fortunately, unless you do something very odd, the wires aren't cut and copper cables take some decades before they present damage.

If you search for Asrock reviews and awards, you will see that very often they are reviewed in german. Why? Because in Europe, Asrocks are classic office computer motherboards. And offices while don't care about overclock, do care about stability and reliability.

I don't think the longevity of ancient socket 939 boards is relevant. I'm more concerned with the modern designs which upon inspection appear to be lower quality than their competitor's products are.
 
I don't think the longevity of ancient socket 939 boards is relevant. I'm more concerned with the modern designs which upon inspection appear to be lower quality than their competitor's products are.

Well, those ancient boards were also regarded lower quality than their competitors (actually Asrock had terrible reputation) and seem lower quality than current Asrock boards...
 
I have the Asrock Z77E-ITX motherboard and it's incredible value for what you get. Although I do own three different other ASUS motherboards, they all overclock about the same and have had no problems with them. But, the Asrock BIOS do have fewer options and is less polished than ASUS...
 
I've got an Z77 Extreme6 in my build and it's a great board. Some VDroop, but it's negligible. My friend has had a Z77 Extreme4 for a while now and his is still going strong. And my cousin and I threw an Extreme3 in his rig.

They're very good boards for the price and they're full of features. Yes, they do have some QC issues with DOA, but so do all manufacturers.
 
I've got an Z77 Extreme6 in my build and it's a great board. Some VDroop, but it's negligible. My friend has had a Z77 Extreme4 for a while now and his is still going strong. And my cousin and I threw an Extreme3 in his rig.

They're very good boards for the price and they're full of features. Yes, they do have some QC issues with DOA, but so do all manufacturers.

I ended up getting the Extreme 6 for my I7 3770K, wasnt DOA and passed all my tests. Only my ram is "o.c'ed" from the mobo to 2133 (sticks are 2133). Works fine for me so far
 
I never had good luck with my Z68 mATX Pro4-M board. Constantly had a cold double boot issue. Currently using a FM2 Extreme6 and it works great.
 
While my sample-size is ofcourse very small, I'm still happy with the Asrock Z87E-ITX I bought. Since it was one of the earlier revisions, I expected bugs, but after a BIOS update, the USB-bugs seem to be solved. I had the problem that every so often, it wouldn't go past the BIOS POST, but after v1.80 I didn't experience that problem any more.

With regular BIOS updates, I'm confident this will be a good choice as a Z87 mITX motherboard. I also like the features on this motherboard, that's why I chose this one. The headphone amp (for the front-panel headphone connector) is rather nice and a noticeable upgrade. Now I can just plug in my Sennheiser HD-555 headphones without the need of a seperate headphone amp or else live with low volume and low quality sound.

No overclocking tried, the mSATA port not used (someone on this forum had a problem with it), the WiFi seems to work like it should (only basic testing) and the Bluetooth also hasn't given me any problems.
 
I ended up getting the Extreme 6 for my I7 3770K, wasnt DOA and passed all my tests. Only my ram is "o.c'ed" from the mobo to 2133 (sticks are 2133). Works fine for me so far

It's a pretty sweet looking board too, granted I pried off the gold ASRock cover on the MOSFET heatsink, but I love the all black look. Glad you enjoy yours!
 
I had an i7 920 Asrock board and went for the Z87 Extreme 6ac as it's comparable features would have cost $100 more on an Asus branded board. It's been alright so far, downloads from Asrocks website are painfully slow and the bios was reporting the wrong cpu voltage which kept me from over clocking. Also had issues freezing in the bios which a new firmware update fixed. Just know if you buy one of these you'll be signing up for small problems here and there, up to you if it's worth the troubleshooting headache or not.
 
I had an i7 920 Asrock board and went for the Z87 Extreme 6ac as it's comparable features would have cost $100 more on an Asus branded board. It's been alright so far, downloads from Asrocks website are painfully slow and the bios was reporting the wrong cpu voltage which kept me from over clocking. Also had issues freezing in the bios which a new firmware update fixed. Just know if you buy one of these you'll be signing up for small problems here and there, up to you if it's worth the troubleshooting headache or not.

The vcore is probably related to LLC setting. On my board, there is a huge different in under or overvolting according to what LLC setting i have chosen.
 
I've had about 4 asrock boards and they've been pretty solid for me. I don't run them in my main rig but I've put them in my family's systems. 3 out of the 4 I'm still using the other I shit canned because it was an old socket 939 board that I had no plans on using.
 
I've got an Asrock K10N78D in the closet (Plans for a Linux rig) that works great... hasnt let me down, can unlock cores and supports pretty much everything up the X6s.
 
I have been a little skeptical about the quality of the ASrock boards since they are a lower end spin off from asus.
 
I've done my fair share of builds for people using Asrock boards and they're just fine. But then again, they're not OCing or anything.
 
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