ASRock 939SLI32-eSATA2 Preview

Board Layout:

As with past ASRock motherboards, the 939SLI32-eSATA2 is based upon a blue PCB and follows a similar design to what we had seen with the 939Dual-SATA2. Starting in the upper right hand corner of the motherboard's PCB are four DDR system memory slots. These slots are designed for DDR-400 and support a maximum capacity of 4GB with dual channel technology. As has been a common occurrence with motherboards, the DIMM slots are color coated to signify the pair of slots for utilizing dual channel mode. To the left of the system memory is the AMD Socket 939 CPU area. Supported by the 939SLI32-eSATA2 are AMD's Athlon 64, Athlon 64 FX, and Athlon 64 X2. This motherboard also supports AMD's Cool 'n' Quiet Technology as well as Hyper-Transport Technology and ASRock's Untied Overclocking Technology. To the left of the Socket 939 area are the DDR slots while to the right is a great deal of power circuitry. Below the CPU area is the Northbridge. There is a great deal of components around this CPU area; however, most moderately sized CPU coolers should have no problems with anything obstructing the installation process. The ULI M1695 also provides PCI Express 1 x16 or 2 x8 and PCI Express 1 x4 or 2 x1. However, to make the motherboard's design possible they did not simply rely upon a single-chip design but had paired the M1695 with another ULI part. Atop the M1695 is a fairly large aluminum heatsink. This passive heatsink is identical to what was used on the ASRock 939Dual-SATA2.

Below the Chipset and the system memory slots are the dual ATA-133 IDE connectors, AMI BIOS chip, Realtek RTM866 clock generator, and BIOS battery. Nearing the lower right hand corner of the motherboard is the ULI M1697. The M1697 Southbridge supports AMD Athlon 64 processors, DDR-400/333, PCI Express 1 x16 or 2 x8, and PCI Express 3 x1 or 1 x4. It also provides Dual Channel IDE ATA-133, 8 x USB 2.0, SATA 2.0, and AC97 audio. The heatsink atop this ULI part is identical to what was found on the M1695 with the passive aluminum heatsink, Next to the M1697 are four SATA 2.0 ports Two of these four Serial ATA ports are designed for use with ASRock's eSATA2, in which the SATA interface is extended to the rear I/O panel. These SATA ports support RAID 0, 1, 0+1, JBOD, and 5. In addition, they support the Hot Plug function. Also in this area are the front panel header, two USB 2.0 headers, and one IEEE-1394a header. Finally, in this vicinity is the single 3-pin system fan header. The IEEE-1394 Firewire controller used by the ASRock 939SLI32-eSATA2 is the TSB43AB22A from Texas Instruments.