ASRock ConRoe1333-DVI/H

Board Layout:

Right now ASRock has over 40 different motherboards for Intel's Socket T (LGA-775) processors and that's not even counting their older Intel motherboards or those for AMD. However, even with this extensive product selection there isn't much deviation in the motherboard designs aside from the chips used and other obvious differences. In the upper right hand corner are four DDR2 system memory slots that support DDR2-667/533MHz memory with a maximum supported capacity of 4GB where as the newer Intel Chipsets double that to 8GB. At this end of the motherboard is also the CMOS battery, which is a bit unusual, but compared to motherboards where the battery is hard to access in between expansion slots this shouldn't be much of a problem.

Lower on the motherboard is the Intel ICH7 Southbridge, one ATA-100 IDE port, four Serial ATA 2.0 ports, and two USB 2.0 headers. The ICH7 is cooled by a small passive heatsink that is made up of aluminum and secured in two opposing corners by pushpins. The expansion slots on the ASRock ConRoe1333-DVI/H include one PCI Express x16, one PCI Express x1, two PCI, and the DVI HDCP graphics adapter interface. Also on the bottom edge of the PCB is the FDD connector.

Going north again on the motherboard is the 20-pin ATX power connector and 945G/945GC A2 Northbridge. The Intel 945 Chipset is cooled by a much larger aluminum heatsink. Surrounding the LGA-775 socket area are no major obstructions that would cause problems with waterblocks or aftermarket heatsinks. This motherboard doesn't support quad-core processors but other Intel LGA-775 processors are in the clear. The ConRoe1333-DVI/H does support 1333MHz FSB Core 2 Duo processors, but this higher frequency is in an overclocking mode which causes the PCI Express frequency to operate at 115MHz. Amid the power circuitry to the left of the CPU socket area is the 4-pin ATX 12V power connector.

At the rear of the motherboard are two PS/2, one D-Sub VGA, one parallel, four USB 2.0, one Gigabit ethernet, and the HD audio connectors. Some of the ASICs on the motherboard include the Realtek ALC888 audio codec, Realtek RTL8111B Gigabit controller, and Silicon Image's TMDS Panelink 1368CTU for Intel Serial Digital Video Output and DVI-HDCP output.