While the VIA
PT880 based ASRock 775V88 performs well at stock speeds, the chipset simply
doesn't overclock well at all. We saw this with the reference board and it's
apparent again with this motherboard. It's unlikely that ASRock intended to
build the ultimate overclocking product anyway.
Heck of a value!!!
ASRock might be a name that most are unfamiliar with, but
I'm sure you've heard of their parent company Asus. With a retail price of just $76 CDN ($63 US), the ASRock 775V88 does
not come with much - only a 5.1 onboard audio codec and a 10/100 NIC - but for a
home or workstation PC the basics are typically just fine.
The overall design
and layout of the ASRock 775V88 is good, aside from the floppy drive connector
being oddly positioned at the bottom of the motherboard, and the close proximity
of the Northbridge heatsink to the AGP slot. The VIA PT880 does not generate a
lot of heat, so a passive heatsink is also more than sufficient for
cooling.
As the benchmarks
have shown, the performance of the ASRock 775V88 is quite impressive for its class. It kept
up within a few percentage points of the 925X based Gigabyte GA-8ANXP-D, and
i875P DFI LANParty 875P-T in office and system benchmarks. Both of these
motherboards easily retail for two or three times what the ASRock 775V88 does.
Gaming performance was good, though the memory bandwidth of the board hampered
it slightly, most notably in the UT 2004 benchmark.
ASRock's socket
775 Pentium 4 775V88 motherboard is a good solution for anyone seeking to
assemble a PCs for dull workstation-style tasks, or for the budget conscious
gamer. If you equip this board properly, it'll fly with the best of them. With
such an affordable sticker price, ASRock has a sure winner on their
hands!
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