[REVIEW] ASRock P4i65GV socket 478 mobo

Hello everyone, well, this will be my first attempt at a review of a motherboard i just bought.

now i know first thing you are thinking - Why did he buy this mobo?

well

• Costa Rica has little selection
• i was too lazy to order online and go through the extra cost's of customs / shipping and waiting a week
• I didnt want to spend over $100 to get together parts i was trying to sell locally anyways
• i plan to sell this system anyways at a low price and again didnt want to spend alot and dont plan on overclocking once sold
• I wanted to give (to me) a no namer a try
• it was all they had in the local computer store for socket 478 that supported pressy'

Now that that is out of the way the story.

I had a IC7-G i had bought used - it died after some usage - i was trying to sell parts individually - those parts were

• Intel P4 3.2 pressy 478
• eVGA 6800GT
• 1g - 2 x 512 Corsair XMS3200
• XP-120 (needs lappying badly dam u TT!)
• 80g SATA drive
• Antex Truepower 550w

(no i dont plan to sell them online as shipping out of costa rica is a joke! i mean $94 to send a harddrive to California for RMA - that much of a joke)

So, anyways, with no luck and no buyers it seems someone might be intersted it if was an entire system, so this is where this mobo comes in.


Mobo details:

• 
  P4i65GV brief specifications
  1. Intel i865GV+ICH5 chipset, supports Hyper-Threading Technology
  2. Socket 478, supports Intel® FSB 800/533/400 MHz Pentium 4(Prescott/Northwood)/Celeron processor
  3. Supports DDR 400/333/266, Dual Channel Technology, 2 DDR slots.
  4. ASRock A.G.I.8X – VGA upgrade interface
  5. Supports Serial ATA – 2 Serial ATA 1.5Gb/s connectors
  6. ASROCK I/O Plus - default 6 ready-to-use USB2.0 ports on rear panel and extra 2 ports via header.
  7. 5.1 Channel 3D Audio, 10/100 Ethernet PCI LAN, 2 ATA133/100
  8. Multi-language Quick Installation Guide.
  9. Bundle CD includes PC-cillin 2002, ASRock PC DIY Live Demo, 3D Audio Player, etc.
  10. SATA cable pack: 1x SATA data cable, 1x SATA 1-to-1 power cable

Now off to install this baby - hope my vid card works (even though not listed on their outdated site) and overclock and see how it goes!

i shall be back with more info - no pics of my own since i dont have a camera now

Progress thus far

System is together - just a recap

P4 3.2 pressy
eVGA 6800GT - it is compatible
1g of ram
250g IDE WD HD
48c cdrom
antec truepower 430 (sorry not 550)


In the bios - very simple, nothing complicated.


Voltages - they seem pretty stable thus far in terms of at what they should be or more, they do vary up and down

• 
  
  Rail_______min_______max
  
  Vcore_____1.403 --->1.435
  +3.3______3.403 ---> 3.419
  +5v_______5.202 (stable)
  +12v______12.380 ---> 12.441
  
  

So far so good.

i tried a quick boot with the FSB @ 230 which i know this pressy can hit but didnt go - there does not appear to be a proper ram divider - but you can set the ram speed @ 400 / 333/266 so i assume when set to that it locks in the ram speed.


Now to install windows!


P.S - to have an LCD with both d-sub and DVi makes this so easy - one buttom and back and forth to computers

Well, not much else to review about this board, except it is "ok"

After updating the bios to 2.0 , getting all drivers and such in and gaming for a while it is so so.


It does not overclock AT all really - i wam @ 3.29 right now @ 205 FSB!!! wow - anything higher and system wont boot - I think if the board had a ram divider it would be good to go. The one good thing is if it hangs and you reboot it reset's the CMOS, but it resets EVERYTHING

The system seems to pause breifly as well just before the Xp welcome screen - it could be anything, but it didnt happen with this hardware before.

As a stock out of the box socket 478 board it is a good buy - but you can find better for the same price (around $60US)