ASRock Bring Socket 939 Back From The Dead

"ASRock are keeping the ancient socket 939 alive with their latest AMD motherboard."

Published: 30th September 2009 | Source: ASRock | Author: Peter Stoba

ASRock Keeping Old Tech Alive

ASRock 939A785GMH128M Socket 939 Motherboard

ASRock are renound for their low cost motherboards that support an interesting mixture of both old and new hardware. This latest motherboard is no different, based on AMD's 785G chipset, usually found on Socket AM2 motherboards, the 939A785GMH128M truly breaks the trend.

It retains some of the usual features that come with the 785G chipset, such as integrated Radeon 4200 graphics with DirectX 10.1 support, a PCI Express 2.0 x16 slot that supports Hybrid Crossfire and all of the latest outputs, such as eSATA, HDMI and optical audio. However, it doesn't support DDR3 memory, or even DDR2 for that matter, it's stuck in the dark ages of DDR. Dual channel DDR 400 to be precise. This shows how the board could solely be designed with using older hardware in mind, as it is near enough impossible to buy DDR memory or Socket 939 processors new anymore.

This makes even less sense when you take the recent influx of cheap dual core Athlon II processors and falling memory prices. I suppose it could still be a nice solution to 'recycle' some old hardware you have into a HTPC or basic office machine. The viability of this option depends on the retail price of the motherboard.

Socket 939 was replaced with Socket AM2 in 2006, as we are now using Socket AM3 processors more and more, it shows how ASRock are keeping technology from two generations ago alive. Useless or useful?

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