WTH is this new MB ASRock N68-GS4 with Nvidia 630

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Topic: WTH is this new MB ASRock N68-GS4 with Nvidia 630

Posted By: mtrai
Subject: WTH is this new MB ASRock N68-GS4 with Nvidia 630
Date Posted: 27 Jun 2015 at 4:56am

WTH this motherboard just appeared on newegg and elsewhere. It is a "kind of modern" motherboard with AM3+ support but Nvidia 630 Chipset.

ASRock N68-GS4

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157585

Replies:

Posted By: Xaltar
Date Posted: 27 Jun 2015 at 4:59am

Its not new, its been around since the end of 2013 Wink

Posted By: mtrai
Date Posted: 27 Jun 2015 at 5:00am

I am seeing that...was just looking at the bios downloads available....but still an Nvidia 630 chipset in an FX board, this many years later.

Posted By: Xaltar
Date Posted: 27 Jun 2015 at 5:24am

It just goes to show how little AMD architecture has changed over the years. I can buy the latest AM3+ board and still slap my 5 year old Phenom II x4 955 in it. I used to respect that about AMD but now I just find it sad. Backwards compatibility was one thing, this stagnation is another entirely.

I guess the FX 630a chipset boards were designed to be budget boards to clear surplus 630a dies. Either way they do the job and didn't cost much. Take a look at http://asrock.com/mb/spec/upgrade.us.asp?Model=AM2CPU%20Board" rel="nofollow - this , Asrock has always been good with providing odd features on their boards. I think its great, really brings out the inner nerd Geek

Posted By: mtrai
Date Posted: 27 Jun 2015 at 10:37pm

Well I found out what is going on...one part baffles me about it but oh well. They are using this chip combo for a very low cost motherboard alternative in certain larger markets but lower income as a very low price motherboard.

The baffling part is I understood that Nvidia has been totally out of the motherboard chip buisiness for many years now.

I know what you mean by the inner nerd...after looking at the specs some of those CPU/MB combos would make a great HTPC. Almost makes me want want just for the nostagia.

Posted By: parsec
Date Posted: 30 Jun 2015 at 4:00pm

Wow, that is a... curious board, given the Nvidia chipset.

(Full disclosure: I've been an outspoken non-fan of the Nvidia chipsets. But give them credit for taking on AMD and Intel.)

The NVIDIA^® GeForce 7025 / nForce 630a chipset is vintage 2006 - 2008, so at least seven years old.

The 7025 graphics support has a max resolution of 1920x1440 @ 60Hz via analog D-Sub only, so at least full HD. It runs at 425MHz and can use up to 256MB of memory, supporting DirectX 9.0c and OpenGL 2.1. Gaming on this chip is questionable at best.

The nForce 630a provides SATA II and PATA/IDE 133 support, 20 PCIe 1.1 lanes, five PCI slots, Gigabit LAN support, and up to 12 USB 2.0 ports. The board itself will not have all these features.

ASRock is only using some of this chipset's capabilities, adding the Atheros LAN chip. The memory controller is on the CPU, so DDR3 is used.

This board has a purpose, an inexpensive entry level mother board for standard PC use. Not, not, not for over clocking, since it looks like a three phase CPU VRM. Notice that OS support spans from Windows XP to 8.1, how often do you see that?