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ASRock AM2V890-VSTA

04 Jul 2006

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HWZ's Overall Rating: 7.0

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			<h2 class="header-green">ASRock AM2V890-VSTA (VIA K8T890 CF)</h2>
		<span class="byline">Reviewed by Zachary Chan on Tuesday, 04 Jul 2006</span>
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		 		<h2 class="page-title">Introduction</h2>
		 		<h3 class="page_title">Introduction</h3>
<p>AMD's Socket AM2 launch is now water under the bridge and we've seen a fair share of new motherboard  designs based on NVIDIA's new nForce 500 series of chipsets. However, budget motherboard maker ASRock has been busy retrofitting older Athlon 64 chipsets to the AM2 socket. Today, we take a look at the AM2V890-VSTA, which is based on a mature VIA K8T890 chipset - with a twist.</p>
<p class="rtecenter"><img height="371" width="500" alt="" title="The ASRock AM2V890-VSTA motherboard." src="/files/images/AS890_top.jpg" /></p>
<p class="rteleft">ASRock has taken pains to point out that the board uses a K8T890 'CF' revision of the chipset, which on paper seems to be nothing more than a regular K8T890 that officially runs AM2. As its name implies, the board is also fully certified for Windows Vista compatibility. Can the AM2V890-VSTA motherboard deliver enough performance and features to be considered a decent mainstream offering for the Socket AM2? That's what we intend to find out. Before we begin though, let's have a look at the product bundle and full technical specifications of the board listed below:-</p>
<ul>
    <li>1 x SATA data cable</li>
    <li>1 x SATA power converter cable</li>
    <li>1 x 80-conductor Ultra ATA data cable</li>
    <li>1 x floppy drive data cable</li>
    <li>HDMI S/PDIF audio cable</li>
    <li>I/O shield</li>
    <li>Driver CDs</li>
    <li>User's guide</li>
</ul>
<p class="rtecenter"><img height="184" width="500" alt="" title="PS/2, serial and parallel ports are available as well as the standard array of four USB 2.0, one RJ45 (Fast Ethernet) and 8-channel analog audio. No S/PDIF or FireWire though." src="/files/images/AS890_rear.jpg" /></p>			</div>
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