ASRock vs. ASUS motherboards for ATI AIW AGP system?
 

I am building an a system with a motherboard with the AGP slot to accommodate my newly acquired AIW 9600XT AG-based capture card, and my Intel E4600 CPU (core2duo). Based on a few discussions on the forum, the consensus is one of these motherboards (my notes in brackets):

• ASRock 775i65g r3.0 (works with E4600, all bios; Dual Channel DDR Memory Technology, 2 x DDR DIMM slots, Support DDR400/333/266, Max. capacity: 2GB; 3 x PCI slots; 1 x AGP slot for 1.5V 8X/4X AGP card.
• ASRock 4CoreDual-VSTA (works with E4600, validated bios P2.10; 2 x DDR2 DIMM slots, Supports DDR2 667/533 non-ECC, un-buffered memory, Max. capacity of system memory: 2GB
• ASRock 775Dual-VSTA (works with E4600, validated bios P3.00; Dual Channel DDR/DDRII Memory Technology, 2 x DDRII DIMM slots, Support DDRII667/533, Max. capacity: 2GB; 2 x DDR DIMM slots; Support DDR400/333/266; 4 x PCI slots, 1 x PCI Express Graphics slot, 1 x AGP slot for 1.5V 8X/4X AGP card.
• ASRock 4CoreDual-SATA2 (works with 2x2GB of ram; maybe others do too?; works with E4600, validated bios P170; 1 x PCI Express Graphics slot (@ x4 mode), 1 x AGP 8X slot, 4 x PCI slots. A bit more expensive than VSTA version. But user at DigitalFAQ had problems.)

And there is also this one that a user here said was in his system, although the ASRock website doesn't list the Intel E4600 CPU are working with this board. So this is a question mark for me:

• ASRock ConRoe865PE (does not work with E4600 according to website but guy at DigitalFAQ says his system had it with the E4600 cpu)

Is there any reason why (seemingly) no one gets/discusses Asus motherboards? I was under the impression they are good. Is there a problem with the Asus motherboards and the ATI AIW cards (AGP slot), or the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz sound card that is also recommended? Or is it that only the ASRock motherboards listed above are in the goldilocks zone of being the motherboards that allows for the fastest possible Core2Duo CPUs, DDR2 RAM, on a motherboard that also has an AGP slot? In other words, was ASRock the last motherboard maker to accommodate AGP and that's why those motherboards are the heart of the Fastest AGP-enabled Windows XP Capture System™?

The last several PCs I've built used ASRock MBs, mainly because I have been satisfied with the products, available connections/slots/ports, and price points. I have used ASUS boards with success as well. Some of the MB review sits might offer some insight into differences among their reviews. User reviews of the boards on seller sites and comments on the makers web boards can also provide some insight into potential issues. In some cases you can find useful information on commercial software developers sites as well under supported hardware listings.

I suspect one reason you see many ASRock because a first person build a system that worked, and follow on people copied it as a safe bet because it worked. Video capture is not about overclocking to the max; it is about consistent reliable performance. An extra couple percent on some speed benchmark is usually not a reason to select one board over another for purposes of video capture.

A lot of this is just about availability, especially today. Reliability (tried and true) is critical, with ultimate speed least important. Reviews from the time are of course going to focus mostly on speed, overclocking potential, etc. which are pretty irrelevant for video capture :eek:

If you want to dig into this, a good place to start would be at this Vogons thread. What you will find is that many 775 boards with AGP won't support your Core2 E4600. I think this is because the overlap of AGP and socket 775 was fairly small with PCIe taking over pretty quickly. Lots of the early 775/AGP boards either never could be BIOS updated or just were never BIOS updated to support Core2 CPU's. There are modded BIOS's out there for some, but those could be iffy.

In addition, AsRock seemed to make some of the more interesting boards of the time. It's as if ASUS (who owned them then and now -I believe-) gave them a long lead. Their "DUAL" boards are some of the few out there that support both (though only one at a time) AGP and PCIe using actual AGP, not some lesser, simulated version (AGI, AGR, etc.). I always chuckle at the irony that it was VIA that made this possible so you get VIA haters that are "DUAL" board enthusiasts in spite of themselves... :P

The same thing happened on the AMD side as it's hard to find any 939 boards with AGP and almost no AM2 with AGP (and those are said to be unstable anyway...)

Whatever motherboard you decide on, check for support on the manufacturers and make absolutely sure it supports Core2.

BW

Don't get the SATA1 boards. I have, and have built, multiple 4CoreDual-SATA2 systems around ATI AIW AGP cards.

VIA was, and arguably still is, the maker of garbage chips and boards. But even a bad company makes a mistake, and does something right from time to time. VIA earned it's reputation for junk in the 2000s. It was the Easycap (Easycrap) of controllers. VIA was often singularly responsible for bad capturing, such as the cause of drop frames.

What is the main reason that fewer used AMD chips exist these days, you ask? The chips would fail, melt themselves, etc. That eventually changed (Ryzen), far after the systems we need to build for capture, though AMD still runs hotter than Intel to this day (in general sense, looking at all CPUs). Many people have tried to dispel this as "myth", but it's revisionist hogwash. It still matters to communities like this, because we're buying this legacy gear, and don't want to be saddled with a system that causes the AC to run extra, and/or faults itself (or melts to the board). Yes, melts to the board, happened to me more than once. AMD was often coined as "best bang for your buck", but that meant taking shortcuts, and the main shortcut was in regards to heat dissipation. Don't use AMD to built a capture system, use Intel dual-core.

At the time, late 2000s and early 2010s, Asrock was the company that made niche boards. (Not owned by Asus since earliest 2000s.) Asrock has always made interesting boards, power boards, etc. Not more mainstream stuff like Asus, Gigabyte, etc. My main z170 system, for example, uses Asrock Extreme 7+ because it had 2x as many SATA ports as almost anything else at the time.