ASRock was quick to respond to the overclocking issues encountered in our Core i7 Sub-$300 Motherboard Roundup, offering a replacement board and processor within hours of article publication. And how could we pass up the offer, when the replacement Core i7 processor ASRock offered was based on Intel’s improved D0 stepping?
Yet, we wanted to make sure we were representing the situation as accurately as possible, so we took time to carefully consider our commitment to you before finally deciding the most balanced approach. We’ll begin today’s review update by presenting ASRock’s explanation, and finish by applying our previous overclocking configuration to a second motherboard we purchased at e-tail to see if a newer board revision and improved BIOS will protect overclocking enthusiasts.
The only motherboard we’ve tested to properly support four double-thick graphics cards, ASRock's X58 SuperComputer’s name isn’t too far off from at least one of the product’s intended markets as an Nvidia Tesla Personal Supercomputer platform. Gaming fanatics can also appreciate the flexibility of supporting extra cards, since a 3-way SLI configuration still has space for a fourth card that can be dedicated to in-game physics calculations.
We had much praise and few complaints in our full layout description, so our next page will re-examine the product’s overclocking capabilities using the latest BIOS and CPU core stepping.