Packaging & Content:

Retail Front

Retail Back

Included Gear

USB/IEEE Bracket

    The ASRock box is the typical teal color, with loads of little banners telling you the features of the motherboard. The back side of the box gives an explanation of the eSATAII feature on the motherboard, along with some graphs comparing data transfer between IDE, USB and eSATAII. On the inside, the included items are IDE and FDD cables, four SATA cables, two Molex to SATA power adapters, and a PCI bracket with IEEE and two USB2.0 plugs on it.

Motherboard Layout:

Full Board

AM2 Socket

20pin Power Header

    Following my simple routine in reviewing motherboards, I will begin with the CPU socket and work my way around the motherboard. The CPU socket is AM2 (of course.) Close to the ZIFF socket on the left is the motherboard power header. Why this is so close to the CPU is baffling to me.

    On the right side of the socket are four DDRII DIMM slots. A total of 8GB can be used on this motherboard. Next to the DIMM slots is the dying breed of connections "The IDE header". Only one IDE header is on this motherboard.

    Moving down to the bottom right, four SATAII connectors are present and each is colored differently. Below the SATAII plugs are four USB2.0 headers, and off to the left is the BIOS chip. The chip under the heatsink is the NVIDIA nForce 520 chipset - a single chip solution versus a NB and SB.

PCI Headers

IEEE Header

Winbond Controller

Audio/Game/FDD

    Now on to the lower right of the board. This is were the PCI slots are, comprised of three PCI slots, one PCIe X16 and two smaller PCIe X1 slots. Hiding below the PCI slots is the hardly used Floppy connector. On the far right is a dual IEEE header with markings for a front connection like the ones built into a case, and a rear panel connection for the included USB+1394 PCI bracket. Next to the IEEE headers is the Hardware Monitoring Controller Winbond W83627EHG-A, which can handle these functions: Multi-I/O, UART, infrared, parallel port, keyboard controller, game port, MIDI port, and general purpose I/O ports. Hiding amongst the PCI slots is the chip for the audio, and below the slots are headers for the front panel audio, FDD and game.

PS2/Serial/Parallel

eSATA/USB/LAN/Audio

eSATAII Internal Header

    Lastly, the upper right is mainly the motherboard rear I/O panel. Here on the back side we have the PS/2 ports as well as serial and parallel connections, eSATAII ports, two USB ports, RJ45 and the audio connections.

BIOS:

Main	Advanced	CPU Config	MEM Clock
CAS	TRAS	TRP	TRCD
TRRD	TRC	MA Timing	MAX Async
Bank Interleaving	Chipset Settings	DRAM Volts	ACPI Settings
IDE Config	Advanced PCI/Pnp	Floppy Config	Super I/O
USB Config	H/W Monitor	Boot Settings	Security Settings

    American Megatrends, Inc. BIOS is used on the AliveNF5-eSATA2+ motherboard. Always check the website to get the latest BIOS release for the motherboard. The BIOS offers some adjustability to the CPU and RAM. This should allow for some overclocking.

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