Second K8 Combo board makes an appearance

AKIBA PC Hotline has details on Asrock's second K8 based Combo motherboard - the K8 Combo-Z, which supports both socket 754 and socket 939 processors. It should be noted that you can't yet buy a K8 Combo motherboard.

We shouldn't forget that Asrock has launched a P4 based Combo board, which supports socket 478 and LGA 775 processors.

What differentiates this latest board from the original SIS based version is the single chip Ali M1689 platform processor. There is an additional DIMM slot as well - three in total - for the dual channel socket, which will give enthusiasts who use that socket greater memory flexibility. The other major features which round off this board are 10/100 Ethernet, 7.1 audio and two S-ATA ports supporting RAID 0,1 and JBOD.

If both K8 based Combo boards are launched, what can those looking to buy expect? The SIS version, which has PCI Express (PCI-E) x1 support, looks to have a Gigabit PCI-E LAN card bundled with that board. (1). For those looking for that feature, which doesn't run off the PCI bus, that could be their board. The Ali Combo board isn't as feature rich as its SIS based sibling, so that could be the entry-level offering.

With security being such an important problem, let's hope Asrock has a Nforce3 250Gb/Ultra Combo board in the works. I'm sure enthusiasts who buy budget would pay a little extra to have the piece of mind that a hardware firewall can bring. If Asrock did just that, it would have three very distinct K8 Combo boards that it could offer. µ

See Also
Between an Asrock and a hard place
Asrock intros dual Pentium 4 board
SIS shows off 754-939 pin motherboard

L'INQ
Akiba PC Hotline's take in Japanese
K8 Combo-Z details in English
1 Asrockandroll