ASROCK versus ASUS

[Piotr Makley]

Asrock and Asus motherboards are both made by Asustek. So what is
the main difference between them?

I am told that Asrock is a cheaper range so is one range positoned
to be cheap and the other to be more expensive but with more
features? Or do both ranges aim at broadly the same market but one
is built better than the other?

Any info welcome.

 

[Grebo]

Are they both built by Asustek, I never knew that.

I have used both and the Asus was far superior in my opinion.

Graeme

 

[~misfit~]

Asrock and Asus motherboards are both made by Asustek. So what is
the main difference between them?

I am told that Asrock is a cheaper range so is one range positoned
to be cheap and the other to be more expensive but with more
features? Or do both ranges aim at broadly the same market but one
is built better than the other?

Any info welcome.

Asrock *is* the budget range, they usually have less choice of options and
slightly less expensive components (From what I gather). It is Asustek's
attempt at getting a slice of the budget/OEM market without compromising the
name of their Asus range.

Seiko did something similar years back, with a difference. They bought out
the 'Pulsar' brand of watches which are internally identical to the Seiko
range but sell for about 40% less. (A great buy BTW, I have a 10-year old
Pulsar that I wear in the shower, swimming-pool etc. and it's running
perfectly). Seiko found themselves in a situation where they could produce
their product for a lot less than they were charging for it but didn't want
their name associated with lower-priced product, they have a good reputation
and people will pay a premium for a watch with "Seiko" on it. So they
invented the Pulsar brand. (This was circa 1980) Wise people in the know who
weren't overly image-conscious bought Pulsar and saved approximately 40% and
got the exact same ultra-reliable watch. They're made in the same factory,
they just go to a different 'finishing line' where they are fitted into
either a Seiko or a Pulsar case.

It's not quite the same with Asus /Asrock, they use different
components/features on their Asrock range but the example holds true. Not
wanting to diminish the name of their premium range in the eye of the
consumer.

 

[Paul Hopwood]

Asrock and Asus motherboards are both made by Asustek. So what is
the main difference between them?

I am told that Asrock is a cheaper range so is one range positoned
to be cheap and the other to be more expensive but with more
features? Or do both ranges aim at broadly the same market but one
is built better than the other?

Only worked with one ASRock board I can recall and don't know how much
it cost but I thought the Asus P4BGV-MX I fitted into a machine
recently, one of the cheapest integrated S478 boards around (less than
£40 delivered), was a better board. Don't know if that's
representative of the range in general.

--

 

[BigH2K]

Only worked with one ASRock board I can recall and don't know how much
it cost but I thought the Asus P4BGV-MX I fitted into a machine
recently, one of the cheapest integrated S478 boards around (less than
£40 delivered), was a better board. Don't know if that's
representative of the range in general.

--

Nothing but good things to say for Asus P3 and P4 boards but I found the few
Socket A boards to be very problematic.

 

[Piotr Makley]

Wise people in the know who
weren't overly image-conscious bought Pulsar and saved
approximately 40% and got the exact same ultra-reliable watch.
They're made in the same factory, they just go to a different
'finishing line' where they are fitted into either a Seiko or
a Pulsar case.

But what about quality control? Is that different?

 

[~misfit~]

But what about quality control? Is that different?

No, not at all. I happened to be in a jewellers shop when a Seiko/Pulsar rep
was there, just as they bought out the Pulsar brand. He was explaining it to
the shop owner. The internals come off the same production-line, go through
the same QT, and are then diverted to either the Seiko or Pulsar 'finishing'
line (for fitting into cases), depending on demand.

As I said, my Pulsar hasn't given me a moments trouble in the 10 years I've
had it. I told a guy who owned a Seiko (that he paid heaps more for) about
it and he didn't believe me until I showed him that they have the same
'double
wave' logo on the back (both watches are 100m water resist).

 

[JAD]

Wow, haven't talked about pulsar watches in some time. I have a
Pulsar time computer. The last of the LED era. Red and emerald green
readout, huge and pretty darn ugly ;^) but works like a
charm. I have another that I haven't thought about for some time, it
was a graduation present from my folks (circa 1976), you got me
hunting for it now.

 

[~misfit~]

Wow, haven't talked about pulsar watches in some time. I have a
Pulsar time computer. The last of the LED era. Red and emerald green
readout, huge and pretty darn ugly ;^) but works like a
charm. I have another that I haven't thought about for some time, it
was a graduation present from my folks (circa 1976), you got me
hunting for it now.

Good watches. Although I'm not sure if Seiko owned them all along or bought
them as an outlet for their 'off-brand' watches.

I once had an LED watch, you had to push a button for the time display to
light up. It was like a monolithic lump of stainless steel on a stainless
steel band with a couple of buttons on the side and a small blank window in
it that lit up with the display when you pushed a button. It must have
weighed 200g. I liked it, wish I still had it (although reading the time was
a two-handed job). Then LCDs got cheaper and LED watches disappeared AFAIK.
I bought mine in about '76 too, man it was high-tech. <g>.

 

[K-Tel Ronco]

<SNIP>
" I am told that Asrock is a cheaper range "

I have to agree with that. In a number of years of building The Asrock is
the only boards I Have ever had a failure on (and I have used some crap).
Not a catastrophic failure I may add, rear usb ports died. However I bought
it thinking it was a quality item. I forget the model, was one of these
maplin bundles that at the time seemed like a great deal.

 

[ElJerid]

Asrock and Asus motherboards are both made by Asustek. So what is
the main difference between them?

I am told that Asrock is a cheaper range so is one range positoned
to be cheap and the other to be more expensive but with more
features? Or do both ranges aim at broadly the same market but one
is built better than the other?

I've seen somewhere that Asrock was a Chinese daughter company of Astek
intended to allow Asus to compete with companies like Elite eo in the
motherboard entry market. So recently I decided to purchase my first Asrock
P4VT8, where the box mentioned plenty of nice features, all at a very nice
price.
When installing however, I discovered a lot of "anomalies". Some examples:
- the board has 2 SATA connectors, but drivers have to be loaded from
diskettes at initial setup in order to recognize SATA drives;
- when shutting down the computer, power is still delivered to on-board USB
connectors, resulting in USB devices (6 in 1 card readers, for ex)with leds
always on;
- the board crashes randomly (up to 3 - 4 times a day);
- the temp and voltage reports of the board are wrong: cpu temp is mostly at
72°C (although feeling cold), -12 V is reported -0.17 V, and so on.
- there is no dual channel DDR available (but I must say dual-channel is not
mentioned on the box);
- installation of windows 2000 worked normally, but install of Win XP was
totally impossible (Win setup freezes early, at "press F6 to load additional
disk drivers").
This could have been an isolated single bad experience, but I did some
search on the net and encountered a lot of idenditical or similar
experiences.
I always loved Asus and installed many of those boards for P3 and P4 without
any problem. My first trial with Asrock was a total failure and I even
couldn' t get valuable support. I soon replaced the P4VT8 by an Asus P4P800
(price difference is not that big), and all problems above disappeared.
This was my first and last Asrock !!!

 

[Fishman]

Asrock and Asus motherboards are both made by Asustek. So what is
the main difference between them?

I am told that Asrock is a cheaper range so is one range positoned
to be cheap and the other to be more expensive but with more
features? Or do both ranges aim at broadly the same market but one
is built better than the other?

Any info welcome.

I have used quite a number of ASRock boards for socket "A" builds.
(Haven't built too many P4 based systems recently and where I have these
have needed a top of the range mobo with all the accessories)

K7S8X for several months, FSB up to 333MHz and more recently the K7S8XE
which does 400MHz FSB.
Also the K7VM2 where a uATX board is needed with o/b VGA.

All models are basic in that they have minimum bells and whistles.
The Phoenix bios offers little scope for overclockers.
Don't expect a manual which tells you how to build a computer and set every
bios setting.

There is however a cool video on the driver cd of some attractive Asian
female telling you how to build your PC, not too informative for the
experienced builder, but fun to watch. She struggles with her English
pronunciations a bit.

That said, all the ASRock boards I've used have behaved very well and have
performed flawlessly.
Rather like their sales literature ........ Solid as a rock ......ASRock

Compared to PChips, Elite or ECS and Syntax etc. these boards come at a
budget price without the budget bugs.

AAAA+ recommended.

 

[Peter A. Stavrakoglou]

I've seen somewhere that Asrock was a Chinese daughter company of Astek
intended to allow Asus to compete with companies like Elite eo in the
motherboard entry market. So recently I decided to purchase my first Asrock
P4VT8, where the box mentioned plenty of nice features, all at a very nice
price.
When installing however, I discovered a lot of "anomalies". Some examples:
- the board has 2 SATA connectors, but drivers have to be loaded from
diskettes at initial setup in order to recognize SATA drives;

Isn't this a condition of Windows rather than the motherboard? AFAIK,
Windows XP, and obviously older versions, requires drivers to be
loaded prior to installing.

 

[CBFalconer]

Wow, haven't talked about pulsar watches in some time. I have a
Pulsar time computer. The last of the LED era. Red and emerald
green readout, huge and pretty darn ugly ;^) but works like a
charm. I have another that I haven't thought about for some time,
it was a graduation present from my folks (circa 1976), you got
me hunting for it now.

I have an Intel offering from the same period. It was a prize for
my first version of floating point for the 8080, submitted to the
user group. Nowadays I spend no more than $10 US for an LCD
display calendar/stop watch combo, which lasts about 5 years.

 

[sooky grumper]

I've seen somewhere that Asrock was a Chinese daughter company of Astek
intended to allow Asus to compete with companies like Elite eo in the
motherboard entry market. So recently I decided to purchase my first Asrock
P4VT8, where the box mentioned plenty of nice features, all at a very nice
price.
When installing however, I discovered a lot of "anomalies". Some examples:
- the board has 2 SATA connectors, but drivers have to be loaded from
diskettes at initial setup in order to recognize SATA drives;

That's about the OS, not the mobo

- when shutting down the computer, power is still delivered to on-board USB
connectors, resulting in USB devices (6 in 1 card readers, for ex)with leds
always on;

That's normal. Same with PS/2 ports. ATX always has some power going to
the ports.

- the board crashes randomly (up to 3 - 4 times a day);

The board doesn't crash, windows does.

- the temp and voltage reports of the board are wrong: cpu temp is mostly at
72°C (although feeling cold), -12 V is reported -0.17 V, and so on.

Where did you get those readings?

- there is no dual channel DDR available (but I must say dual-channel is not
mentioned on the box);

You don't know your chipsets.

- installation of windows 2000 worked normally, but install of Win XP was
totally impossible (Win setup freezes early, at "press F6 to load additional
disk drivers").

This is a windows issue, not a mobo issue.

This could have been an isolated single bad experience, but I did some
search on the net and encountered a lot of idenditical or similar
experiences.

Because there are a lot of similarly inexperienced people who know just
enough to get themselves stuck.

I always loved Asus and installed many of those boards for P3 and P4 without
any problem. My first trial with Asrock was a total failure and I even
couldn' t get valuable support. I soon replaced the P4VT8 by an Asus P4P800
(price difference is not that big), and all problems above disappeared.
This was my first and last Asrock !!!

ASUS certainly make good boards. I like ASUS and Gigabyte. Had a board
die just inside of warranty, took it to the distributor, got a new board
a couple of weeks later that was better than the one I had. So, my wife
got an upgrade for the price of a few sticks of ram and a bottom of the
range CPU. I'd certainly consider giving Asrock a try if it met my needs
and price was important.

 

[Piotr Makley]

No, not at all. I happened to be in a jewellers shop when a
Seiko/Pulsar rep was there, just as they bought out the Pulsar
brand. He was explaining it to the shop owner. The internals
come off the same production-line, go through the same QT, and
are then diverted to either the Seiko or Pulsar 'finishing'
line (for fitting into cases), depending on demand.

Maybe the diverting is done based on the better versus worse
performing units? In other words they are all to spec but the very
best go one way and the poorer one go another way?

 

[ElJerid]

Isn't this a condition of Windows rather than the motherboard? AFAIK,
Windows XP, and obviously older versions, requires drivers to be
loaded prior to installing.

I know this, but the installation freezes just befor the stage where it's
normally asked to hit F6 and insert the floppy with the drivers. Windows
2000 however installs without problems (except later crashes), and the Win
XP CD was checked on 2 other computers with Asus mobos and installed
correctly. Only the Asrock freezes at install.

 

[ElJerid]

That's about the OS, not the mobo

That's what I thought first, so I returned the Win XP CD to the dealer where
it was tested and appeared to install without problems. So I took it back
home and tried an install on 2 othersPC's without problems.

That's normal. Same with PS/2 ports. ATX always has some power going to
the ports.

Right, but not at the point that the leds on a card reader remain on when
power is down.

The board doesn't crash, windows does.

Also just after a clean install, and without any application installed or
running ???

Where did you get those readings?

As well from Sandra as from Aida 32

You don't know your chipsets.

Right. That's why I mentioned it was not on the box, but only an expectation
from me due to the fact that I always used i868 or i875.

This is a windows issue, not a mobo issue.

Don't believe. I think it's an incompatibility between OS and the P4VT8, or
the P4VT8 is defective !

Because there are a lot of similarly inexperienced people who know just
enough to get themselves stuck.

Maybe, but there are many, all with analog problems. And although not an
"expert", I'm not "inexperienced", as I installed more than 100 individual
PC's (I mean not auto-installs through a network), mostly in sophisticated
video capture and editing configurations..

 

[Fishman]

I've seen somewhere that Asrock was a Chinese daughter company of Astek
intended to allow Asus to compete with companies like Elite eo in the
motherboard entry market. So recently I decided to purchase my first Asrock
P4VT8, where the box mentioned plenty of nice features, all at a very nice
price.
When installing however, I discovered a lot of "anomalies". Some examples:
- the board has 2 SATA connectors, but drivers have to be loaded from
diskettes at initial setup in order to recognize SATA drives;
- when shutting down the computer, power is still delivered to on-board USB
connectors, resulting in USB devices (6 in 1 card readers, for ex)with leds
always on;
- the board crashes randomly (up to 3 - 4 times a day);
- the temp and voltage reports of the board are wrong: cpu temp is mostly at
72°C (although feeling cold), -12 V is reported -0.17 V, and so on.
- there is no dual channel DDR available (but I must say dual-channel is not
mentioned on the box);
- installation of windows 2000 worked normally, but install of Win XP was
totally impossible (Win setup freezes early, at "press F6 to load additional
disk drivers").
This could have been an isolated single bad experience, but I did some
search on the net and encountered a lot of idenditical or similar
experiences.
I always loved Asus and installed many of those boards for P3 and P4 without
any problem. My first trial with Asrock was a total failure and I even
couldn' t get valuable support. I soon replaced the P4VT8 by an Asus P4P800
(price difference is not that big), and all problems above disappeared.
This was my first and last Asrock !!!

Sounds like you had bad memory to me.

 

[sooky grumper]

That's what I thought first, so I returned the Win XP CD to the dealer where
it was tested and appeared to install without problems. So I took it back
home and tried an install on 2 othersPC's without problems.

*sigh*

It's not about the cd. And the hardware was not identical.

Right, but not at the point that the leds on a card reader remain on when
power is down.




Also just after a clean install, and without any application installed or
running ???

Yes. You need to learn:
1. about your hardware, and just about hardware in general
2. about software, and specifically OSes

mostly at



As well from Sandra as from Aida 32

Try the BIOS next time, but that should be identical. If not, you'll
discover why many people don't trust those programs you've cited.

Right. That's why I mentioned it was not on the box, but only an expectation
from me due to the fact that I always used i868 or i875.

Again, it has abolutely no bearing here, except to illustrate that you
know just enough to get yourself in strife (or get yourself
disappointed). It's not a bad thing, we all start out somewhere.

Don't believe. I think it's an incompatibility between OS and the P4VT8, or
the P4VT8 is defective !

There are hardware incompatibilities. An 'OS incompatibility' is a
problem with the OS and the programming.

Maybe, but there are many, all with analog problems.

You mean analogous, right?

And although not an
"expert", I'm not "inexperienced", as I installed more than 100 individual
PC's (I mean not auto-installs through a network), mostly in sophisticated
video capture and editing configurations..

Yes, anyone can click 'yes' and 'OK' and 'I Accept' and fill in a few
numbers. You're at the level of knowledge where if you push yourself a
little further, you'll break through and understand how much there is to
know, and how little any one person will be able to know in terms of
computers (both hardware and software).