ASRock K7S8X series

Had this motherboard since July '04, its still going strong and I am going to be upgrading HD and RAM soon, which my friend assures me is a breeze. Very happy with it and would recommend to anyone.

We (Me + Brother) bought an ASRock K7S8X series board to create another computer upstairs. We have a 1.8Ghz Intel Celeron, 320Mb SD Ram , and a ATI 7500 Radeon installed in it. Yes .. not exactly a beast, but it does the job. The problem with it .. it keeps crashing .. loading up, playing games, typing documents .. it just doesn't work as well as this computer... (far better to say the least). Recommendation - Only buy one if you need a computer to "run", don't expect wonders, especially if you like playing games and so on.

ASRock K7S8X series - This board was bought to replace a NEC board that was very painful. I bought it on the basis that it was so cheap that if it didn't work I could bin it without much loss. The result was brilliant, a really good board that ran without a fuss first time. It is the first time I have installed a motherboard too.

I bought this board because a friend had purchased 2 to build cheap computers with, and as he had no problems with these boards, I thought I would give it a chance. Costing a little over 20 pounds, and using the SIS chipset, I was doubtful on performance, and stability, especially after owning such boards as MSI and EPOX. I installed an Athlon 2000xp+, and ddr333 ram, it booted first time, but Windows XP Home had to be reinstalled, no hardship. I even managed to overclock the 2000xp Athlon to 2400xp speeds, using 160mhz fsb and it's 100% stable. The board does lack some features of the more expensive mainboards, but as its only a temporary board, and at this price, I really don't care! Recommended for anyone wishing to start upgrading for a very low price.

Asrock (US) produces great quality for the price and competes well against Taiwan and China on both counts. I was a PC Chips fan who never got stuck with a bad board but always heard good things about Asus and Asrock so when I found a real steal on an all-in-one board at Z-Buy (NY) I got an Asrock K7S41GX (like K7S8x but with Sis chipset) for $41 I was thrilled. It's 333 FSB, DDR333, 8x AGP plus 128-bit shared video was AMD state of the art for awhile and the price among the lowest I ever paid for a board with video. It is about 1 year old now and I use it with an AMD 2400 running 2003 Server at home, The 512 MB DDR, DVD+RW, and window case are nice yet I still have under $450 in the whole box. Asrock rocks!

The ASRock K7S8X series of Motherboards is one that I can highly recommend.

Not only are they cheap, they are also very reliable and can deliver excellent performance.

Install a 2400 or 2800 Athlon cpu (don't forget the thermal paste) and above it, mount the likes of a cheap Akasa copper based heatsink cooler. Add in a minimum of 256 Meg of DDR memory (it takes up to 3Gig) and you have the makings of a fine performance low cost budget system.

I have used a wide range of graphic cards including low cost Sparkle Nvidia GeForce3 Ti200, a Kyro II 4500 64MB unit plus 128MB All-in-Wonders and even a humble SR9 Xtreme -16MB SGRAM card. The Leadtek PVR TV card is also a happy performer in the K7S8X motherboard.

Gamers will obviously opt to install something more powerful like 128MB Radeons or GeForce units. Windows 98 and XP run with ease as does a variety of Linux distros.

If you are looking for a mobo that is both cheap and reliable, then the ASRock K7S8X should be on your short list.