Conclusion:

Year 2007 seems to an excellent year for PC shoppers. DDR2 pricing is at the lowest. Intel and AMD bloody price war rages on. Intel 65nm processor peaks at all levels, good production yield factor, new stepping to further lowering thermal characteristic and new low pricing record.

ASRock seizes the in-between transitional crowds offering AGP and DDR1 for S775 last year. With poor business practices and executions at AMD camp, marketing folks at ASRock is taking on, again, the practical PC users in offering the ConRoe 1333-DVI/H.

Seasonic Power Angel reads 72 Watts of power consumption at idle after I pulled out the 7600GT at overclocked speed of 2.81Ghz. Running 3DMark06 with the onboard graphic, it peaks 110 Watts which is the idle wattage from my Opteron 165 using 7900GS. This could lead to some saving on the electricity bill. Most of my time spent on a PC is office apps and around the internet, I trust most users do the same. I notice no image quality difference when I watched a DVD movie in comparison to 7600GT and 7900GS graphic cards.

At the very end of the test, I was able to run memory latency at 4-4-4-12 giving a slight gain in overall system performance.

The ConRoe 13330DVI/H R2.0 is listed for below $80. ASRock tends to reduce the price after initial product introduction. Should this trend continues, it might retrieve to below $70 or lower in a few weeks to come. The main power connector is not well placed; to lock or limit PCIe bus speed would be nice; adding some Vcore and Mem Volt adjustment will be fantastic. However, you then, can buy Asus or Gigabyte main-boards at a higher price. Of course, this mainboard is not targeted at overclockers, rather it is aimed at budget minded DIY and transitional buyers looking for upgrade at a later day. When PC2-4200/PC2-5300 is what you have and fund for graphic card isn't available, you might want to consider this board. Being a micro ATX, it will meet most HTPC configurations nicely.

When the very low end E2000 series is what you have in mind, pin mod could give you more overclocking from your hard earned money. Call it beginner's luck, it took me about 5 minutes on the pin mod. The E2140 review sample has yet to reach its limit. With retail price at about $76 and further price reduction in the coming weeks when E2180 at 2Ghz with 10x multi is released, the E2000 series Intel chip becomes a good bargain.

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ASRock ConRoe-1333 DVI/H
recommended for


PRO
Low price when it goes below $70
Decent overclocking to ~352 FSB
Bundle DVI card allowing for dual displays
Acceptable 7.1 CH audio even with overclocking
1333FSB support for the latest Intel CPU
Gigabit Lan

CON
Quad core not supported.
No eSATA or Firewire
PCIe is running overclocked when choosing 1333 FSB.

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Intel Pentium Dual-Core E2140
recommended for



PRO
Great price
Excellent OC even at default vcore
Bundled stock HSF silent at idle
Low power usage

CON
Soon to be obsolete

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Once again, I like to thank Geeks.com for sending in the E2140 review sample to make this review possible; the same goes to ASRock U.S. office for allowing us the chance to explore one of their latest new products.

Please keep an eye on our forum as we push the E2140 further at default vcore and stock heatsink/fan, or drop in to share your E2140 experience.