Don’t let the price tag fool you.
This is one of the few motherboards in our roundup to use the cheaper H77 chipset. The major difference is a single x16 PCIe 3.0 lane that can’t be split across two PCIe slots, but even when utilising this board’s SLI and CrossFire capabilities, we doubt you’ll notice any difference. It still packs the usual Intel quad SATA 3Gbps and dual SATA 6Gbps ports, but ASRock has added two more SATA 6Gbps ports powered by an ASMedia chip.
Legacy users will love the inclusion of three PCI slots, making this the perfect home for those bringing older components to their new PC. Despite the board only officially supporting DDR3 up to 1,600MHz speeds, we had no problems setting the memory to run at 1,800MHz. Video output is limited to HDMI, DVI and VGA, which means you’ll be limited to two monitors if using onboard graphics, while optical S/PDIF and five 3.5mm stereo mini jacks pipe out sound created by the onboard Realtek ALC892 chipset.
This H77-powered board posted some decent results in our benchmarks, besting more expensive boards in almost all of our tests. As one of the cheapest boards in our roundup, we have to conclude that this board offers excellent value for money. As usual, ASRock hasn’t scrimped on the features, making this perfect for budget users who demand solid performance.
APC Benchmark Results:
| Model
| ASRock H77 Pro4/MVP
|
| Price
| $110 |
| PCMark Vantage
| 21,937 |
| 3DMark 11 (Performance mode)
| 8,218 |
| x264 HD Benchmark - Pass 1 (avg fps)
| 162.48 |
| x264 HD Benchmark - Pass 2 (avg fps)
| 41.34 |
| Aida read test (MB/s)
| 19,955 |
| Super Pi 8M test (sec)
| 107.34 |
| Shogun 2 (avg fps)
| 29.9 |
Special features :
- Digi Power Design using 4 + 2 power phase design
- 64Mb AMI UEFI Legal BIOS with GUI support
- PCIe x1 Gigabit LAN 10/100/1,000Mbps
Pros : Solid performance, 3 x PCI slots, two extra SATA 6Gbps ports.
Cons : Thin PCB material, no DisplayPort out.
Verdict : 9 out of 10. Editor's Choice!
Available from ASRock, RRP $110.
