ASRock 970DE3/U3S3 AM3+ AMD 770 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard

Pros: Overclocking capability
Runs very cool, even with my badly optimized fans
Good ATX size, it isnt one of those wonky ATX sized and fits in my coolermaster
Small but effective NB and SB heatsink
4 ram slots
space between PCi/e slots are awesome

Cons: So far the only con would be... nothing, this board does perfect in my eyes.

Other Thoughts: I would get this board for a budget gaming rig, I use an amd phenom II x4 965be
4gigs of ddr3 1333 ram
8800gts 320mb (which I am upgrading soon)

Works fine, and never had an issue at all.

Pros: Works great, let me overclock my FX-4100 to 4ghz (+400mhz)
Not much else for me to say. It did what it was supposed to.

Cons: No cons.

Other Thoughts: Paired with an FX-4100 and an AMD 7770, worked great together.

Pros: This review focuses on the XFast Lan. I've been playing League of Legends on my notebook with Premiertek PL-18N USB 2.0 GAMEBASE Adapter 2X9DBI ANTENNA. And I was using a neighbors wifi (with permission) and latency was terrible half the time. Then I started using my desktop with the same USB wifi adapter and XFast Lan has given me smooth gameplay by decreasing bandwidth for better latency. Even through a USB wifi card it's rockin'!

Also, it's a solid mobo. No issues, no updates because rule of thumb, if the bios works leave it. Updates "may" kill. But that goes with any PC tech.

Cons: Due to the extra stuff, XFast usb, Lan, Ram, windows 7 64 load times seem longer but I do have a slow HD as my OS Disk. (just can't help it atm) No egg off for it as I do believe it's unrelated.

Other Thoughts: AMD FX-4100 Zambezi 3.6GHz
ASRock 970DE3/U3S3
4 GB DDR3 1333
AMD RHD 6850

I feel the benefits of having the additional ASRock utilities fully outweigh any additional Windows load time. I can't wait to try the XFast Ram with games when I have more ram to play with.

Been in PC repair, custom builds, since 2004.

Pros: This board was great at first. Had many features I needed such as IDE and USB 3.0. IDE on board is so hard to find these days. Was very stable and ran without issues for 6 months.

Cons: After six months, this board started having intermittent boot issues. When it would boot, the board would run just fine. When it wouldn't boot, it wouldn't post at all. And you couldn't turn it off without flipping the switch on the power supply. Then a few days ago I couldn't get it to boot at all. Now it won't even power on at all. Went through all the troubleshooting steps that ASRock suggests on here without finding a solution. Power Supply is fine.

Other Thoughts: Because I don't want to deal with reformatting and since I do need an IDE header, I went ahead and ordered another one of these boards from Newegg. I hope this one lasts longer but I will be RMAing the old board for a backup through ASRock. I hope as others have suggested they don't just send me back the same broken board again.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear ASRock Customer

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you. Sorry to hear that the mainboard has malfunctioned after 8 months which’s due to nature of electronic product, it can happen.
If you have any technical questions or warranty issues in the future please contact our Tech Support at http://www.ASRock.com/support/tsd.asp. We can assist you shortly.

Thank you

ASRock SUPPORT
Tech Support Email: user@ASRockamerica.com

Pros: Nothing

Cons: Ordered 2 motherboards.Both gave the low CMOD error.Waited 3 weeks. Boards are not tested so they can not verify if motherboards work correctly.Geek squad said motherboards having the same error is not likely.Shipping the same board and changing the battery is a strong possibilty.Get a warranty .Ended up getting a refund and buying local.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear ASRock Customer

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you.
For the future reference to trouble shoot;
Please turn the power off.
Clear the CMOS and remove the battery.
Reinstall the battery, then turn the power on.
Enter BIOS to set the default (press F9 in BIOS), save and exit.
Turn the power off and on again to check if the symptom still occurs.
As always, we appreciate your purchase and constructive reviews are welcome.

Thank you

ASRock SUPPORT
Tech Support Email: user@ASRockamerica.com

Pros: Reliable and relatively compact board for ATX design. Has some "lost" features like a serial port and PATA connectors. The tuning software included seems better than most. Overall I consider this to be very good budget board that can be tuned for additional performance.

Cons: Limited available supported 8 core CPU options.

Other Thoughts: Be sure to check the CPU support list for your current future CPU options. I purchased along with a Phenom II processor with the intent of upgrading to an 8 core FX (as advertising suggested I could). After looking at the supported CPU list, I found that it doesn't support the new FX-8350 and some others - even though they are within the board's power rating. Some of the supported 8 core CPUs are not available as boxed processors in the US. I consider this board a poor choice for an 8 core chip. I settled for a FX-6300 and am happy.

Pros: Runs good

Cons: No problems

Other Thoughts: NONE

Pros: -Cheap Price
-Good CPU support

Cons: First board I bought came DOA, got it replaced and the second one I received was also DOA. Had high hopes for the board when the second one came and was disappointed. Gonna get a refund and buy a different board.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear ASRock Customer

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you.
Sorry to hear the second mainboard having same issue.
Please trouble shooting the mainboard for below steps with known good components;
Remove the mainboard from inside computer to outside. Place the mainboard on top of the empty mainboard’s box
Clear the CMOS
Reseat the CPU and heatsink fan as well
Test with 1 memory module (non-ECC, un-buffered), try with another known good memory if its same issue.
Video card with 6+6 power (if applied)
Power supply with connecting 24 pins + 8 or 4 pins ATX power to the mainboard
Plug the computer case’s power switch to mainboard's front panel power header and try again
If you have any technical questions please contact us at 909-590-8308 or http://www.ASRock.com/support/tsd.asp. We can assist you shortly.


Thank you

ASRock SUPPORT
Tech Support Email: user@ASRockamerica.com

Pros: Runs good once i take out the CMOS battery and put it back in after 10 seconds, looks nice, fits all my components properly and going in case with ease.

Cons: CMOS BATTERY LOW?! I just bought this thing ! I know it could have been low from sitting around in the warehouse for awhile but I mean come on!

Other Thoughts: I'm hoping newegg will at the very least send me a free CMOS battery or send me a new motherboard because I didn't pay to have a CMOS low battery error showing up on my new mother board!

Manufacturer Response:

Dear ASRock Customer

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you. The battery on mainboard usually last for 3 years.
For the issue, please turn the power off
Unplug the power
Clear the CMOS
Reinstall the battery to check if the symptom still occurs.
If you have any technical questions or warranty issues please contact our Tech Support at http://www.ASRock.com/support/tsd.asp. We can assist you shortly.

Thank you

ASRock SUPPORT
Tech Support Email: user@ASRockamerica.com

Pros: Stable, low profile, solid cap's, overclocks very well.

Cons: The audio was a bit finicky for me at first on one of my builds with the drivers on the CD, with updated Realtek drivers from the website it works fine now.

Other Thoughts: I got this board for my wife and I's computers and it runs my Phenom II 965 to 4ghz very well, and thats about as high demand as it gets power wise. The bios has a very nice level of tweaking features, and like I said this board is very stable on both pc's. I highly recommend it for an AMD build.