ASRock AM2NF6G-VSTA - motherboard - micro ATX - GeForce 6100

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I chose the Asrock AM2NF6G-VSTA as my motherboard for several reasons. Among the low- to mid-level motherboard manufacturers, I am most familiar with Asrock. I have already used one of their motherboards in one of the setups I helped to build and am quite satisfied with its performance. I chose this specific board among the various AM2 board offerings of Asrock primarily because it is based on an NVDIA chipset; there is a general consensus ...
...typical apple-green colored box of Asrock that has pictures of spaceships and the logos representing the various capabilities of the board -- SATAII, RAID, DDRII 800, etc. -- printed on the front cover. As with all budget boards, the AM2NF6G-VSTA is packaged with only the bare essentials: SATA cable, PATA-IDE cable, FDD Cable, cd driver and user manual. Aside from this essential components, the motherbaord is also packaged with an unusual item: a ... more

Realizing that I am neither much of an enthusiast nor a gamer -- and also to satisfy my itch to build a new system -- I decided to build a new budget workstation setup to replace my two-year old Intel Pentium 2.4A Preshott (no typo error here :p) semi-enthusiast setup. Since AMD is almost always synonymous with budget, I opted for a setup based on the AMD platform.

I chose the Asrock AM2NF6G-VSTA as my motherboard for several reasons. Among the low- to mid-level motherboard manufacturers, I am most familiar with Asrock. I have already used one of their motherboards in one of the setups I helped to build and am quite satisfied with its performance. I chose this specific board among the various AM2 board offerings of Asrock primarily because it is based on an NVDIA chipset; there is a general consensus among AMD afficionados that AMD chipsets from NVDIA perform better than those from other chipset manufacturers. I also picked the AM2NF6G-VSTA because it has both an integrated graphics and a PCI-Express graphic card slot. The integrated graphics will allow me to run the system without buying a discreet GPU card and, thus, save me some bucks to buy other components. On the other hand, the PCI-Express graphic card slot gives me the option to upgrade my system when I need to use graphic intensive applications-- or when I come upon some cash. Finally, I chose this board for the simple reason that it is cheap.

Packaging

The AM2NF6G-VSTA comes in the typical apple-green colored box of Asrock that has pictures of spaceships and the logos representing the various capabilities of the board -- SATAII, RAID, DDRII 800, etc. -- printed on the front cover. As with all budget boards, the AM2NF6G-VSTA is packaged with only the bare essentials: SATA cable, PATA-IDE cable, FDD Cable, cd driver and user manual. Aside from this essential components, the motherbaord is also packaged with an unusual item: a serial port cable adapter. Unlike most motherboards that I have seen, this board does not have an integrated serial port in its back panel. Asrock may have deliberatedly omitted the serial port in this motherboard and just packaged a serial port cable adapter as an option for those who still needs it. The people at Asrock probably have noticed that less and less peripherals use this port. The days of the serial port are numbered.

The user manual comes in different languages. Its content, however, is only sufficient enough to setup and have the system up and running. Fortunately, the user manual is supplemented by a more detailed digital copy of the manual and other instructions materials that can be found in the cd driver. All in all, the user manual plus the different intruction materials in the the cd driver will give one a fair understanding of the workings of the motherboard.

The Motherboard

The thing that I immediately noticed with this motherboard is its single bridge configuration. Most motherboards have two bridges: the north and south bridge. This is so because most chipsets come in pairs. In the case of the AM2NF6G-VSTA, there is no need to have two bridges because it is built around the NVDIA GF6100-405 chipset, which, according to what I read in the net, is a single chipset solution. With only one chipset positioned in the usual place of the south bridge, the area around the processor socket is not as cramped as one would expect of a microATX board. In my assessment, the clearance between the processor socket and its surrounding components is large enough to accomodate a fairly sizeable heatsink. In other words, the processor and the stock heatsink and fan can be installed with minimal risk of accidentally hitting or tripping the surrounding caps.

However, the chipset has a big drawback. It runs very hot, as in Intel Preshott hot. To give you a picture of how hot it is, I can only place my fingers on the copper heatsink of the chipset for less than ten seconds with the CPU at idle to medium load only! I researched on this on the net and found out that it is the NVDIA chipset itself that has heat issues; most of the motherboards based on this chipset have the same heat issues as the AM2NF6G-VSTA.

A related issue to this high temperature of the chipset is when you decide to install a PCI-Express Card. GPUs produce a lot of heat and generally hang over the south bridge chipset. Since the AM2NF6G-VSTA chipset is placed at the south bridge, the heat generated by the GPU will definitely aggravate its heat issues.

One obvious solution to this heat problem is to replace the stock chipset heatsink with a more robust after-market chipset cooler. But looking at the clearance around the PCI-Express graphic card slot, PCI slots, and the chipset, I concluded that this solution is more of a related issue rather than a solution. From my estimation, the clearance can only accomodate a passive after-market cooler that is of the same size as the stock heatsink. Anything larger than that would obstruct the other components, especially the PCI-Express graphic card. It goes without saying that using chipset coolers with active fans such as the Thermaltake High Spirit II and passive coolers such as the Thermalright Highrise is definitely not feasible. I am sure that after-market chipset coolers that are of of the same size as the stock heatsink is available in the market, but replacing the stock heatsink with a same size after-market coooler would obviously defeat the purpose of replacing the stock heatsink. Consequently, this motherboard is not suited for long hours of running CPU intensive applications (modern 3D games) and definitely, although it has overclocking capabilities, not suited for serious overclocking.

Another thing I noticed with this motherboard is that it does not display post notes. The monitor just runs black during post for a few seconds and then the OS splash screen appears. Whether this is a problem or not, I am not sure because it was still able to laod and run the OS and various programs.

Notwithstanding the heat related issues of the chipset, the system remained stable and responsive while running various productivity applications and with Winamp 2.54 happily playing in the background. Admittedly, most productivity applications do not toll the processor and, hence, the chipset that much. However, as I said earlier, I am building a workstation and not a gaming station or anything else; thus, the AM2NF6G-VSTA fits the bill.

Software Installation

I am a linux person while my wife is not willing to learn. Consequently, my setups usually are dual or multi-boot. Since the AM2NF6G-VSTA was primarily designed for Microsoft Windows XP and Vista as the Microsoft logo in the cover of the box indicates, my installation of Windows XP home edition went without any hitch. The Microsoft OS was able to detect all the components of the motherboard and, after installing the drivers in the cd driver, Windows was up and running. All of the Microsoft Office programs also installed without any issues and all loaded fast and flawlessly.

After installing Windows, I booted from my Simply Mepis 6.0 installation CD and crossed my fingers. I was already expecting that the installation would not go as smoothly as how my Windows installation went. This version of Simply Mepis is much older than the AM2NF6G-VSTA and, thus, probably do not have all the modules necessary to run all the components of motherboard aside from the fact that, as I said earlier, this motherboard was desinged for Microsoft Windows. I was correct. Simply Mepis loaded but it failed to find a module or driver compatible with the built in audio. Except for this flaw, the installation of Simply Mepis 6.0 went as smoothly as the Windows installation. All the programs of the Open Office.Org productivity suite also loaded as fast and flawlessly as its Windows counterpart.

Gaming

As a side note, I installed my wife's favorite video game, Command and Conquer:The Generals, in my new system to see if the integrated graphics can handle 3D gaming. It loaded the splash screen, hanged for a few seconds and then returned to the Windows desktop. Since I only installed a 256 MB generic DDRII PC533 memory, this test is not conclusive on the capability of the integrated graphics of AM2NF6G-VSTA. With 64 MB of the physical memory shared with the integrated graphics and 94 MB being used by Windows, it is highly probable that the unability of the game to load is due to lack of physical memory and not due to the capability of the integrated graphics.

Conclusion

The Asrock AM2NF6G-VSTA has various issues that is primarily due to the heat generated by the NVDIA GF6100-405 chipset. But despite this issues, the Asrock AM2NF6G-VSTA is a cheap but stable and responsive motherboard for workstation use. Installing Microsoft Windows XP is a breeze. Linux installation, on the other hand, might have some issues. In sum, the Asrock AM2NF6G-VSTA motherboard is suitable for those who need a cheap but stable workstation and for the corporate environment. 

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