ASRock ALiveNF7G-HDReady Review (GeForce 7050, nForce 630a)

The ASRock motherboard we have our hands on for this Linux and Solaris review is the ALiveNF7G-HDready, which combines NVIDIA’s GeForce 7050 and nForce 630a MCP with a wealth of integrated extras such as IEEE-1394a Firewire to offer a rather good package for its low price. This motherboard is also capable of handling 720p H.264 video playback with low CPU Utilization and HDCP decoding through supported software.

..While the ASRock ALiveNF7G-HDready hadn’t overclocked very well in our configuration, this GeForce 7050 + nForce 630a motherboard as a whole was a rather nice package. The ALiveNF7G-HDready has integrated GeForce 7050 graphics with dual video output, HDCP functionality (software permitting), Gigabit ethernet, IEEE-1394a Firewire, 7.1 channel audio, and all of this is packaged on a micro ATX motherboard. This is not the motherboard for a dream system, but it could be an ideal candidate for an economically minded system or for a micro ATX media PC / HTPC. We had run into no compatibility problems under Linux or Solaris with this motherboard and it had performed competitively with the ASUS M2A-MVP motherboard. At the time of publishing, this motherboard can be found for roughly $90~100 USD.

Phoronix