why and how different

[umala]

I am a budget-minded person and while selectin mainboard for the Pentium 4 Northwood, I came across question that while most of main technical details, such as FSB support, memory slot, chipset, VGA, sound card and LAN intergrated are the same, the mainboard from ASUS is 1.5 time more expensive than Asrock. Why Asrock is cheaper because I assume ASUS has tried to be lowest possible.

For reference:

http://www.asus.com/products/mb/socket478/p4p800-vm/overview.htm

http://www.asrock.com/product/product_p4i65gv.htm

Thanks

 

[endyen]

Asrock is of course a wholely owned susidiary of asus, so good comparison. Bothe boards were designed by the same team. So what's the difference you say. First off, asrock fabs are in China, so they have the advantage of cheaper labour.
Asus is very picky about thier components, they will fail many parts that other boardmakers would be happy with. Rather than being stuck with a bunch of okay parts being tossed out, Asus just sends them to thier mainland Asrock plant.
You are also paying a premium for the "Asus Quality" name.
The warranty on Asus is 3 years, but I think Asrock only has a 1 year warranty.
I think the extra money is well worth it, but that's just a personal choice.