ASRock 980DE3__U3S3: 1. Introduction

1. Introduction

Thank you for purchasing ASRock 980DE3/U3S3 motherboard, a reliable mother-

board produced under ASRock’s consistently stringent quality control. It delivers

excellent performance with robust design conforming to ASRock’s commitment to

quality and endurance.

This Quick Installation Guide contains introduction of the motherboard and step-by-

step installation guide. More detailed information of the motherboard can be found

in the user manual presented in the Support CD.

Because the motherboard specications and the BIOS software might

be updated, the content of this manual will be subject to change without

notice. In case any modications of this manual occur, the updated ver-

sion will be available on ASRock website without further notice. You may

nd the latest VGA cards and CPU support lists on ASRock website as

well. ASRock website http://www.asrock.com

If you require technical support related to this motherboard, please visit

our website for specic information about the model you are using.

www.asrock.com/support/index.asp

1.1 Package Contents

ASRock 980DE3/U3S3 Motherboard (ATX Form Factor)

ASRock 980DE3/U3S3 Quick Installation Guide

ASRock 980DE3/U3S3 Support CD

2 x Serial ATA (SATA) Data Cables (Optional)

1 x I/O Panel Shield

ASRock Reminds You...

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To get better performance in Windows

8 / 8 64-bit / 7 / 7 64-bit / Vista

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/ Vista

64-bit, it is recommended to set the BIOS option in Storage

Conguration to AHCI mode. For the BIOS setup, please refer to the “User

Manual” in our support CD for details.

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ASRock 980DE3/U3S3 Motherboard

1.2 Specications

Platform - ATX Form Factor

- All Solid Capacitor design

CPU - Support for Socket AM3+ processors

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- Support for Socket AM3 processors: AMD Phenom

II X6 /

X4 / X3 / X2 (except 920 / 940) / Athlon II X4 / X3 / X2 /

Sempron processors

- Supports 8-Core CPU

- Digi Power Design

- Supports CPU up to 140W

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- Supports AMD OverDrive

with ACC feature (Advanced

Clock Calibration)

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- Supports AMD’s Cool ‘n’ Quiet

Technology

- FSB 2600 MHz (5.2 GT/s)

- Supports Untied Overclocking Technology

- Supports Hyper-Transport 3.0 (HT 3.0) Technology

Chipset - Northbridge: AMD RX881/760G

- Southbridge: AMD SB710

Memory - Dual Channel DDR3 Memory Technology

- 4 x DDR3 DIMM slots

- Support DDR3 1866(OC)/1600(OC)/1333/1066/800

non-ECC, un-buffered memory (see CAUTION 1)

- Max. capacity of system memory: 32GB (see CAUTION 2)

Expansion Slot - 1 x PCI Express 2.0 x16 slot (PCIE3 @ x16 mode)

- 3 x PCI Express 2.0 x1 slots

- 2 x PCI slots

Audio - 5.1 CH HD Audio (Realtek ALC662 Audio Codec)

LAN - PCIE x1 Gigabit LAN 10/100/1000 Mb/s

- Realtek RTL8111E

- Supports Wake-On-LAN

- Supports LAN Cable Detection

- Supports Energy Efcient Ethernet 802.3az

- Supports PXE

Rear Panel I/O I/O Panel

- 1 x PS/2 Mouse Port

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- 1 x PS/2 Keyboard Port

- 1 x Serial Port: COM1

- 4 x Ready-to-Use USB 2.0 Ports

- 2 x Ready-to-Use USB 3.0 Ports

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ASRock 980DE3/U3S3 Motherboard

- 1 x RJ-45 LAN Port with LED (ACT/LINK LED and SPEED

LED)

- HD Audio Jack: Line in / Front Speaker / Microphone

SATA3 - 2 x SATA3 6.0 Gb/s connectors by ASMedia ASM1061,

support NCQ, AHCI and Hot Plug

USB 3.0 - 2 x Rear USB 3.0 ports by Etron EJ188, support

USB 1.1/2.0/3.0 up to 5Gb/s

- 1 x Front USB 3.0 header by Etron EJ188 (supports 2

USB 3.0 ports), supports USB 1.1/2.0/3.0 up to 5Gb/s

Connector - 6 x SATA2 3.0 Gb/s connectors, support RAID (RAID 0,

RAID 1, RAID 10 and JBOD), NCQ, AHCI and “Hot Plug”

functions

- 2 x SATA3 6.0Gb/s connectors

- 1 x ATA133 IDE connector (supports 2 x IDE devices)

- 1 x Floppy connector

- 1 x IR header

- 1 x HDMI_SPDIF header

- 1 x Power LED header

- 1 x CPU Fan connector (4-pin)

- 1 x Chassis Fan connector (4-pin)

- 1 x Power Fan connector (4-pin)

- 24 pin ATX power connector

- 8 pin 12V power connector

- CD in header

- Front panel audio connector

- 3 x USB 2.0 headers (support 6 USB 2.0 ports)

- 1 x USB 3.0 header (supports 2 USB 3.0 ports)

BIOS Feature - 16Mb AMI Legal BIOS

- Supports “Plug and Play”

- ACPI 1.1 Compliance Wake Up Events

- Supports jumperfree

- SMBIOS 2.3.1 Support

- CPU, VCCM, NB Voltage Multi-adjustment

Support CD - Drivers, Utilities, AntiVirus Software (Trial Version),

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CyberLink MediaEspresso 6.5 Trial, Google Chrome

Browser and Toolbar

Hardware - CPU Temperature Sensing

Monitor - Chassis Temperature Sensing

- CPU/Chassis/Power Fan Tachometer

- CPU Quiet Fan

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ASRock 980DE3/U3S3 Motherboard

- CPU/Chassis/Power Fan Multi-Speed Control

- Voltage Monitoring: +12V, +5V, +3.3V, Vcore

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OS - Microsoft

Windows

8 / 8 64-bit / 7 / 7 64-bit / Vista

/

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Vista

64-bit / XP / XP Media Center / XP 64-bit compliant

Certications - FCC, CE, WHQL

- ErP/EuP Ready (ErP/EuP ready power supply is required)

* For detailed product information, please visit our website: http://www.asrock.com

WARNING

Please realize that there is a certain risk involved with overclocking,

including adjusting the setting in the BIOS, applying Untied Overclocking

Technology, or using third-party overclocking tools. Overclocking may

affect your system’s stability, or even cause damage to the components

and devices of your system. It should be done at your own risk and

expense. We are not responsible for possible damage caused by

overclocking.

CAUTION!

1. Whether 1866/1600MHz memory speed is supported depends

on the AM3/AM3+ CPU you adopt. If you want to adopt DDR3

1866/1600 memory module on this motherboard, please refer

to the memory support list on our website for the compatible

memory modules.

ASRock website: http://www.asrock.com

2. Due to the operating system limitation, the actual memory size

may be less than 4GB for the reservation for system usage un-

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der Windows

8 / 7 / Vista

/ XP. For Windows

64-bit OS with

64-bit CPU, there is no such limitation.

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ASRock 980DE3/U3S3 Motherboard

1.3 Unique Features

ASRock OC Tuner

ASRock OC Tuner is a user-friendly overclocking tool which al-

lows you to surveil your system by hardware monitor function

and overclock your hardware devices to get the best system

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performance under Windows

environment. Please visit our

website for the operation procedures of ASRock OC Tuner.

ASRock Intelligent Energy Saver

Featuring an advanced proprietary hardware and software de-

sign, Intelligent Energy Saver is a revolutionary technology that

delivers unparalleled power savings. The voltage regulator can

reduce the number of output phases to improve efciency when

the CPU cores are idle. In other words, it is able to provide ex-

ceptional power saving and improve power efficiency without

sacrificing computing performance. To use Intelligent Energy

Saver function, please enable Cool ‘n’ Quiet option in the BIOS

setup in advance. Please visit our website for the operation pro-

cedures of Intelligent Energy Saver.

ASRock Instant Boot

ASRock Instant Boot allows you to turn on your PC in just a few

seconds, provides a much more efcient way to save energy,

time, money, and improves system running speed for your sys-

tem. It leverages the S3 and S4 ACPI features which normally

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enable the Sleep/Standby and Hibernation modes in Windows

to shorten boot up time. By calling S3 and S4 at specic timing

during the shutdown and startup process, Instant Boot allows

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you to enter your Windows

desktop in a few seconds.

ASRock Instant Flash

ASRock Instant Flash is a BIOS ash utility embedded in Flash

ROM. This convenient BIOS update tool allows you to update

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system BIOS without entering operating systems rst like MS-

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DOS or Windows

. With this utility, you can press the <F6> key

during the POST or the <F2> key to enter into the BIOS setup

menu to access ASRock Instant Flash. Just launch this tool and

save the new BIOS le to your USB ash drive, oppy disk or

hard drive, then you can update your BIOS only in a few clicks

without preparing an additional oppy diskette or other

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ASRock 980DE3/U3S3 Motherboard

complicated flash utility. Please be noted that the USB flash

drive or hard drive must use FAT32/16/12 le system.

ASRock OC DNA

The software name itself – OC DNA literally tells you what it is

capable of. OC DNA, an exclusive utility developed by ASRock,

provides a convenient way for the user to record the OC set-

tings and share with others. It helps you to save your overclock-

ing record under the operating system and simplies the compli-

cated recording process of overclocking settings. With OC DNA,

you can save your OC settings as a prole and share with your

friends! Your friends then can load the OC prole to their own

system to get the same OC settings as yours! Please be noticed

that the OC prole can only be shared and worked on the same

motherboard.

ASRock APP Charger

If you desire a faster, less restricted way of charging your

Apple devices, such as iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch, ASRock has

prepared a wonderful solution for you - ASRock APP Charger.

Simply install the APP Charger driver, it makes your iPhone

charge much quickly from your computer and up to 40% faster

than before. ASRock APP Charger allows you to quickly charge

many Apple devices simultaneously and even supports continu-

ous charging when your PC enters into Standby mode (S1),

Suspend to RAM (S3), hibernation mode (S4) or power off (S5).

With APP Charger driver installed, you can easily enjoy the mar-

velous charging experience.

ASRock XFast USB

ASRock XFast USB can boost USB storage device perfor-

mance. The performance may depend on the properties of the

device.

ASRock XFast LAN

ASRock XFast LAN provides a faster internet access, which

includes the benefits listed below. LAN Application Prioritiza-

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tion: You can congure your application’s priority ideally and/or

add new programs. Lower Latency in Game: After setting online

game’s priority higher, it can lower the latency in games. Trafc

Shaping: You can watch Youtube HD videos and download

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ASRock 980DE3/U3S3 Motherboard