ASRock A85 Extreme 6 review
Motherboard manufacturers always thrive to provide the best of solution to please enthusiast class users; however, they are stripped by a factor or two. Either the price is not right or the bundle becomes skimpy in order to keep the price in check. ASRock has tried to hit all the corners with its latest flagship board for AMD Fm2 platform. We chip in to take an in-depth look at ASRock Extreme 6, top of the line offering from ASRock.
Languished by post PC era and weaker than expected PC sales, motherboard vendors has suffered a huge deal of trauma in conjugation with its CPU brethren. As a result, vendors now offer more attractive solution at a much more competitive price points. ASRock has set the standard with its leading edge design for the Fm2 users, articulating users with the utmost bundle and experience.
Fm2 platform on the whole has been a reasonable hit amongst entry/mainstream, HTPC and enthusiast users looking to harness the power of compute horses APU bring to the table. However, the lack of board innovation and availability has been a deal breaker. Vendors like Asus offering premium priced board with skimpy bundle and lack of bare essentials while MSI with the lackluster after sale has always been a reason to skip FM2 platform. Asrock chips in to provide the best of both worlds, with feature laden broacher and spot-on pricing, will this top of the line offering entice the user to jump the bandwagon? We find out in our indepth review.[/FONT]
About the company: - ASRock is a china based motherboard manufacturer established in 2002. Initially the company was a spun off from Asus, to counteract several motherboard manufacturers like ECS and Foxconn. After 2008, ASRock now act as an individual group churning out quality products to please the end users. [/FONT]
Ushering in the era of digital computing, ASRock caters to different market sector by releasing varied products.[/FONT]
A85X Platform: - The A85X chipset from AMD is the top of the line offering for A series APU (mainly Trinity and Richland). The APU from AMD though houses most of the components i.e. CPU, GPU and the northbrige. It still needs a co-processor to manage the I/O needs of the system; this is where A85X FCH (Fusion Control Hub) chips in by providing the requisites for the platform to work. There are 3 chipsets currently available for the mainstream APU (A Series) i.e. A85X, A75 and A55 FCH.[/FONT]
The board we are testing today features high end A85 chipset loaded with USB3.0 and Sata 3.0 goodness. On paper A85X is A75 on steroids with upto 4 USB3.0 and 8 Sata 3.0, ports providing array of onboard high speed IO. As a result motherboard vendors now don’t (necessarily) have to include third party controllers like ASMedia.[/FONT]
The Package[/FONT]
It’s not always when you went haywire or stunned by watching a motherboard bundle. Usually, they are pale and boring with just enough information to get started. Even worse, some vendors provide bare minimum protection and the cardboard quality is subpar on what you’d expect. [/FONT]
I was overjoyed to see the packing and contest alike. ASRock has really stepped up the game with the package of A85X Extreme 6 board. Make no mistake; the packing is on par with premium boards like ROG from Asus and other premium brand.[/FONT]
The board comes housed inside an unusually thick anti-static bag which from the looks of it seems like a bullet proof standard from motherboard bags perspective. Content not very astounding, yet it contains handful of cables (read 4 SATA 3.0), a backplate (with black color coded finish) and a driver disc.
What’s interesting is the inclusion of 2 user manual, separate, for both hardware and software. A welcome change, makes reading more suave, unlike bulky manual which seems boring just from the looks of it.
The Board
Having reviewed ASRock A75 Extreme 6 previously, this new board is reminiscent of its older sibling and carries many design cues. Apart from minor colour changes (on expansion slots and capacitors) which is kind of dull with this variant compared to the older version (though looks good) and slight design changes in the heatsink, the A85X is the spitting image of a year old board. Being similar in looks is not bad, but with a new moniker a complete overhaul is expected.
Overall, ASRock has went with a more subtle and sober, Gold/Black combination this time. Looks more premium and if you own a case with transparent window and LED setup, this looks even glossier. However, I wished if ASRock can implement some similar toned light setup beneath those measly heatsink. Not only add more aesthetic but provide a more premium feel.
On the hardware front, the board comes jam packed with all the high end essentials that A85X chipset packs. 4 DDR3 slots with support of upto 2600+ in overclocking mode, allowing you to install a whopping 64GB of memory onboard. For higher overclocking of APU, ASRock has installed a rather large 8+2 power phase design. Seems bit overkill for the mainstream system, however will come handy if you want to go for OC route with the APU(s).
With the ubiquitous assortment of power connectors of 8 and 24pin the board is complaint with the current gen SMPS. ASRock has also thrown in a mix of solid state capacitor (gold plated) and ferrite chokes for extra stability and longer life, a common sight in current gen boards. For additional safety precautions, ASRock has instilled couple of measly heat sink over FCH and the VRM region.
Coming on to the high speed bus, the board comes loaded with 40 lanes of PCI-E slots with an additional mix of 2 legacy PCI bus. For graphics card there are three PCIE x16 slots which works in single x16 or dual x8-x8 mode while the last remnant works under x4 mode which is casual with Fm2/1 boards. The PCIe available are ver2.0 of PCIe, unlike the ver3.0 present in current gen Intel boards.
There is an array of IO options with a massive 8 SATA 3.0 onboard courtesy of A85 FCH, out of these, 7 are available for hard drive installation and the last SATA port is re-routed for e-SATA port accessible form backport. For USB needs, ASRock offers 4 USB3.0 accessible form the back panel, out of which 2 comes from ASMedia controller which in turns is pretty weird considering the FCH itself has support for 4 USB3.0 ports. There is an additional USB3.0 header for front panel connection and only make sense if you are in the market for a new case hunt.
ASRock also boast support for multi GPU solution such as Dual Graphics, CrossFireX and Ludic Logic Virtue MVP. Pretty much covered for anything that you want to throw in and is in line with what Asus has offered with its top brass offerings. Interestingly, there is an awkward 4pin molex connector installed in the board for unknown reasons. For some reasons, ASRock has been carrying this molex port in most of their offerings. Moving in steps of Asus, ASRock has opted for the same Nuvoton chip for monitoring thermals and controlling various other onboard components.
Overall the build and looks are pretty clean, nothing earth shattering but given Fm2 boards positioning and offering, ASRock hasn’t led down till now. Moving on to benchmarks for further testing.
System setup and testing methodologies
We will be testing the motherboard thoroughly in every benchmark that churns out the most from the hardware available. To test the hardware we have used the following setup:
Processors:
AMD A10 5800K
Motherboard:
Asus F2A85-V PRO
ASRock A85X Extreme 6
Graphics Card
ATI 7660D (IGP)
Memory:
2x2048Mb 1866 MHz Cas9 Kinsgton HyperX
Power Supply:
Corsair VX450
Monitor:
Samsung S2233SW
Operating System:
Windows 7 64bit
Software Benchmark:
Aida64
3dMark Vantage
Blender
Cinebench 11.5
SuperPi
Wprime
How we tested –
Most of the test was run at the default settings. In Luxmarks we used the medium benchmarks. In gaming we have mentioned most of the settings in the charts itself. In battlefield we have used Post AA instead of Deferred AA.
We have created another separate chart for iGPU performance at 1920x1080p resolution. We have also reduced the in game setting to suite more the APU level gameplay.
Benchmarks
APU Engine Benchmarks
LuxMark 2
LuxMark is a OpenCL benchmark tool. The idea for the program was conceived in 2009 by Jromang. It was intended as a promotional tool for LuxRender (to quote original Jromang’s words: “LuxRender propaganda with OpenCLâ€). The idea was quite simple, wrap SLG inside an easy to use graphical user interface and use it as a benchmark for OpenCL.
3dMark Vantage
3dMark Vantage is a popular 3d and CPU testing program. The software suite comes with arrays of inbuilt test suite chocking the hardware system and getting the best out of them. 3dMark Vantage is developed by FutureMark and is one of the industry benchmark for hardware testing suite.
CPU Benchmarks -
Cinebench 11.5 Benchmarks
Cinebench 11.5 is the new avatar of R10 benchmark from Maxon software. It provide more tighter integration and more intense rendering test ensuring to stress test the CPU in render compute capabilities.
Aida64 Memory Benchmarks
With enhanced memory controller and lower manufacturing process Llano shouldn’t have much problem dealing with memory intense task.
Super Pi
Super PI is a computer program that calculates pi to a specified number of digits after the decimal point – up to a maximum of 32 million.
Wprime
wPrime is a leading multithreaded benchmark for x86 processors that tests your processor performance by calculating square roots with a recursive call of Newton’s method for estimating functions.
Gaming Benchmarks
For gaming benchmarks we have used Far Cry3, Battlefield3, and Borderlands2. These are the latest breed of the games and they are renowned for brining GPU back to knees. With these games we will be testing the graphical prowess of Trinity APUs.
Far Cry3
Far Cry 3 is an open world first-person shooter video game developed by Ubisoft. FC3 is a sequel to the highly acclaimed Far Cry2. One of the most graphics intense game/benchmark and is able to stress the graphics core and manages to load the cpu cycles.
Battlefield 3
Battlefield 3 (commonly abbreviated BF3) is a first-person shooter video game developed by EA Digital Illusions CE and published by Electronic Arts. It is a direct sequel to 2005′s Battlefield 2, and the twelfth installment in the Battlefield franchise. Battlefield 3 debuts the new Frostbite 2 engine. This updated Frostbite engine can realistically portray the destruction of buildings and scenery to a greater extent than previous versions. Unlike previous iterations, the new version can also support dense urban areas.
Borderlands2
Borderlands 2 is an action role-playing first-person shooter video game that was developed by Gearbox Software and published by 2K Games
Conclusion
ASRock A85 provides a compelling package and a unique value proposition. Brimmed with top of the line specs and a premium package, ASRock left no stone unturned in making this board. Topped with great performance and price, the A85X is the best offering in the market for a prospecting buyer. Thankfully ASRock doesn't skimp on onboad switches and bundles the much needed Power/Reset switch which is a distant sight from Asus recent range of motherboards.
The only grip I have is the useless inclusion of third PCIE slot which is pretty much inline with my conclusion of Asus VPro board. Manufacturer are stuffing more components and eventually fail to capitalize on uniqueness. On an narrow view its hard to diffrentiate top tier Fm2 board from any manufacturer since they thrive on the same design methodology and fails to offer an unique proposition. Bundling more enticing options like high quality heatsinks, additional goodies like sound card or an external temperature module or additional PCIE based USB3.0 extenders will not only ripen the deal but will fish out more buyers.
Overall with a price tag of 8k and solid performance ASrock A85 is a must have board for Fm2 lurkers. It has everything going in its way which Asus failed to cope up with.
Pros-
1. Performance
2. Bundle
3. Price
Cons -
1. Uesless third PCIE slot.
Motherboard manufacturers always thrive to provide the best of solution to please enthusiast class users; however, they are stripped by a factor or two. Either the price is not right or the bundle becomes skimpy in order to keep the price in check. ASRock has tried to hit all the corners with its latest flagship board for AMD Fm2 platform. We chip in to take an in-depth look at ASRock Extreme 6, top of the line offering from ASRock.
Languished by post PC era and weaker than expected PC sales, motherboard vendors has suffered a huge deal of trauma in conjugation with its CPU brethren. As a result, vendors now offer more attractive solution at a much more competitive price points. ASRock has set the standard with its leading edge design for the Fm2 users, articulating users with the utmost bundle and experience.
Fm2 platform on the whole has been a reasonable hit amongst entry/mainstream, HTPC and enthusiast users looking to harness the power of compute horses APU bring to the table. However, the lack of board innovation and availability has been a deal breaker. Vendors like Asus offering premium priced board with skimpy bundle and lack of bare essentials while MSI with the lackluster after sale has always been a reason to skip FM2 platform. Asrock chips in to provide the best of both worlds, with feature laden broacher and spot-on pricing, will this top of the line offering entice the user to jump the bandwagon? We find out in our indepth review.[/FONT]
About the company: - ASRock is a china based motherboard manufacturer established in 2002. Initially the company was a spun off from Asus, to counteract several motherboard manufacturers like ECS and Foxconn. After 2008, ASRock now act as an individual group churning out quality products to please the end users. [/FONT]
Ushering in the era of digital computing, ASRock caters to different market sector by releasing varied products.[/FONT]
A85X Platform: - The A85X chipset from AMD is the top of the line offering for A series APU (mainly Trinity and Richland). The APU from AMD though houses most of the components i.e. CPU, GPU and the northbrige. It still needs a co-processor to manage the I/O needs of the system; this is where A85X FCH (Fusion Control Hub) chips in by providing the requisites for the platform to work. There are 3 chipsets currently available for the mainstream APU (A Series) i.e. A85X, A75 and A55 FCH.[/FONT]
The board we are testing today features high end A85 chipset loaded with USB3.0 and Sata 3.0 goodness. On paper A85X is A75 on steroids with upto 4 USB3.0 and 8 Sata 3.0, ports providing array of onboard high speed IO. As a result motherboard vendors now don’t (necessarily) have to include third party controllers like ASMedia.[/FONT]
The Package[/FONT]
It’s not always when you went haywire or stunned by watching a motherboard bundle. Usually, they are pale and boring with just enough information to get started. Even worse, some vendors provide bare minimum protection and the cardboard quality is subpar on what you’d expect. [/FONT]
I was overjoyed to see the packing and contest alike. ASRock has really stepped up the game with the package of A85X Extreme 6 board. Make no mistake; the packing is on par with premium boards like ROG from Asus and other premium brand.[/FONT]
The board comes housed inside an unusually thick anti-static bag which from the looks of it seems like a bullet proof standard from motherboard bags perspective. Content not very astounding, yet it contains handful of cables (read 4 SATA 3.0), a backplate (with black color coded finish) and a driver disc.
What’s interesting is the inclusion of 2 user manual, separate, for both hardware and software. A welcome change, makes reading more suave, unlike bulky manual which seems boring just from the looks of it.
The Board
Having reviewed ASRock A75 Extreme 6 previously, this new board is reminiscent of its older sibling and carries many design cues. Apart from minor colour changes (on expansion slots and capacitors) which is kind of dull with this variant compared to the older version (though looks good) and slight design changes in the heatsink, the A85X is the spitting image of a year old board. Being similar in looks is not bad, but with a new moniker a complete overhaul is expected.
Overall, ASRock has went with a more subtle and sober, Gold/Black combination this time. Looks more premium and if you own a case with transparent window and LED setup, this looks even glossier. However, I wished if ASRock can implement some similar toned light setup beneath those measly heatsink. Not only add more aesthetic but provide a more premium feel.
On the hardware front, the board comes jam packed with all the high end essentials that A85X chipset packs. 4 DDR3 slots with support of upto 2600+ in overclocking mode, allowing you to install a whopping 64GB of memory onboard. For higher overclocking of APU, ASRock has installed a rather large 8+2 power phase design. Seems bit overkill for the mainstream system, however will come handy if you want to go for OC route with the APU(s).
With the ubiquitous assortment of power connectors of 8 and 24pin the board is complaint with the current gen SMPS. ASRock has also thrown in a mix of solid state capacitor (gold plated) and ferrite chokes for extra stability and longer life, a common sight in current gen boards. For additional safety precautions, ASRock has instilled couple of measly heat sink over FCH and the VRM region.
Coming on to the high speed bus, the board comes loaded with 40 lanes of PCI-E slots with an additional mix of 2 legacy PCI bus. For graphics card there are three PCIE x16 slots which works in single x16 or dual x8-x8 mode while the last remnant works under x4 mode which is casual with Fm2/1 boards. The PCIe available are ver2.0 of PCIe, unlike the ver3.0 present in current gen Intel boards.
There is an array of IO options with a massive 8 SATA 3.0 onboard courtesy of A85 FCH, out of these, 7 are available for hard drive installation and the last SATA port is re-routed for e-SATA port accessible form backport. For USB needs, ASRock offers 4 USB3.0 accessible form the back panel, out of which 2 comes from ASMedia controller which in turns is pretty weird considering the FCH itself has support for 4 USB3.0 ports. There is an additional USB3.0 header for front panel connection and only make sense if you are in the market for a new case hunt.
ASRock also boast support for multi GPU solution such as Dual Graphics, CrossFireX and Ludic Logic Virtue MVP. Pretty much covered for anything that you want to throw in and is in line with what Asus has offered with its top brass offerings. Interestingly, there is an awkward 4pin molex connector installed in the board for unknown reasons. For some reasons, ASRock has been carrying this molex port in most of their offerings. Moving in steps of Asus, ASRock has opted for the same Nuvoton chip for monitoring thermals and controlling various other onboard components.
Overall the build and looks are pretty clean, nothing earth shattering but given Fm2 boards positioning and offering, ASRock hasn’t led down till now. Moving on to benchmarks for further testing.
System setup and testing methodologies
We will be testing the motherboard thoroughly in every benchmark that churns out the most from the hardware available. To test the hardware we have used the following setup:
Processors:
AMD A10 5800K
Motherboard:
Asus F2A85-V PRO
ASRock A85X Extreme 6
Graphics Card
ATI 7660D (IGP)
Memory:
2x2048Mb 1866 MHz Cas9 Kinsgton HyperX
Power Supply:
Corsair VX450
Monitor:
Samsung S2233SW
Operating System:
Windows 7 64bit
Software Benchmark:
Aida64
3dMark Vantage
Blender
Cinebench 11.5
SuperPi
Wprime
How we tested –
Most of the test was run at the default settings. In Luxmarks we used the medium benchmarks. In gaming we have mentioned most of the settings in the charts itself. In battlefield we have used Post AA instead of Deferred AA.
We have created another separate chart for iGPU performance at 1920x1080p resolution. We have also reduced the in game setting to suite more the APU level gameplay.
Benchmarks
APU Engine Benchmarks
LuxMark 2
LuxMark is a OpenCL benchmark tool. The idea for the program was conceived in 2009 by Jromang. It was intended as a promotional tool for LuxRender (to quote original Jromang’s words: “LuxRender propaganda with OpenCLâ€). The idea was quite simple, wrap SLG inside an easy to use graphical user interface and use it as a benchmark for OpenCL.
3dMark Vantage
3dMark Vantage is a popular 3d and CPU testing program. The software suite comes with arrays of inbuilt test suite chocking the hardware system and getting the best out of them. 3dMark Vantage is developed by FutureMark and is one of the industry benchmark for hardware testing suite.
CPU Benchmarks -
Cinebench 11.5 Benchmarks
Cinebench 11.5 is the new avatar of R10 benchmark from Maxon software. It provide more tighter integration and more intense rendering test ensuring to stress test the CPU in render compute capabilities.
Aida64 Memory Benchmarks
With enhanced memory controller and lower manufacturing process Llano shouldn’t have much problem dealing with memory intense task.
Super Pi
Super PI is a computer program that calculates pi to a specified number of digits after the decimal point – up to a maximum of 32 million.
Wprime
wPrime is a leading multithreaded benchmark for x86 processors that tests your processor performance by calculating square roots with a recursive call of Newton’s method for estimating functions.
Gaming Benchmarks
For gaming benchmarks we have used Far Cry3, Battlefield3, and Borderlands2. These are the latest breed of the games and they are renowned for brining GPU back to knees. With these games we will be testing the graphical prowess of Trinity APUs.
Far Cry3
Far Cry 3 is an open world first-person shooter video game developed by Ubisoft. FC3 is a sequel to the highly acclaimed Far Cry2. One of the most graphics intense game/benchmark and is able to stress the graphics core and manages to load the cpu cycles.
Battlefield 3
Battlefield 3 (commonly abbreviated BF3) is a first-person shooter video game developed by EA Digital Illusions CE and published by Electronic Arts. It is a direct sequel to 2005′s Battlefield 2, and the twelfth installment in the Battlefield franchise. Battlefield 3 debuts the new Frostbite 2 engine. This updated Frostbite engine can realistically portray the destruction of buildings and scenery to a greater extent than previous versions. Unlike previous iterations, the new version can also support dense urban areas.
Borderlands2
Borderlands 2 is an action role-playing first-person shooter video game that was developed by Gearbox Software and published by 2K Games
Conclusion
ASRock A85 provides a compelling package and a unique value proposition. Brimmed with top of the line specs and a premium package, ASRock left no stone unturned in making this board. Topped with great performance and price, the A85X is the best offering in the market for a prospecting buyer. Thankfully ASRock doesn't skimp on onboad switches and bundles the much needed Power/Reset switch which is a distant sight from Asus recent range of motherboards.
The only grip I have is the useless inclusion of third PCIE slot which is pretty much inline with my conclusion of Asus VPro board. Manufacturer are stuffing more components and eventually fail to capitalize on uniqueness. On an narrow view its hard to diffrentiate top tier Fm2 board from any manufacturer since they thrive on the same design methodology and fails to offer an unique proposition. Bundling more enticing options like high quality heatsinks, additional goodies like sound card or an external temperature module or additional PCIE based USB3.0 extenders will not only ripen the deal but will fish out more buyers.
Overall with a price tag of 8k and solid performance ASrock A85 is a must have board for Fm2 lurkers. It has everything going in its way which Asus failed to cope up with.
Pros-
1. Performance
2. Bundle
3. Price
Cons -
1. Uesless third PCIE slot.
