Desktop Llano Motherboards: The ASRock A75 Extreme6 Preview
by Ian Cutress on June 14, 2011 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- ASRock
- Llano
The usefulness of desktop Llano will depend on pricing relative to Intel's Core i3 series. We have a system here which excels in iGPU capability compared to Intel, but lacks serious CPU horsepower: it's more like a two legged horse—no matter which legs have been taken away, it's still going to move awkwardly.
Desktop Llano is going to have more success in mini-ITX format, if the iGPU can hold its weight in the standard video playback tests. In ATX or micro-ATX, people are going to be using their own discrete graphics solutions for the most part, and unless you're using a midrange 6xxx Northern Islands GPU to take advantage of the hybrid CrossFireX, you're always going to be lagging behind on CPU performance. So I look forward to examining any mini-ITX that are coming my way.
In terms of ASRock and the A75 Extreme6—it's rough, it needs a polish, but we didn't expect more than that. The DVI/USB issue on the back panel is frustrating, and the BIOS needs a distinct overhaul. But the placement of the numerous fan headers and abundance of SATA 6 Gbps and USB 3.0 are always welcome. There's a lot of PCI slots which makes me think that not a lot of imagination has gone into this, even if the chipset specifications say that up to 3 is possible—it reeks of 'it's in the specs, let's add it'.
There's room for improvement too—ASRock have started placing a new design of ferrite choke on their top models (similar to MSI's SFC), so it should slowly filter down. I was told that it doesn't cost much compared to the older design, and is far more efficient for heat and power delivery, so I'm surprised it's not on the Extreme6 model already.
Look out for a full review in the coming weeks.
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IanCutress - Tuesday, June 14, 2011 - link
Core i3 Second Generation chips are dual cores with hyperthreading (2C/4T). 2500K is 4C/4T. It's not a straight 50% as you make it out to be, otherwise the i7-920 (4C/8T) would act the same or worse than the 2500K (due to instructions per clock and clock speed).duploxxx - Tuesday, June 14, 2011 - link
it doesn't matter if you want to compare it to i3 or i5. If AMD puts a price on this Liano and it targets i3 then one should compare with i3, graphics performance there is nothing to compare against from Intel only discrete anyway.L. - Tuesday, June 14, 2011 - link
Although this battle looks a bit heated, I'll be joinin on the fun :pQuite seriously, Llano is not meant to be compared with anything else than SOC systems, and I believe as soon as we have pricing information, it'll be a clear winner.
i3 is still an "overpowered" CPU compared to most everyone's needs, with a clearly underpowered GPU compared to any basic gaming needs.
The good comparison for the Llano will be : xyz watts, zyx dollars for the base SOC system.
I believe anything like discrete graphics does not fall in the same category and would thus be nonsense, unless it falls in the extremely unlikely case of same tdp, same price and better performance, where it'll still have the big disadvantage of not being SOC.
Clearly any comparison with an i5 is purely informative, as the i5-2500k is an overkill CPU for (almost) everything and thus of limited interest to most customers (as in, drop that i5 and it's expensive mobo, drop the 6870, get a cheap phenom crap and an hd6950 and there you go, better results).
Quite curious as to how much the base combo with Llano will cost and consume, mini-ITX 4 gigs of RAM looks like plenty for that type of SoC.
jrs77 - Tuesday, June 14, 2011 - link
Llano seems to lack CPU-performance like we expected and excels in video-performance compared to SandyBridge.The question is, just how much video-performance Joe Black needs on a daily basis.
If Llano isn't way cheaper then intels i3-2xxx and doesn't use less power, then there's imho no reason to go for AMD. And intel can easily upgrade their small desktop-chips from HD2000 to HD3000 to improve the iGPU drastically.
I'm not impressed actually.
medi01 - Wednesday, June 15, 2011 - link
Did you take motherboard cost into account?I simply cannot imagine users that would benefit from a bit higher raw CPU performance CPU of i3 level more than from a vastly superior video/3D performance.
psychobriggsy - Tuesday, June 14, 2011 - link
Can you confirm why you are using Catalyst 10.12 in this day and age, when Llano requires 11.4 or higher? Or is that a cut-and-paste mistake?Also can you try using DDR-1833 with Llano next time - I don't know why you've downclocked the fast memory that is used in this preview - a limitation with the ES Llano you're using?
IanCutress - Tuesday, June 14, 2011 - link
Catalyst 10.12 was used for the discrete GPU results in the test, the drivers on the support CD were used for the iGPU tests. Using Catalyst 10.12 allows us to retain parity with the other products we've tested this year - particularly when improved Crossfire profiles are released, it would be unfair to compare similar products with wildly different Catalyst versions if the latest has a significant performance increase. Every time we change Catalyst versions, I will have to go back and test a few previous boards in order to have some comparison points for the future. That being said, we may move to 11.6 when it is released.Also the same thing with memory - in order to retain parity across systems, particularly H67 (or the fact that Cougar Point only officially supports DDR3-1333) for results. Otherwise they'll all be skewed depending on the vendors choice of memory support.
Ian
psychobriggsy - Tuesday, June 14, 2011 - link
I feel it is unfair to cripple a competitor because the other competitor can't do something. If Llano on the desktop officially supports DDR3-1600 and DDR3-1866 then it should be tested with them (and indeed would be an interesting small article - the effect of memory speeds on Llano performance) because it may support them for a reason (in this case the fGPU would benefit from higher memory bandwidth).In the other Llano article Anand was very happy to run off and retest with the latest Intel graphics drivers. It seems like there are two standards being applied.
muziqaz - Tuesday, June 14, 2011 - link
What's with the memory clock? Using hundreds of dollars worth of ram sticks just to downclock them to some 20 dollar stick levels?IanCutress - Tuesday, June 14, 2011 - link
As I've said in a previous comment, it is done in order to retain parity for the benchmarks across systems, particularly H67 (or the fact that Cougar Point only officially supports DDR3-1333). Otherwise they'll all be skewed depending on the vendors choice of memory support. Motherboards are tricky to test - you either go all out on all the settings, or try and level it out to real world use and keep the vast majority of settings consistent between products to find where the real differences are.Ian