Desktop Llano Motherboards: The ASRock A75 Extreme6 Preview
by Ian Cutress on June 14, 2011 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- ASRock
- Llano
Test Bed
| Processor |
AMD A8-3850 APU with AMD Graphics 6550D 4 Cores, 4 Threads |
| Motherboards | A75 Extreme6 |
| Cooling | Corsair H50-1 Water Cooler |
| Power Supply | Silverstone 1000W 80 PLUS Silver |
| Memory |
Patriot Viper Extreme DDR3-2000 9-10-9-27 2x4GB Kit, 1.65V G.Skill RipjawsX DDR3-2133 9-11-9-28 4x4GB Kit, 1.65V |
| Memory Settings | DDR3-1333 9-9-9-24 1T 2x4GB |
| Video Cards |
XFX HD 5850 1GB Sapphire HD 5850 1GB |
| Video Drivers | Catalyst 10.12 |
| Hard Drive | Micron RealSSD C300 256GB |
| Optical Drive | LG GH22NS50 |
| Case | Open Test Bed—CoolerMaster Lab V1.0 |
| Operating System | Windows 7 64-bit |
| SATA Testing | Micron RealSSD C300 256GB |
| USB 2/3 Testing | Patriot 64GB SuperSonic USB 3.0 |
Results and Numbers
Most of the comparison data, as with many motherboard benchmark results, are usually CPU based—you won't see much in the way of variation for a lot of them. Here's a sneak peak at some of the more worthwhile ones:
Power Usage
The Desktop Llano system we're using, the A8-3850, is a 100W chip. Given that this is near in line with the 95W of the Sandy Bridge i5-2500K I've been using for the Cougar Point reviews, we can have an apples-to-apples comparison on power consumption against a Z68:
In terms of dual GPU usage, there's not much difference, though a 10W gap at high CPU usage with OCCT and Metro2033 for the A8-3850.
Compared to Z68, at low CPU conditions, the power of the A75 system is reasonable. However at high CPU conditions, or in general compared to the H67, we're using a lot of power here. Of course, Llano's iGPU is a significant step up in performance compared to Sandy Bridge, so we're not necessarily doing the same work here.
CPU Temperatures
Again, we have a prime opportunity for a comparison to Z68:
In each situation, using a Corsair H50, the A75 Extreme6 has a couple of degrees on the ASUS Z68.
USB Performance
Using CrystalDiskMark, we probe the sequential speeds of the USB 3.0 ports, then tackle the port with our standard motherboard copy test, consisting of 33 large and ~2100 small files, total size of 1.52 GB.
In terms of USB 3.0 copy time, we're not seeing much difference between the controller based Z68 and the native A75. ASRock's XFast is still providing a healthy increase in USB 3.0 speeds as well.
3D Movement Benchmark
In terms of pure CPU throughput, we're dealing with a quad core 2.9 GHz processor in our A8-3850 APU. Against the other processor families I have at my disposal:
Even though AMD has a 2.9 GHz, 4C/4T CPU, it falls way behind the i5-2500K with the same number of threads. CPU performance is definitely mainstream in this regard.
iGPU
With the A8-3850, we're dealing with a 400 streaming processor model APU, the HD 6550D. Early web leaks led us to believe it's something special compared to Sandy Bridge offerings—I'm inclined to agree.
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marc1000 - Tuesday, June 14, 2011 - link
Ian, I believe that in the "release to market" boards, the memory speed should be configured according to the official maximum speed of each platform. if that means 1333 for intel and 1800 (or whatever the final spec may be) for AMD, then this is the way it should be tested. maybe AMD was aiming for higher speed to compensate for the low number of channels. ;)KaarlisK - Tuesday, June 14, 2011 - link
Seconded.If a platform supports DDR3-1866, it is an actual advantage of the platform and it should be used.
There is the question of cost, though.
IanCutress - Tuesday, June 14, 2011 - link
Noted for the future. It's always interesting to hear what other people think on the issue.Ian
semo - Tuesday, June 14, 2011 - link
Do AMD motherboards fully support UEFI like this ASRock?mino - Thursday, June 16, 2011 - link
UEFI support is PURELY motherboard vendor's choice.It has nothing to do with the CPU, be it AMD, Intel or VIA for that matter.
mino - Thursday, June 16, 2011 - link
Err, better wording would be "has UEFI", as the board either uses UEFI or BIOS loader.It does not "support" either. It contains/uses them.
DanNeely - Tuesday, June 14, 2011 - link
How many PCIe lanes does the southbridge have in total? If it's low enough (eg the same 4 as the mobile part + 4 on the CPU), then the 3 legacy PCI slots might simply reflect not being able to add anything else?The ethernet and additional sata controllers would take two; and if the firewire controller is PCIe instead of PCI that would take a 3rd, leaving only the 5 used in the 1x and 3rd 16x(phy) slot.
Alternately, are they using AMD audio or a 3rd party controller? The latter would take a connection as well.
mino - Thursday, June 16, 2011 - link
Exactly.glugglug - Tuesday, June 14, 2011 - link
Is there an AMD equivalent of QuickSync? To me, that is the biggest plus of SandyBridge right now.Shinobi_III - Tuesday, June 14, 2011 - link
I hope there's some sort of safety here, resetting that would suck while running..