ASRock A75 Extreme6 Review and Desktop Llano Overclocking
by Ian Cutress on June 30, 2011 12:05 AM ESTOver the past few iterations of ASRock motherboard that have passed through my fingers this year, a couple of things have usually stood out - simplicity, software, aggressive pricing and the box bundle. Unfortunately, the Extreme6 is lacking in at least two of those areas.
In terms of simplicity, I'm speaking about the BIOS overclocking here - it's a veritable minefield of issues and uncertainties. You have two safe choices: either leave it alone (and hope a future BIOS update makes it easier to use and understand), or stick to the predefined overclock options. With the memory issues I found, regarding the kit and setting XMP profiles, then perhaps try and get a DDR3-2000 kit if you can. If you're using the iGPU as your main video output device, then it will come in handy.
For the software side, it's got the XFast USB we know (and I like, but from some comments on previous reviews others have had 'issues'), and the addition of XFast LAN is just another step in the right direction. The software itself is very well laid out, and has a bundle of options for almost everyone wanting it. If it isn't available on your driver CD, then try ASRock's website or here - ASRock as far as I understand are trying to get it on all their products, but may have been a little late with the first A75 batches for retail.
For the aggressive pricing, it's hard to tell where $150 lies in A75 country. Our nearest speculation would be the 890 series AMD boards that hold Phenom II X4 processors, which perform similar to Desktop Llano. They're between $100 and $145 for the most part, so we have to determine where the $150 comes from. Some of that will be licensing fees from the company making XFast LAN, but this package doesn't contain a USB 3.0 front bracket and SSD holder like the cheap P67 ASRock packages. There's not too many controllers or extras on the board itself that would warrant any extras, but we'll have to see how the other companies play out with prices.
To sum up - this board has teething issues associated with the BIOS being in its infancy. It needs a little overhaul so the consumer knows what they are playing with. Some memory compatibility issues also need fixing, and the consumer needs to decide if they need two PCIe x16 ports at x8/x8 with GPUs if you're buying an APU anyway. My comparison next to a comparable Sandy Bridge product says more about Llano than this ASRock board, but I hope to get more A75 boards in to see what the market has around for comparison.
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L. - Thursday, June 30, 2011 - link
Not quite ... a shit GPU can play full HD x264 with MPC-HT . I think that's maybe the most relevant "performance" aspect of a cheap box for people looking at mail, music, facebook and youtube ;)Seikent - Thursday, June 30, 2011 - link
In fudzilla it has been said that A8-3850 will cost $135 USD and that there will be fm1 boards around $70 USD, thats cheaper than the core i3 2100 + h67 combo, so I guess that's a much better offer.L. - Thursday, June 30, 2011 - link
Shhh ./.. don't say that out loud it might just show even more how Liano is a perfect victory for AMD ;)ET - Thursday, June 30, 2011 - link
That was an interesting read. Lots of figures regarding motherboard performance, not a lot of discussion of them, and few performance figures about the APU itself. I hope that a full Llano review will appear soon. While the preview was quite comprehensive there was something wrong with the GPU figures, as it produced worse results than the lower clocked mobile part. It will be interesting to see if this got clarified, and to get a better overall feel regarding overclocking performance.ET - Thursday, June 30, 2011 - link
Ah, I see that a reply for this was posted while I was writing this. Hopefully it's a soon "soon".JustWalkingBy - Thursday, June 30, 2011 - link
if the qoal of the test is: "The main test here is CPU usage, and how much is offloaded by the controller"Why would sou set the speed max t0 100Mbps (1000 MB file across a home network with a 100 Mbps lowest common speed ) and not 1Gbps?
duploxxx - Thursday, June 30, 2011 - link
there is only one word for this kind of review.....scapyardcontent is not detailed enough to make a decent compare, horrible efforts on OC, info which is not even relevant for the non-turbo versions, not even a manual OC effort which has already shown by other sites to have high potential.
Price ranges and compared platforms are out of proportion due to this way to expensive MB
not to mention incorrect price info while already available in a link post a bit later... do you guys actually share data internally?
and is there any reason what so ever that a Intel platform is required here to compare which is already as it should in the originan LIano review? NO
duploxxx - Thursday, June 30, 2011 - link
just have a look at this review.... some do actually are able to OC as it couldhttp://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/amd-a...
L. - Thursday, June 30, 2011 - link
Smell the bias ;)L. - Thursday, June 30, 2011 - link
http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Hardware/Reviews...These guys got the idea about Llano . it's all about the RAM speed, why don't you try that out a bit ;)
28 FPS in Far Cry 2 @ 1080p is definitely huge for an IGP.