ASRock A75 Extreme6 Review and Desktop Llano Overclocking

Over 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.