ASRock FM2A85X Extreme 6 Motherboard Review

Introduction

The Trinity line of APU’s from AMD have shown us that it is possible to have respectable CPU and GPU performance all in one chip. Along with that you get low power consumption and a low price to boot. But as we have shown in our recent ECS FM2 motherboard review, these Trinity chips also have a little something for the enthusiast as well.

Here to capitalize on that potential is ASRock with their FM2A85X Extreme6 motherboard. Like a good performance board should, it supports the most powerful chips and RAM, and offers lots of room for tweaking and expanding. Read on to see its capabilities and how it stacks up to the competition.

Features

• Support for Socket FM2 100W processors
• Premium Gold Caps, Digi Power, 8 + 2 Power Phase Design
• AMD A85X Hudson D4 Chipset Supports Native 8 x SATA3, 4 x USB 3.0 Ports
• Supports Dual Channel DDR3 2600+(OC)
• Supports Intel^® XMP 1.3/1.2 and AMD Memory Profile
• Supports AMD Quad CrossFireX™, 3-Way CrossFireX™, CrossFireX™ and Dual Graphics
• Built-in AMD Radeon HD 7000 series graphics, DX 11, PS 5.0
• Multi VGA Output : D-Sub, DVI-D, HDMI and DisplayPort
• Supports Triple Monitor
• 7.1 CH HD Audio with Content Protection (Realtek ALC898 Audio Codec), Supports THX TruStudio™
• Supports ASRock X-Boost, XFast 555, Fast Boot, Restart to UEFI, OMG, Dehumidifier, Easy RAID Installer, Interactive UEFI
• Supports Lucid Virtu MVP, AMD Steady Video 2.0

Specifications

CPU	– Support for Socket FM2 100W processors – Digi Power Design – 8 + 2 Power Phase Design – Supports AMD’s Cool ‘n’ Quiet Technology – UMI-Link GEN2
Chipset	– AMD A85X (Hudson-D4)
Memory	– Dual Channel DDR3 memory technology – 4 x DDR3 DIMM slots – Supports DDR3 2600+(OC)/2400(OC)/2133(OC)/1866/1600/1333/1066 non-ECC, un-buffered memory – Max. capacity of system memory: 64GB* – Supports Intel® Extreme Memory Profile (XMP) 1.3 / 1.2 – Supports AMD Memory Profile (AMP)
BIOS	– 64Mb AMI UEFI Legal BIOS with GUI support – Supports “Plug and Play” – ACPI 1.1 Compliance Wake Up Events – Supports jumperfree – SMBIOS 2.3.1 Support – DRAM, APU PCIE VDDP, CPU and CPU NB/GFX Voltage Multi-adjustment
Graphics	– AMD Radeon HD 7000 series graphics – DirectX 11, Pixel Shader 5.0 – Max. shared memory 2GB – Multi VGA Output options: D-Sub, DVI-D, HDMI and DisplayPort – Supports HDMI 1.4a Technology with max. resolution up to 1920×1200 @ 60Hz – Supports Dual-link DVI with max. resolution up to 2560×1600 @ 75Hz – Supports D-Sub with max. resolution up to 1920×1600 @ 60Hz – Supports DisplayPort 1.2 with max. resolution up to 4096×2160 @ 30Hz – Supports DP++ – Supports Multi-Streaming – Supports Auto Lip Sync, Deep Color (12bpc), xvYCC and HBR (High Bit Rate Audio) with HDMI (Compliant HDMI monitor is required) – Supports Blu-ray Stereoscopic 3D with HDMI 1.4a – Supports AMD Steady Video™ 2.0: New video post processing capability for automatic jutter reduction on home/online video – Supports HDCP function with DVI, HDMI and DisplayPort ports – Supports Full HD 1080p Blu-ray (BD) / HD-DVD playback with DVI, HDMI and DisplayPort ports
Audio	– 7.1 CH HD Audio with Content Protection (Realtek ALC898 Audio Codec) – Premium Blu-ray audio support – Supports THX TruStudio™
LAN	– PCIE x1 Gigabit LAN 10/100/1000 Mb/s – Realtek RTL8111E – Supports Wake-On-LAN – Supports LAN Cable Detection – Supports Energy Efficient Ethernet 802.3az – Supports PXE
Slots	– 3 x PCI Express 2.0 x16 slots (PCIE2/PCIE4: single at x16 (PCIE2) / x8 (PCIE4), or dual at x8 (PCIE2) / x8 (PCIE4) ; PCIE5: x4 mode) – 2 x PCI Express 2.0 x1 slots – 2 x PCI slots – Supports AMD Quad CrossFireX™, 3-Way CrossFireX™, CrossFireX™ and Dual Graphics
Storage	– 7 x SATA3 6.0 Gb/s connectors, support RAID (RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5 and RAID 10), NCQ, AHCI and “Hot Plug” functions
USB 3.0	– 2 x Rear USB 3.0 ports by AMD A85X (Hudson-D4), support USB 1.1/2.0/3.0 up to 5Gb/s – 2 x Rear USB 3.0 ports by ASMedia ASM1042, support USB 1.1/2.0/3.0 up to 5Gb/s – 1 x Front USB 3.0 header (supports 2 USB 3.0 ports) by AMD A85X (Hudson-D4), supports USB 1.1/2.0/3.0 up to 5Gb/s
Connector	– 7 x SATA3 6.0 Gb/s connectors – 1 x IR header – 1 x CIR header – 1 x COM port header – 1 x HDMI_SPDIF header – 1 x Power LED header – 1 x Chassis Intrusion header – 2 x CPU Fan connectors (1 x 4-pin, 1 x 3-pin) – 3 x Chassis Fan connectors (1 x 4-pin, 2 x 3-pin) – 1 x Power Fan connector (3-pin) – 24 pin ATX power connector – 8 pin 12V power connector – XFire power connector – Front panel audio connector – 3 x USB 2.0 headers (support 6 USB 2.0 ports) – 1 x USB 3.0 header (supports 2 USB 3.0 ports) – 1 x Dr. Debug with LED – 1 x Power Switch with LED – 1 x Reset Switch with LED
Rear Panel I/O	I/O Panel – 1 x PS/2 Mouse/Keyboard Port – 1 x D-Sub Port – 1 x DVI-D Port – 1 x HDMI Port – 1 x DisplayPort – 1 x Optical SPDIF Out Port – 2 x Ready-to-Use USB 2.0 Ports – 1 x eSATA3 Connector – 4 x Ready-to-Use USB 3.0 Ports – 1 x RJ-45 LAN Port with LED (ACT/LINK LED and SPEED LED) – 1 x Clear CMOS Switch with LED – HD Audio Jack: Rear Speaker / Central / Bass / Line in / Front Speaker / Microphone
Accessories	– Quick Installation Guide, Support CD, I/O Shield – 4 x SATA Data Cables
Hardware Monitor	– CPU Temperature Sensing – Chassis Temperature Sensing – CPU/Chassis/Power Fan Tachometer – CPU Quiet Fan – CPU/Chassis Fan Multi-Speed Control – CASE OPEN detection – Voltage Monitoring: +12V, +5V, +3.3V, Vcore
Form Factor	– ATX Form Factor – Premium Gold Capacitor design (100% Japan-made high-quality Conductive Polymer Capacitors)
OS	– Microsoft® Windows® 8 / 8 64-bit / 7 / 7 64-bit / Vista™ / Vista™ 64-bit compliant
Certifications	– FCC, CE, WHQL – ErP/EuP Ready (ErP/EuP ready power supply is required)

 

Packaging and Accessories

The A85X packaging is fairly standard with a couple features mentioned on the front and a list of features and specs on the back. Along with the motherboard ASRock includes a user manual, setup guide, driver CD, and 4 SATA cables (2 with 90 degree bends on one side).

Closer Look

Despite the “Extreme6” name, the A85X looks aren’t all that extreme, it’s actually quite sleek. It sports a dark brown PCB, black RAM and PCI/PCI-E slots, gold caps, and black and silver heatsinks. The four RAM slots operate natively at 1866 and can overclock up to 2600MHz.
The large heatsinks and gold capacitors should help to ensure stable power and long life.

In the bottom right hand corner on the board we have a small display that can tell us of any errors with the motherboard as well as a very handy power and reset button. These are features that you generally only find on high-end overclocking boards and are useful when working with the system outside of a case.
The A85X gives us lots of expandability options with 2 PCI-E 1x, 2 PCI, and 3 PCI-E 16x/8x slots. Unfortunately only the top slot runs at 16x, with the first and second running at 8x when two cards are installed, and the third slot able to run at only 4x.
ASRock also included a 4-pin molex socket on the board to ensure the motherboard is getting plenty of power when running Crossfire.

The Extreme6 has a total of seven SATA 6GBps ports, with six located on the edge and one on the face of the board.
The rear I/O panel has just about every connection you could need with a VGA, DVI, HDMI, and DisplayPort for the onboard graphics, 2 USB 2.0, 4 USB 3.0, 1 eSATA, 1 ethernet, 1 PS/2, a bank of HD audio ports, and a button to clear the BIOS. The clear CMOS button is especially useful when overclocking when you push things a little too far and the system won’t boot.

 

UEFI

The UEFI on the Extreme6 is very simple to use and nice to look at as well. Information is easy to find and the overall layout is logical and not difficult to navigate.
Every setting is easily adjustable which is just what you need for overclocking. Also, my RAM’s XMP profile was loaded on the first boot and required no tweaking or adjusting settings, which just makes my life a little easier. Overall the UEFI just gave me no issues which is exactly how it should be.

Test System

• AMD A8-5600k
• 8GB Corsair Dominator @ 1600MHz
• Sapphire 7950 FleX Edition GPU
• 700W OCZ PSU

Overclocking and Benchmarks

With an AMD A8-5600k in the motherboard, I was able to reach a max overclock of 4.3GHz at 1.448 volts, though the chip preferred a 4.1GHz overclock, requiring just a very slight bump up from the stock voltage.

SiSoft Sandra

SiSoft is a program that is able to benchmark nearly every part of a system. I decided to focus on two CPU benchmarks in particular, arithmetic processing, and multi-media performance. Overclocking our CPU to 4.3GHz gave us a 15-16% increase overall which is very respectable.

Passmark

Stock	4.1 GHz	4.3 GHz

Passmark tests the system as a whole, CPU, 2D, 3D, etc. By looking at the CPU performance section we can see that our overclock netted a 10% increase. Our overall system score increased by about 7% as well.

3DMark 11

Stock	4.1 GHz	4.3 GHz

3DMark11 is a graphics benchmarks designed to stress DirectX11 features. Our overall score went from a 5714 to 6068 with our 700MHz overclock, netting us around a 6% increase. If we isolate the CPU by itself we see that it jumped up an impressive 14.6% with just our overclock.

Cinebench 11.5

Stock	4.1 GHz	4.3 GHz

Cinebench tests a system CPU performance through rendering in 2D and 3D. Stock, our CPU was able to score 3.04 points, which then jumped up to 3.63 with our OC, a 16% gain.

Unigine Heaven

Stock	4.1 GHz	4.3 GHz

Unigine Heaven is a DirectX 11 benchmark that heavily stresses the GPU but not so much the CPU. I decided to include it because it gives a pretty good representation of many modern DirectX 11 games. Our overclock did very little in this GPU dependent benchmark, which just shows that our 7950 is being pushed to its limits.

DiRT 3

Stock	4.1 GHz	4.3 GHz

DiRT 3 represents a mid-level graphically intensive game. With all settings maxed at 1080p, we see the same results as with the Unigine benchmark, no noticeable change overall between stock and 4.3GHz.

Final Thoughts

Pros:

• Looks good
• UEFI is easy to use with a nice layout
• Fully adjustable overclocking settings
• Lots of room for expansion
• Price

Cons:

• None

Overall the ASRock FM2A85X Extreme6 is a great motherboard. It did everything I needed it to with no hassles, even when pushing the limits of my chip. While color scheme is personal taste, I think the Extreme6 is a pretty good looking motherboard. The UEFI was a pleasure to use with its abundance of adjustable settings and logical layout, and down the road if you need to expand you have plenty of room for another GPU (or two). At its current price tag of only $95, it is also one of the cheapest A85 motherboards you can buy and definitely the cheapest with this many features.

If you are in the market for a performance FM2 motherboard, my suggestion would be to look no further than the Extreme6.