ASRock 890GX Extreme3 Mainboard Review (with Phenom II X4 960T and Phenom II X3 710)
Bluetooth 6 May 2010

Last week, we presented the ASRock 880G Extreme3 mainboard. Today, we take a look at the bigger brother the 890GX Extreme3 mainboard. Some what alike, both board features very similar specifications and functionalities. In fact, we aren’t able to find much difference between the two other than the 890GX Extreme3 uses the AMD 890GX north bridge which clocks it’s internal GPU at 700MHz instead of 560MHz on the 880G Extreme3.

The 890GX Extreme3 has a very complete feature set. It has  ASRock DuraCap (2.5 x longer life time), 100% Japan-made high-quality Conductive Polymer Capacitors with Advanced V8 + 2 Power Phase Design which can supports CPU up to 140W. This board also supports the Phenom II X6 6 core processor. The most interesting would be the UCC which allows it to unlock the hidden cores e.g. the Phenom II X4 960T, enabling the two hidden cores and ‘convert’ it into a  6 core processor.

As for memory wise, it supports Dual Channel DDR3 1800(OC). Graphics capability is better as it comes integrated with AMD Radeon HD 4290 graphics, DX10.1 Class iGPU, Shader Model 4.1, Max. shared memory 512MB. It also has a 128MB DDR3-1333 side port memory which can be overclocked to DDR3-1670 without any issues. The Radeon HD 4290 is also capable of decoding HD videos using UVD2, thus playing back of bluray is chicken feed.You can choose to use Multi VGA Output options: D-Sub, DVI-D and HDMI. 7.1 CH HD Audio with Content Protection, DAC with 110dB dynamic range (VIA® VT2020 Audio Codec with QSound) will definitely make it a good choice for a home entertainment box. If integrated graphics is not to your liking, you can always upgrade it to Hybrid CrossFireX, 3 way or quad CrossFire X.

In terms of peripheral connectors, this board supporst 1 x eSATA3 Connector, 6 x SATA3 6.0 Gb/s connectors, 2 x USB 3.0 ports, 2 x IEEE 1394 ports. For overclockers, you would be delighted with the Smart Swith Design : 1 x Power Switch with LED, 1 x Reset Switch with LED, 1 x Clear CMOS Switch with LED and Dr. Debug (7-Segment Debug LED). There is also a comprehensive BIOS options in the BIOS like 30% Overclock etc.

Other software that comes free include  ASRock Instant Boot, Instant Flash, OC DNA, OC Tuner, IES, Multi-Speed Fan Control, CyberLink DVD Suite – OEM and Trial; Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi MB – Trial

ASRock 890GX Extreme3 mainboard has the UCC function which can unlocked the 2 hidden cores within the Phenom II X4 960T, turning it into a 6 cores processor.

Some users were wondering if there are any stability issues. We ran Hyper PI 32M stability tests on 4 core turned 6 core Phenom II 960T processor and the 32M tests completed without any issues.

See the screen shots below on page 2

ASRock Inc., the global leading motherboard manufacturer today proudly announced its brand new AMD 890GX Extreme3 motherboard supporting ASRock UCC function that allows CPU cores upgrade from X4 to X6 of AMD’s upcoming PhenomII X4 960T processor. This will be a value-added news to ASRock motherboard functionability and practicability and we believe that computer enthusiasts will be definitely attracted by our cutting-edge AMD motherboards.

How many cores do you desire? The answer must be “as many as possible”. It seems a daydream for most users; however, ASRock brings magic to our fan again and makes your dreams come true! ASRock has exclusive equipped with an ASRock UCC chip and specially tuned UCC (Unlock CPU Core) function in the BIOS of their 890GX Extreme3 motherboard to unlock the mind-blowing performance of AMD’s upcoming PhenomII X4 960T CPU. Just a simple switch of the BIOS option ‘UCC’, users can unlock the extra CPU core to enjoy an instant performance boost! Enabling the UCC function in BIOS, AMD PhenomII X4 960T CPU might be upgraded to X6, users are able to take advantage of ASRock superior 890GX Extreme3 Motherboard. (*The success rate of this enhancement depends on the individual CPU.)

See Page 2 for CPU-Z, BIOS screen shots >>>

On the 26th this month, AMD will soon be releasing it’s six core Phenom II X6 CPUs, codenamed “Thuban”. The Phenom II X6 will feature 6MB of L3 cache and six cores, together with a new feature that is similar to Intel’s Turbo Boost technology which boosts a 400MHz (unconfirmed) to its base frequency during high cpu load.

According to various sources, the new Phenom II X4 “T” processors are basically are based on the same cores as the Phenom II X6. So, if you’re lucky, you would be able to unlocked the 2 remaining cores, turning your X4 into a X6. It should also feature the same 6MB of L3 cache and Turbo Boost like technology. The Phenom II X4 960T is said to spec at 3.3GHz and the 940T running at around 3GHz.

In fact, at post time, we have confirmation from a tester that he is able to recover the 2 hidden cores, turning the Phenom II X4 960T into a hex core Phenom II X6 at the same clock speed. The board used is a AMD 890GX+SB850 mainboard.

Looks like the first board being able to achieve this is the ASRock 890GX Extreme3 – read about it here.

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