ASRock A75 Extreme6 Review with AMD APU LIano A8-3850

Conclusion

The ASRock A75 Extreme6 came late to our labs but that didn’t stop us from checking out it’s performance. From the earliest beta bios which gave us lots of instability to beta which has weird multiplier ratio, ASRock has regularly updated it’s BIOS to ensure stability even at higher clock speeds. In fact, we waited for the final production BIOS P1.30 to get a stable overclock of APU and system memory.

From the benchmarks, it can be seen that the ASRock board is a speed demon. Even at default speed, it is able to push for better performance. When overclocked, the stability of running the memory beyond DDR3-2200+ is remarkable. This is probably due to a polished BIOS with errors resolved.

In terms of features, this board has the standard features supported by the chipset.  While most of the other boards we have seen only support 2 PCIe full length slots, this board has 3 PCIe slots for 3 way CrossFireX.  XFast USB Technology, Graphical UEFI BIOS, Supports On/Off Play Technology, Instant Boot, Instant Flash, APP Charger, SmartView are also good features to have especially XFast USB. If you need faster internet access, you could also try the software solution XFast LAN.

Overclocking features on P1.30 has added the Easy OC settings where you can just choose to overclock the memory or APU. It will auto set the voltage levels of the various components and multiplier, ram clock speed etc. You can also choose to save the profiles for future reference. You can refer to page 3 for the youtube video introducing the bios options of the board.

In the test, we managed to push the system to run at 26×133 (3.4GHz) on AIR with memory timings set to DDR3-2124 at C9-11-9-27-1T. vdimm was raised to 1.7v, Vcore at 1.40v. Memory module used is Kingston HyperX Genesis KHX2133C9AD3X2K2-4GX https://en.ocworkbench.com/tech/review-of-kingston-hyperx-genesis-grey-series-modules-khx2133c9ad3x2k2_4gx/

Documentation is direct to the point. The thick manual in multi language could just be reduced and store in a USB stick and be environmental friendly. The packaging is also way too simple. I don’t see front panel USB brackets being provided although the board supports it.

In Conclusion, this board has some of the nicest features on board. It has the power on/off, reset, clear cmos switches, debug led. Perhaps it is high time ASRock introduce one button overclock like what MSI and ASUS do. Overall, this board is worth considering if you are into AMD APU.

Pros

3 full length PCIe 2.0 slots

Xfast, XLan

Cons

NIL

Ratings

Here are my ratings out of 10.