ASRock FM2A88X Extreme6+ Motherboard Review

1. Introduction2. FM2A88X Extreme6+: Packaging and Bundle3. FM2A88X Extreme6+: Layout and Features4. FM2A88X Extreme6+: BIOS and Overclocking5. Testing Methodology6. Synthetic: PCMark 87. Synthetic: PCMark 78. Synthetic: 3DMark9. Synthetic: 3DMark 1110. Synthetic: SiSoft Sandra 201311. Synthetic: Cinebench R11.512. Synthetic: Super Pi13. Real World: WinRAR14. Real World: MKV Playback15. Real World: Media Encoding16. Gaming: Battlefield 317. Gaming: Call of Duty Black Ops 218. Gaming: DiRT Showdown19. Technical: Power Consumption20. Closing Thoughts21. View All Pages

ASRock has opted for an all-black colour scheme for the FM2A88X which should make it fairly easy for you to colour co-ordinate other components.

There is a modest heatsink covering some of the VRM circuitry which should help improve the overclocking ability of this motherboard.

The AMD FM2 socket can be easily identified from previous generation sockets as it is black instead of white.  This is located in the centre of the motherboard, to the right of the VRM circuitry.

The four DDR3 memory slots are black and are positioned in the usual location on the right edge of the motherboard.  They support up to 64 GB of memory with frequencies of 2600+ (OC) / 2400 (OC) / 2133/1866/1600/1333/1066 MHz. ASRock have squeezed in the 24-pin motherboard power connector and an internal USB3.0 header between the memory slots and the edge of the motherboard.

In the bottom right corner of the motherboard there are seven SATA-600 connectors.  Six of these are positioned at right angles to the motherboard and one is orientated normally.  These are hooked up to the A88X chipset and support RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5 and RAID 10 configurations.

We find the remaining internal headers along the bottom edge of the motherboard.  From left to right we find an HD Audio header, a COM header, an IR header, three USB2.0 headers and the front panel headers.  ASRock have also included power and reset buttons and a Debug LED on the right hand edge.

There are two PCI Express 3.0 connectors x16 slots (limited to 8x in dual configuration) and a single PCI Express 2.0 x16 slot, two PCI Express x1 slots and two legacy PCI slots.

On the rear I/O panel we find the following connections:

• 1 x PS/2 keyboard/mouse port
• 2 x USB ports
• 1 x DVI-D port
• 1 x VGA port
• 2 x HDMI port
• 1 x Displayport
• 4 x USB 3.0 ports
• 1 x eSATA port
• 1 x RJ-45 port
• 1 x Optical S/PDIF Out connector
• 5 x Audio jacks (Center/Subwoofer Speaker Out, Rear Speaker Out, Line In, Line Out, Mic In)

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