ASRock FM2A88X Extreme6+ Review
by Ian Cutress on March 19, 2014 11:59 AM ESTASRock FM2A88X Extreme6+ In The Box
AMD motherboards in general do not tend to have bonus bundles and packages. The last one of note was one of the ROG motherboards, but as we alluded to earlier, manufacturers do less in terms of motherboard innovation on the AMD platform as they do with Intel. This is purely as a result of sales volume. I am sure that if any of the manufacturers wanted to, we would see a PLX 8747 chip on an AMD motherboard for four-way x8/x8/x8/x8 AMD gaming, but there is no demand. This reflects back to the veracity of motherboard box contents, such that from ASRock we have:
Driver CD
Manuals
Rear IO Shield
Four SATA Cables
Because the A88X platform does not support SLI, there is no need for an SLI bridge. Similarly, there is no USB 3.0 front panel or extra utilities – the Extreme6+ is almost a box with almost the bare essentials.
ASRock FM2A88X Extreme6+ Overclocking
Experience with ASRock FM2A88X Extreme6+
Our overclocking experience with the FM2A88X Extreme6+ is identical to what we published in the Kaveri CPU review, given that we used the same motherboard for that review and this review. The Extreme6+ has several automatic overclock options in the BIOS, and the OS does give the Operation Mode options that have been on Intel 8-series motherboards for a number of months. These are a power saving mode and a performance mode, with the power saving mode having most effect on single thread operation requiring less than a couple of seconds of CPU time.
For the manual overclock, we used the BIOS and achieved 4.4 GHz, which is a far cry from some 4.6+ GHz on air results that have been published elsewhere. Our main limitation seemed to be the VRM cooling, given that the system de-clocked the CPU when we were at 4.5 GHz.
One issue worth mentioning, given the heat generation issue mentioned at the top of the review, is how the motherboard deals with overheating. Given that our normal overclocking tests are done for 5 minutes, we tested the system at stock for an hour with OCCT monitoring the CPU frequency:
While OCCT has an issue reading the base frequency, we see jumps from 3700 MHz (1850 on the graph) to 3500 MHz (1750 on the graph). Given that this CPU is designed to go between 3700 MHz and 4000 MHz depending on loading, this shows that even with an average CPU cooler, hard CPU work can cause the CPU to decrease in frequency with sustained CPU load. Users who are thinking of overclocking Kaveri should have some good cooling in place.
Methodology:
Our standard overclocking methodology is as follows. We select the automatic overclock options and test for stability with PovRay and OCCT to simulate high-end workloads. These stability tests aim to catch any immediate causes for memory or CPU errors.
For manual overclocks, based on the information gathered from previous testing, starts off at a nominal voltage and CPU multiplier, and the multiplier is increased until the stability tests are failed. The CPU voltage is increased gradually until the stability tests are passed, and the process repeated until the motherboard reduces the multiplier automatically (due to safety protocol) or the CPU temperature reaches a stupidly high level (100ºC+). Our test bed is not in a case, which should push overclocks higher with fresher (cooler) air.
Manual Overclock:
Our results were as follows.
This gave the following power results while using the IGP:
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
44 Comments
View All Comments
niva - Wednesday, March 19, 2014 - link
These benchmarks are making me depressed for AMD CPUs. I guess it's time to switch to Intel after not having purchased an Intel chip since 1996.nathanddrews - Wednesday, March 19, 2014 - link
Come on in, the water's fine.Malorcus - Wednesday, March 19, 2014 - link
I hear you man, I did the same with my current Ive Bridge CPU. I am looking to build a media computer using an AMD APU though. They still have their niche, but it is not in high end computing/gaming.ddriver - Wednesday, March 19, 2014 - link
You'd be surprised by the amount of needed and commercially viable tasks for which those poor CPUs are more than fast enough. It is a sad thing to see AMD struggling to compete with Intel's value products.Fallen Kell - Thursday, March 20, 2014 - link
AMD has sadly not had a real competing product in the high end side for 6 or 7 years now. On the low end, AMD was competing, until Intel decided to compete in this market segment. The last two updates that Intel has made were more focused on the lower end than on the high end. This is finally cutting into the one thing keeping AMD alive. I really hope AMD does survive because those of us that are old enough to remember know that Intel hates the consumer and only really pushes technology when it is competing. We would have CPU's that are only soldered directly into motherboards with no ability to upgrade, completely locked down CPUs with no ability to overclock, locked in memory bus speeds that are tiered based on the CPU/motherboard that you purchased with higher performance memory compatibility costing you extra, etc., etc....But I really don't see a way that AMD can compete at this point. They are still hemorrhaging money (not nearly as bad as a year ago when they lost $1.2 BILLION, but even after restructuring to cut 31% of their operating costs, they still lost $162 million last year). While I understood the reason for acquiring ATI, I believe ATI is worse off due to that acquisition. ATI went from being a profitable company competing well in their market, to one that is losing money and is seemingly almost a generation behind Nvidia in their offerings (I say this based on the fact that the brand new released top of the line AMD graphics cards can barely beat the last generation of cards from Nvidia in performance and can not come anywhere near the Nvidia offerings in power/performance or heat/performance, and Nvidia is getting ready to release its true next generation of cards even while they simply released the last generation of cards at their full potential to beat AMD's current cards now that AMD finally had a competing product). The major losses that AMD as a whole has, is taking its toll on the R&D AMD can afford to do in terms of increasing the efficiency of their designed with respect to power and cooling requirements while still being able to push the performance of their cards.
Demiurge - Friday, March 21, 2014 - link
Funny, I thought the same thing about Intel CPU's when GPU's started to encroach on the high performance features such as physics, ray-tracing, signal processing, and other high intensity applications. There's a bigger picture that I think a lot of people miss. The market has already shifted away from CPU's being the centerpiece of high performance applications. AMD has the right strategy with buying ATI and the paradigm of Heterogeneous Computing, but like Intel with the P4: it's too little too late. If they had the software, they might've been able to pull this off, but that is exactly what they are trying to do with Mantle. I think only unanimous adoption would've guaranteed a win. It was a big risk, and it would have been an amazing upstart, but I don't think it will pay off as much as they need it to. Just a modest opinion... and so a long rant ends... ;-)pandemonium - Thursday, March 20, 2014 - link
AMD hasn't been competitive to Intel for the consumer since 1999 or so? They've always been cheaper, and always been far lower in gaming and general desktop usage results as well. You are very, very, very late to the party, lol.mr_tawan - Thursday, March 20, 2014 - link
I believe it was Intel Core series (2006) that started to get ahead of AMD's CPU. Before that, AMD CPUs was both perform better and cheaper. Intel CPUs were power hungry and expensive while did not yield excellent performance.The raw ALU performance on the current line of AMD CPU is quite low because of the design decision to reduce the space occupied by the CPU while add even more GPU on the die, and then make them work together more nicely. It's the direction the AMD heads to.
I believe that one day even the FX line would be APU just like those A-series.
Vinny DePaul - Thursday, March 20, 2014 - link
I feel your pain. I am an AMD fan. I want to keep using AMD but the CPU is running too hot. It is heating up the room! I switch to Intel. It is just easier.... I hope the AMD's involvement in PS4 and Xbox One will shape the future in games and software.Xpl1c1t - Thursday, March 20, 2014 - link
This is exactly what I did going from a Athlon XP Palomino, to Athlon 64 Venice, to a Core i5 Lynnfield.I'd consider purchasing an AMD processor again if the whole APU thing becomes quite competent and powerful at a smaller and more efficient node. I'd promptly and gladly buy an APU with the equivalent of 2 IVB cores and a 7870 onboard if it could me mounted on a Pico-ITX board...