Verdict and Conclusion
I’m going to start with the negative sides of things that aren’t limited to a single manufacturer. The memory support of initial bioses, which will most likely be what you end up with on the board you pick up from a retailer. This is really a platform problem in general. The A75 boards had the same problem at launch. So you would think that AMD would have made sure to have a fix for this in their intial release to manufactuers.
Bios problems in general are the limiting factor of this board. While ASRocks attitude towards fixing these problems is exceptional it still takes time. Unfortunately during the period of time I have had to do this review they have not finished fixing these problems.
So can be worked around, but others like incorrect NB frequency are extremely crippling to the overall performance of the entire setup, limiting the 3d performance of the setup.
Now that the negative are out of the way. The board design is Extremely solid. Once the bios problems are solved this is a board that will yield a wonderful and easy to user performance experience for both the seasoned overclocker and the enthusiast user that’s dabbling in improved performance.
The thing that really impressed me the most about the entire experience is ASRock’s commitment to customer support. ASRock ended up adding a couple features for me that I felt were missing from the current bios. They were also immediately interested in fixing the bugs I found during the review process. Not to mention a true commitment to helping overclockers have the tools available to them to push the limits and set records.
- Very attractive board design
- Debug display
- On board Power, Reset, and BIOS Clear buttons
- Excellent mounting quality of VRM heatsink
- Good quality and easy to use overclocking software
- Good in box documentation
- Well labeled SATA ports with directional arrows.
- User friendly BIOS and out of the box configuration
- Crashless Bios
- Misleading support for 2600mhz DDR3 memory
- Extreme main VRM temperatures under load
Final Words
When it comes down to a verdict about this board there’s only one thing I can say, IT ROCKS (no pun intended). Yes it has some bugs. However ASRocks response to these problems has been quick, and decisive. The user experience for both the beginner, enthusiest, and professional are all top notch.
The price is also right at around $130, for the feature set is really quite amazing. I am giving it a 9.1/10 rating. Its a little short of perfect (and few things are perfect), but what a board despite some bugs. I highly recommend that you consider this board if you’re looking at purchasing and APU and motherboard. I know I will be picking up a few more.
SCORE
9.1/10
