Sitting at around £75, ASRock have created a very attractive A88X based motherboard that incorporates many well thought out features such as the LAN capable of remote power up and access, as well as the Purity Sound giving an impressive audio experience and support for high impedance headphones. However, it doesn't stop there, gamers and enthusiasts will find sacks worth of potential for overclocking and performance tweaking, the ASRock A88X Extreme6+ is certified AMP 2400+ (supports AMD Memory Profile of 2400MHz+),and the stable power delivery to the APU via the 8+2 DIGI phases that helped contribute to its success with some current world records.
The downsides to this product are mostly oversights and do not affect the overall performance or value of this product, to list a few, this board suffers from a plasticky creaky noise while handling and installing, I am not sure if that is due to the manufacturing process used by ASRock and is of no concern, or if it is actually the sound of complex circuitry dying a death caused by inflexibility. Another note is, while the supporting software and utilities provided are fairly competent, it would be great to see the inclusion of the Home Cloud feature and Sun Login integrated into the A-Tuning utility as to simplify the use of such a fairly long winded, yet valuable process. Still on the subject of supporting software, it would be great to have a live update feature that works a little more reliably and doesn't tell you that your software and BIOS are completely up to date when they aren't.
Finally, aesthetics, though the A88X Extreme6+ is well laid out and has all the features and functions in the places many have come to expect, the overall aesthetic is fairly bland and uninteresting. This is not necessarily a downside, some may argue that once all components are plugged in, you will barely see the motherboard anyway, others may not really be interested in the aesthetics at all, which is also why this particular design may work in its favour. It has the ability to easily blend well with any build or design, fading into the background without any garish, bold colours.
Feature packed and ready to rock with the latest Kaveri APUs, ASRock go a little further with the A88X Extreme6+. This will come highly recommended and is deserving of our Gold award.
Pros.
+ Well laid out
+ Quality components
+ Home Cloud, remote wake and access
+ Purity Sound: ALC 1150 + 600ohm headphone amp
+ FM2+
+ Price
Cons.
- None
+ Well laid out
+ Quality components
+ Home Cloud, remote wake and access
+ Purity Sound: ALC 1150 + 600ohm headphone amp
+ FM2+
+ Price
Cons.
- None
Click here for an explanation of our awards at Vortez.net. Thanks to ASRock for providing today’s review sample.