Company: Asrock Product: 890GX Extreme3 Street Price: £95.00 - £100.00 Date Reviewed: 13/04/10 Reviewed By: Aaron and Gav Product image:
Introduction:
About ASRock
ASRock Inc., established in 2002, target at entry to mainstream segment MB business, is an energetic company with the combination of technology and humanity. Devoting efforts to bring customers the innovative and reliable motherboards with the design concept of 3C, "Creative, Considerate, Cost-effective", ASRock has successfully established a well-known leading brand of the best price-performance motherboard in the industry. ASRock products' high recognition stems from company’s devotion to bring the most cost-performance products to users. Besides creative features and solid products, ASRock engineers also pay special attention to EMI, thermal, acoustics and details to achieve complete customer satisfaction. In addition to price-performance, creative and considerate features, ASRock also pay special on the issue of eco-environmental protection with the released of ROHS products and energy saving functions to save the environment. To succeed in this ultra-competitive industry, ASRock provides great products with speed-to-market, cost and service to customers. Facing the constantly changing technologies of motherboard, ASRock will always keep the vision of the future and develop future-proof products upon our 3C design concept to our customers. Specifications:- Phenom II X6 6-Core CPU Ready
- Supports Exclusive ASRock UCC Chip - Unlock CPU Core feature
- ASRock DuraCap (2.5 x longer life time), 100% Japan-made high-quality Conductive Polymer Capacitors
- Advanced V8 + 2 Power Phase Design
- Supports CPU up to 140W
- Supports Dual Channel DDR3 1800(OC)
- Integrated AMD Radeon HD 4290 graphics, DX10.1 Class iGPU, Shader Model 4.1, Max. shared memory 512MB
- Built-in 128MB DDR3 1333/1200MHz SidePort Memory
- Supports ATI™ Quad CrossFireX™, 3-Way CrossFireX™, CrossFireX™ and Hybrid CrossFireX™
- Multi VGA Output options: D-Sub, DVI-D and HDMI
- 1 x eSATA3 Connector, 6 x SATA3 6.0 Gb/s connectors, 2 x USB 3.0 ports, 2 x IEEE1394 ports
- Smart Swith Design : 1 x Power Switch with LED, 1 x Reset Switch with LED, 1 x Clear CMOS Switch with LED
- Dr. Debug (7-Segment Debug LED)
- Supports ASRock Instant Boot, Instant Flash, OC DNA, OC Tuner, IES, Multi-Speed Fan Control
- 7.1 CH HD Audio with Content Protection, DAC with 110dB dynamic range (VIA® VT2020 Audio Codec with QSound) , Premium Blu-ray audio support.
- ErP/EuP Ready
Product Specifications
| General | |
| CPU | - Support for Socket AM3 processors: AMD Phenom™ II X4 / X3 / X2 (except 920 / 940) / Athlon II X4 / X3 / X2 / Sempron processors - Six-Core CPU Ready - Supports UCC feature (Unlock CPU Core) - Advanced V8 + 2 Power Phase Design - Supports CPU up to 140W - Supports AMD's Cool 'n' Quiet Technology - FSB 2600 MHz (5.2 GT/s) - Supports Untied Overclocking Technology - Supports Hyper-Transport 3.0 (HT 3.0) Technology |
| Chipset | - Northbridge: AMD 890GX - Southbridge: AMD SB850 |
| Memory | - Dual Channel DDR3 memory technology - 4 x DDR3 DIMM slots - Supports DDR3 1800(OC)/1600(OC)/1333/1066/800 non-ECC, un-buffered memory - Max. capacity of system memory: 16GB*
*Due to the operating system limitation, the actual memory size may be less than 4GB for the reservation for system usage under Windows® 32-bit OS. For Windows® 64-bit OS with 64-bit CPU, there is no such limitation.
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| BIOS | - 8Mb AMI Legal BIOS - Supports "Plug and Play" - ACPI 1.1 Compliance Wake Up Events - Supports jumperfree - SMBIOS 2.3.1 Support - CPU, VCCM, NB, SB Voltage Multi-adjustment |
| Audio, Video and Networking | |
| Graphics | - Integrated AMD Radeon HD 4290 graphics - DX10.1 class iGPU, Shader Model 4.1 - Max. shared memory 512MB - Built-in 128MB DDR3 1333/1200MHz SidePort Memory - Multi VGA Output options: D-Sub, DVI-D and HDMI - Supports HDMI Technology with max. resolution up to 1920x1200 (1080P) - Supports Dual-link DVI with max. resolution up to 2560x1600 @ 75Hz - Supports D-Sub with max. resolution up to 2048x1536 @ 85Hz - Supports HDCP function with DVI and HDMI ports - Supports Full HD 1080p Blu-ray (BD) / HD-DVD playback with DVI and HDMI ports |
| Audio | - 7.1 CH HD Audio with Content Protection - DAC with 110dB dynamic range (VIA® VT2020 Audio Codec) - Premium Blu-ray audio support |
| LAN | - PCIE x1 Gigabit LAN 10/100/1000 Mb/s - Realtek RTL8111E - Supports Wake-On-LAN - Supports LAN Cable Detection |
| Expansion / Connectivity | |
| Slots | - 3 x PCI Express 2.0 x16 slots (blue: single at x16 or dual at x8/x8 mode; white: x4 mode) - 1 x PCI Express 2.0 x1 slot - 3 x PCI slots - Supports ATI™ Quad CrossFireX™, 3-Way CrossFireX™, CrossFireX™ and Hybrid CrossFireX™ |
| SATA3 | - 6 x SATA3 6.0 Gb/s connectors, support RAID (RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 0+1 and RAID 5), NCQ, AHCI and "Hot Plug" functions |
| eSATA3 | - 1 x eSATA3 6.0 Gb/s connector through the bundled eSATA3 bracket, supports NCQ, AHCI and "Hot Plug" functions |
| USB 3.0 | - 2 x USB 3.0 ports by NEC MPD720200, support USB 1.0/2.0/3.0 up to 5Gb/s |
| Connector | - 6 x SATA3 6.0 Gb/s connectors - 1 x IR header - 1 x COM port header - 1 x IEEE 1394 header - 1 x HDMI_SPDIF header - 1 x Power LED header - CPU/Chassis/Power FAN connector - 24 pin ATX power connector - 8 pin 12V power connector - Front panel audio connector - 4 x USB 2.0 headers (support 8 USB 2.0 ports) - 1 x Dr. Debug (7-Segment Debug LED) |
| Rear Panel I/O | I/O Panel - 1 x PS/2 Keyboard Port - 1 x VGA/D-Sub Port - 1 x VGA/DVI-D Port - 1 x HDMI Port - 1 x Optical SPDIF Out Port - 4 x Ready-to-Use USB 2.0 Ports - 1 x eSATA2 Connector - 1 x eSATA3 Connector through the Bundled eSATA3 Bracket - 2 x Ready-to-Use USB 3.0 Ports - 1 x RJ-45 LAN Port with LED (ACT/LINK LED and SPEED LED) - 1 x IEEE 1394 Port - 1 x Clear CMOS Switch with LED - HD Audio Jack: Rear Speaker / Central / Bass / Line in / Front Speaker / Microphone |
| Other Features / Miscellaneous | |
| Unique Feature | - ASRock OC Tuner - Intelligent Energy Saver - Instant Boot - ASRock Instant Flash - ASRock OC DNA - Hybrid Booster: - CPU Frequency Stepless Control - ASRock U-COP - Boot Failure Guard (B.F.G.) - Turbo 25 / Turbo 30 GPU Overclocking |
| Smart Switch | - 1 x Power Switch with LED - 1 x Reset Switch with LED - 1 x Clear CMOS Switch with LED |
| Support CD | - Drivers, Utilities, AntiVirus Software (Trial Version), AMD OverDrive™ Utility, AMD Live! Explorer, AMD Fusion, ASRock Software Suite (CyberLink DVD Suite - OEM and Trial; Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi MB - Trial) |
| Accessories | - Quick Installation Guide, Support CD, I/O Shield - 4 x SATA Data Cables (optional) - 1 x SATA 1 to 1 Power Cable (optional) - 1 x eSATA3 bracket (optional) |
| Hardware Monitor | - CPU Temperature Sensing - Chassis Temperature Sensing - CPU/Chassis/Power Fan Tachometer - CPU Quiet Fan - CPU/Chassis Fan Multi-Speed Control - Voltage Monitoring: +12V, +5V, +3.3V, Vcore |
| Form Factor | - ATX Form Factor: 12.0-in x 9.6-in, 30.5 cm x 24.4 cm - All Solid Capacitor design (100% Japan-made high-quality Conductive Polymer Capacitors) |
| OS | - Microsoft® Windows® 7 / 7 64-bit / Vista™ / Vista™ 64-bit / XP / XP Media Center / XP 64-bit compliant |
| Certifications | - FCC, CE, WHQL - ErP/EuP Ready (ErP/EuP ready power supply is required) |
Test Setup:
cpu's used in this test was a 3 gig 945 phenom 2 cpu quad core and a 2.7 phenom 2 dual core 215
Price: £95.00 - £100.00 Support: Asrock ofer support here Overclocking:
If u are not 100% with changing options and starting out there is a easy mode ez clocking just by setting 30 % this board booting and was running @ 3.6 that easy and with all stock options on voltage.
Windows scores changed as well and there was also a bost in gaming as well.
Just to see what this board can realy do we tryed to do a 4 gig run and it did this with no prblems. This is one hell of a board and setting fsb to 270 and upping voltage to cpu and ram we were able to run with out any problems.
2.7 phenom 2 dual core 215
Using ez clocking 30 % booted at 3.2 gig Setting fsb to 280 gave us a speed of 3.8 gig
This board is so good at clocking and does seem to love it.
At stock speeds this board is very stable and easy to use,
Overall:
comes with a driver cd that is very east to setup the drivers with a single click and lets you choose,
the new asrock boards do look the part now with there new styling.. this asrock board is based on the new ati chipset and also has usb 3.0 from nec and the new sata 3 :) at stock speeds this board is like many others out there and scored much the same, but were this board realy does come to its own with how well it clocks and we mean wow its one very good clocker. Conclusions and Final Thoughts: this board also has some very nice features clr cmos button on the back of the board that lights up red also on the board with have 2 buttons power and reset which makes thing great for benchmarkers and hard ware buffs very nice to see on this board is the onboard video is the new ati 4290 onboard gpu the mother board also has hdmi dvi and vga out put when we were benching this board it remained cool running and the chip set was only warm to the touch which was a nice surpirseand it clocks very well.
We give the Asrock 890GX Extreme3 a gold star of clock able!
