ASRock hasn’t made any significant changes to its applications suite since last year, still including various freeware and trial software in addition to its XFast LAN, XFast USB, and AXTU. Since portions of AXTU are hardware-specific, we took a few minutes to examine its implementation on this board.

Part of its intricate hardware monitoring menu, AXTU appears to have the most accurate CPU temperature monitor this editor has seen for AMD’s current-generation FX processors. I said appears because few people know the actual core temperature: we've had issues with AMD’s thermal diode being inaccurate at any temperature more than a few degrees from its thermal threshold, and trying to take a reading from the heat spreader yields a result several degrees lower than the core.

Fan speed controls are independent for four of the five system headers.

Clock speeds are fully adjustable over a wide range, with CPU clock and voltage level adjustments verifiable in third-party programs like CPU-Z. Settings can also be saved as profiles and enabled at boot.

The OC DNA menu provides only BIOS info and secondary access to overclocking profiles.

Intelligent Energy Saver offers minor power savings via CPU voltage regulator phase idling.

ASRock’s XFast RAM provides RAM Disk functionality at no additional cost to the buyer. Though it runs under 64- and 32-bit Windows, its most interesting capability is addressing memory capacities beyond the 4 GB limit of 32-bit operating systems.

Restart to UEFI gives users quick access to BIOS, without worrying about how quickly they can hit the Del or F2 keys. Unlike competing solutions, it requires an operating system to employ.
- Performance Beats Features?
- ASRock 990FX Extreme9
- 990FX Extreme9 Software
- 990FX Extreme9 Firmware
- Asus M5A99FX Pro R2.0
- M5A99FX Pro R2.0 Software
- M5A99FX Pro R2.0 Firmware
- Gigabyte 990FXA-UD3
- 990FXA-UD3 Software
- 990FXA-UD3 Firmware
- Test Settings And Benchmarks
- Results: Synthetic Benchmarks
- Results: Battlefield 3 And Far Cry 3
- Results: F1 2012 And Skyrim
- Results: Audio And Video Encoding
- Results: Content Creation
- Results: Productivity And File Compression
- Overclocking Results
- Power, Heat, And Efficiency
- Who Wins This Three-Way 990FX Comparison?
Don't speculate! Do the tests and add it to the article so we can see what the software packages are actually accomplishing! That's why I read your site, yeah? For hard info that I can't get myself.
Old chipset, recent boards, any questions?
Don't speculate! Do the tests and add it to the article so we can see what the software packages are actually accomplishing! That's why I read your site, yeah? For hard info that I can't get myself.
I totally agree with this statement. The test should have been done and added into the article because this would of been a good representative of the value of the software. I would like to know for a fact if the software was a hindrance to the electrical efficiency of the Asus and Gigabye boards.
Now, AMD is just slipping too far behind. Not just on the CPU front, but like how about some PCIe 3?
I'm waiting for 64-bit ARMs to hit the desktop. That's probably the next truly interesting thing on the horizon.
Yes, but not a lot of new things need to be offered anyways. PCIe 3.0 is just a gimmick and doesn't really give much more performance over PCIe2
Old chipset, recent boards, any questions?
I don't think enthusiasts would want to buy a slow CPU from AMD.
I think of enthusiasts as people interested in getting the maximum performance from their hardware; regardless of its base level, getting the most out of it. Boards like these which can be tweaked every which way are precisely the kinds of products enthusiasts enjoy.
Really? Wow...
I disagree, the whole platform smells of too much power consumption. AMD needs to INNOVATE, not just add more features and drive up power.
I disagree again. Sure the HT is old, but except for a few details, this boards, being updated regularly with their firmwares or even the pcb revisions, are quite good. The power modulation works fine for this quite cheap boards, I mean, check out those overclocks, and they are very conservative. The amount of sata3 ports is excellent, PCI lanes are ok just what you need nothing more nothing less. RAM management seems a bit old, you are correct, but only professionals get value of it, professionals that should be buying extreme Intel setups. For the average Joe editing and rendering, their memory solution is just 1 minute slower, who cares.
I think AMD doesn't need to innovate, which is quite a prostituted word. They need to improve their technologies further, as they've been doing for the last years, just at a faster pace, without falling into self indulgence, in that i agree with you.
My only complaint about the board is that the NB or SB, I don't exactly remember which, would cause a thermal shutdown while running Folding@Home 24/7 last summer. It didn't help that a GTX 560 Ti at 100% load was dumping waste heat right on top of it.
Re-configuring the cooling in my cheap case and down-clocking the GPU got me back up and running.
I love Asus's power management options, power savings or performance when needed. Although I wish the balanced setting didn't cause problems with OCing and would pile on the juice when needed.
1. move the GPU down to the second slot, which should drop NB temps by about 5-7 degrees C.
2. Replace the northbridge cooling solution with an active fan (10-15 degree drop). VRMs also get super-hot, 75C is not uncommon under load. Quite frankly, the NB/VRM colling solution on this board is terrible, and I cannot fathom how it got a recommendation at all given these grievances.
I was left wondering the same thing.