AMD A85X Mobo Roundup: ASRock, Gigabyte, Asus

The Asrock FM2A85X Extreme4-M is the only micro-ATX motherboard in this roundup, and at $90 it’s much cheaper than the other two boards we tested. Despite this, the board looks great, with a black PCB and black plastic bits. The southbridge cooler has a subtle gunmetal grey color with gold ASrock logo. 

ASRock FM2A85X Extreme4-M Specifications & Features

CPU:	Supports FM2 100W Processors 4 + 2 Power Phase Design Supports AMD Cool 'n' Quiet Technology UMI-Link GEN2
Chipset:	AMD A85X (Hudson-D4)
Memory:	Dual Channel DDR3 memory technology 4 x DDR3 DIMM slots Supports DDR3 2600+(OC)/2400(OC)/2133(OC)/1866(OC)/1600/1333/1066 non-ECC, un-buffered memory Max. capacity of system memory: 64GB Supports Intel Extreme Memory Profile (XMP) 1.3 / 1.2 and AMD Memory Profile (AMP)
Graphics:	Integrated AMD Radeon HD 7000 series graphics in A-series APU DirectX 11, Pixel Shader 5.0 Max. shared memory 2GB Multi VGA Output options: D-Sub, DVI-D and HDMI Supports HDMI 1.4a Technology with max. resolution up to 1920x1200 @ 60Hz Supports Dual-link DVI with max. resolution up to 2560x1600 @ 75Hz Supports D-Sub with max. resolution up to 1920x1600 @ 60Hz Supports Auto Lip Sync, Deep Color (12bpc), xvYCC and HBR (High Bit Rate Audio) with HDMI (Compliant HDMI monitor is required) Supports Blu-ray Stereoscopic 3D with HDMI 1.4a Supports AMD Steady Video™ 2.0: New video post processing capability for automatic jutter reduction on home/online video Supports HDCP function with DVI and HDMI ports Supports Full HD 1080p Blu-ray (BD) / HD-DVD playback with DVI and HDMI portss
Audio:	7.1 CH HD Audio with Content Protection (Realtek ALC892 Audio Codec) Premium Blu-ray audio support Supports THX TruStudio™
LAN:	PCIE x1 Gigabit LAN 10/100/1000 Mb/s Realtek RTL8111E Supports Wake-On-LAN Supports LAN Cable Detection Supports Energy Efficient Ethernet 802.3az Supports PXE
Slots:	2 x PCI Express 2.0 x16 slots (PCIE1 @ x16 mode; PCIE3 @ x4 mode) 1 x PCI Express 2.0 x1 slot 1 x PCI slot Supports AMD Quad CrossFireX™, CrossFireX™ and Dual Graphics
SATA3:	7 x SATA3 6.0 Gb/s connectors, support RAID (RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5 and RAID 10), NCQ, AHCI and "Hot Plug" functions
USB 3.0:	2 x Rear USB 3.0 ports, support USB 1.1/2.0/3.0 up to 5Gb/s 1 x Front USB 3.0 header (supports 2 USB 3.0 ports), supports USB 1.1/2.0/3.0 up to 5Gb/s
Rear Panel:	1 x PS/2 Mouse/Keyboard Port 1 x D-Sub Port 1 x DVI-D Port 1 x HDMI Port 1 x Optical SPDIF Out Port 4 x Ready-to-Use USB 2.0 Ports 1 x eSATA3 Connector 2 x Ready-to-Use USB 3.0 Ports 1 x RJ-45 LAN Port with LED (ACT/LINK LED and SPEED LED) HD Audio Jack: Rear Speaker / Central / Bass / Line in / Front Speaker / Microphone
Form Factor:	Micro ATX Form Factor

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It has many of the same features as the other boards, but only two PCIe x16 slots. The second physical x16 slot only operates at x4 speeds, so this is not a board to use if you want a high-powered CrossFireX setup--even though the board “supports” up to Quad CrossFireX. Since Virgo is meant for builds with integrated graphics, this isn’t a big loss, but it’s worth mentioning, especially since FM2 is supposed to default to x8/x8 if both x16 PCIe slots are populated. The board also has seven 6Gb/s SATA ports--the eighth is an eSATA port in the mobo’s I/O panel. The only rear panel outputs missing from the ASRock board are DisplayPort and a second pair of USB 3.0 ports. 

Asrock bundles the board with plenty of additional software, including a program called “XFast RAM,” designed for 32-bit systems with more than 4GB of RAM, to allow the unused memory to be used as a RAMdisk. It also has XFast LAN--designed to optimize Web traffic--and XFast USB. Overclocking tasks are handled in the OS by Asrock’s Extreme Tuning Utility.