Power and Overclocking
Power
FM2+ boards are predicated on overall power efficiency. The latest APUs from AMD based on Kaveri are all 95 watt TDP and below units. The test APU is of course the 95 watt TDP A10-7850K. All three boards have very similar hardware specifications in terms of audio, networking, and expandability. One significant difference here is that both the MSI and Gigabyte boards feature 4+2 power phase arrays. The Asus Crossblade Ranger is the only motherboard here with a full 6+2 array. This in theory should mean that it will be more efficient under load and produce less excess heat from the MOSFETs.
These results are not exactly what one would expect, but they do seem representative with the products covered. The Asus board does use more power phases and the Intel Gig-E controller. At load it is slightly better than the MSI board, but nowhere near the Gigabyte.
Overclocking
The Kaveri chip is not a very good overclocker. If there was a board that could really push it, the Crossblade Ranger should be able to do it. The two extra phases and attention to detail on this board promises better overclocking results than the competition.
Unfortunately, I was unable to really push the A10-7850K any farther on this board than the others. I was able to hit 4.6 GHz easily with a 0.1v offset. This is as fast as the other boards, but one thing I did notice was that during testing it turned out to be more stable at that speed. I was able to get away with a little less voltage here as well, but do not expect to take Kaveri up to 5 GHz unless a user has a phase change cooler attached to it. More aggressive watercooling might take the chip to 4.8 GHz, but 4.6 to 4.7 with a self contained water cooling unit is pushing it.
Unless a user has exceptional cooling, then 4.5 GHz is a very easy number to attain that is extremely stable.
The graphics portion was able to hit the 1020 MHz mark. This is a good boost from the stock 720 MHz. Users will notice a big difference in their graphics applications by overclocking this alone. If I were to use this as a daily computer, I would be pleased with a CPU clock of 4.5 GHz at a lower voltage and a GPU clock of 1 GHz. This would be a stable combination that would require some good cooling in games.
The automatic overclocking utility took the CPU to a solid 4.2 GHz. I do not believe that it overclocked the GPU portion at all. This obviously is not an aggressive overclock, but for changing a single setting in the firmware it is nice for those just beginning their overclocking journey.
finally! and not just the FM2
finally! and not just the FM2 APUs get love, the FM2 athlons as well!!
the FX boards are $$$$$$ so FM2 is a great budget.
Now we just have to wait for
Now we just have to wait for more AMD Mini-ITX boards to show up. I would think that an APU equipped system would be perfect for a Media Center PC.
they have some pretty small
they have some pretty small micro atx boards, just find the case of your choice and you are good to go.
won’t be mini itx but no bigger then an xbox.
… maybe post more game
… maybe post more game benchmarks, instead of the above posted benchmarks. I can think of no reason anyone would buy this board other than as a low to mid range gaming replacement.
I was considering approaching
I was considering approaching AMD about a gaming scenario with testing centered around that. I want to try out the Crossfire perf of say 2 x R9 285s in such a solution and see how it matches up with the i7 3770K or something like it.
No need to compare to an
No need to compare to an i7-3770k. AMD will have a hard enough time competing with an i5-2500k.
won’t be the highest end but
won’t be the highest end but don’t snuff your nose up at this board.
Quad core athlon with a beefy video card and you’ll have a pretty smoking system on the cheap.
well nice board, just hope
well nice board, just hope something comes along that is better than the 860quad core.
A high end m-itx FM2+ would
A high end m-itx FM2+ would sell well I think.
You mean something like this?
You mean something like this? http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4745#ov
Whenever someone reviews an
Whenever someone reviews an FM2 board they always say the end user could just buy a dedicated GPU and everything would be rosy. I think 95% of the pc community misses the point of AMD’s venture into APU and built in graphics: to give the end user an affordable decent gaming platform that does not need a dedicated GPU. Combine it with high performance ram, tweek the video settings and many games can be very playable. Just keep it in perspective, don’t expect the moon and the end user won’t be disappointed with these very affordable parts !
So, how much more FPS does it
So, how much more FPS does it give you compared to the other budget FM2+ boards for lots more of $$$? 1 or 2?
Also, AMD APUs’ CPU performance will bottleneck any mid-end X Fire or SLI setup. You’d need at leasr an i5 and this is just a fact, I’m not Intel fanboy, I always go with AMD whenever I can.
But a high-end FM2+ motherboard, it’s useless. Not worth it.
Current APUs are for budget gaming builds without the need to spend on a dedicated GPU, not this.
Athlon will stack up just
Athlon will stack up just fine with an i5
FM2+ isn’t just for APUs.
It is unfortunate that the
It is unfortunate that the TrueAudio portion is bundled in with the GPU on APUs. The Athlons don't enable that particular functionality. Not a big deal if you use a couple of R9 285s or R9 290s, but still… if you go for an NV part, you are out of luck.
Just bought this new
Just bought this new motherboard and doing a new install and the motherboard runs for one second and then shut down abruptly.
Your mention of the ASUS
Your mention of the ASUS Crosshair Extreme was a bit harsh to say the least.See it’s people like yourself that weren’t educated enough to know how the logix setup even worked and still don’t, so you dismiss it. Like alot of far advanced technology. To say I still crank mad benchmarks with this board do to the lack of support for the AMD chipset, there is not much to work with. Do to intel fanboys flipping noobs to that side of the road so AMD gets no true support in sales leading makers to build intel crap boards.
Wait… what?
Wait… what?