ASRock 990FX Extreme 9 Motherboard Review

[News Team]

When it comes to looking for an AMD motherboard with the 990FX chipset, there are few new options right now. The 990FX chipset from AMD has been around for more then a few years now and we have recently only seen manufacturers doing revisions to the existing chipset boards. We are unsure on when the launch of a possible new chipset will be for AMD so for now it looks like it will remain at the top.Today we will take a look at one of the newest of these current top-tier motherboards, the ASRock 990FX Extreme 9. ASRock's previous top motherboard was the Fatal1ty 990FX Professional. How will this board stack up with today's new FX series processors and the piledriver architecture? We will put that to the test.

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[Doctor_Death]

Good review Kenny, Nice looking and great performing board from ASRock

[TheMadDutchDude]

Good review indeed.

Does your FX-8350 sample not OC higher than that on higher boards? Mine hits 5.2 on 1.52v but it isn't fully stable.

[Doctor_Death]

When we publish a motherboard review, we have to show the best stable overclock. Like you mentioned, you hit 5.2GHz, but it's not stable, so what good is it lol

[TheMadDutchDude]

Yeah, true. I should have mentioned that it is perfectly stable at 5GHz on 1.5v and 5.1 on 1.52v ish.

[Doctor_Death]

We'll be getting new Z87 boards in soon, from ASRock, Gigabyte, and MSI, so I'm going to look into getting Kenny a LN2 pot so he can start pushing chips further. At the moment 'm trying to secure a 4770K engineers sample from a friend in Hong Kong, but so far all he has is the 4765T

[TheMadDutchDude]

Extreme OC reviews? Can't wait!

Is LN2 more easily available in the US? I'm guessing it is and it is far cheaper than it is here.

[Solara2xb]

We did hit 5.2ghz during the overclock for reviews at 1.53volts, but it wasn't stable enough to run any of the benchmarks.
I got CPUz opened, but it would lock up shortly after.

I also got 5.0ghz, but wasn't 100% stable, I can run the simple benchmarks like SuperPi, wPrime and other ones, but once I put a heavier load, it would BSOD. So in turn I was unable to run all the benchmarks.
4.8ghz was the most stable running ALL the benchmarks without hick ups and passing Intel burn in test and also Prime95. Which is why we used that for the review.

Anyone can get the system to boot to 5.0ghz and try to capture a CPuz validation as fast as possible, but whats the point if we can run any benchmarks showing the improvements of overclocking?? So we try to be fair... and report what is actually stable.

[calemus]

well this is a seriously good looking board from what the review is saying
more of the 990FX boards pleas!!!

[TheMadDutchDude]

We did hit 5.2ghz during the overclock for reviews at 1.53volts, but it wasn't stable enough to run any of the benchmarks.
I got CPUz opened, but it would lock up shortly after.

I also got 5.0ghz, but wasn't 100% stable, I can run the simple benchmarks like SuperPi, wPrime and other ones, but once I put a heavier load, it would BSOD. So in turn I was unable to run all the benchmarks.
4.8ghz was the most stable running ALL the benchmarks without hick ups and passing Intel burn in test and also Prime95. Which is why we used that for the review.

Anyone can get the system to boot to 5.0ghz and try to capture a CPuz validation as fast as possible, but whats the point if we can run any benchmarks showing the improvements of overclocking?? So we try to be fair... and report what is actually stable.

There's no disagreeing there. I was just asking whether your sample could hit higher than that.

I know that the results have to be reliable. Apologies if it came across in the wrong way. I guess it is just an example of how the silicone can vary, isn't it?

Either way, as said before, it is a great review and I enjoyed reading it. Kudos.

[vinman]

Great review awesome pics, and information, and a really nice board I love the layout

[Solara2xb]

There's no disagreeing there. I was just asking whether your sample could hit higher than that.

I know that the results have to be reliable. Apologies if it came across in the wrong way. I guess it is just an example of how the silicone can vary, isn't it?

Either way, as said before, it is a great review and I enjoyed reading it. Kudos.

Thanks. No problem. No hard feeling taken from it just wanted to note that we did try. The chip sample I have does do 5.0 ghz pretty stable. I did it with the crosshair v formula z. Under the same set up but the voltage was much more stable on that board.

[TheMadDutchDude]

I found that my chip did far better on a CHV than any other board as well.

I'm glad no feelings were hurt. Keep up the good work!

[SamCR3]

Great review Kenny and a very nice board. I wouldn't mind having this board at all.

[JamesLT3]

Great review Kenny! Thats a slick looking board at a good price.

[xelosia]

Great review Kenny nice board thanks for posting