Replacing board in my FM2+ machine, anyone know this new board?

[Shehriazad]

So one of my ITX machines has been broken for a while, (Can only use one ram socket due to the other one being 100% dead and the 1st one also keeps spazzing out every once in a while, warranty is gone) and since I decided to fix that one on the cheap side of things (I still got the 2nd ram, so all I need is just the new board) I was on the lookout.

Today however I stumbled upon this...I have no idea why exactly, but ASRock has decided to make a new FM2+ board in 2016...it looks interesting...but I can barely find anything about it.

Basically, all I want from it is for my DDR2400 16GB Ram to run properly and also being able to maintain the same overclock of 4500Mhz on my 860K...on the feature side it seems alright...if anyone has any input, I'll gladly hear it.

Board in question is :
ASRock A88M-ITX/AC AMD A88X So.FM2+

 

[VirtualLarry]

Uhm, you might get more responses, if you at least indicated WHICH board you are talking about. A link or a model name might be helpful. Thanks.

 

[Shehriazad]

Pffff Haha, I was sure I had actually copy pasted it in here....must've been derping, sorry about that.

I mean this board:
ASRock A88M-ITX/AC AMD A88X So.FM2+


All I can find is ONE measly review on it...and it's not even a very good one. I know that FM2+ isn't really the pinnacle of fame...but still.

 

[Valantar]

I have what seems like a close precursor to this in my HTPC - the FM2A88X-ITX+. It's paired with an A8-7600 and DDR3-2133, and works okay. It's stable and hasn't given me any big headaches, but I've had a bit of bother with it:

-For some reason, HDMI doesn't wake up properly after sleep. I've read that this is a not-uncommon issue on a variety of boards and platforms, though.
-XMP needs to be enabled manually.
-I had some intermittent instability when running the A8 in 45W mode. Put it back to 65W, no issues.
-It kind of derped out after a recent BIOS update (labeled my boot drive as SATA instead of AHCI), but nothing five minutes of troubleshooting couldn't fix.
-OCing the iGPU to 847mHz is fine, more than that won't boot.
-ASRock doesn't seem to have updated most of the software stack for Windows 10 ...

In general, the hardware seems solid, but the software is so-so. Works fine for me, just not perfect. I haven't tried OCing the CPU, as it's meant to be a quiet build. The included fan tuning software is great - runs through the PWM range to determine RPMs, and lets you set pretty complex fan curves for all onboard headers. HDMI input/pass-through is very nifty for HTPC use.

OTOH, the board you're talking about is a lower-end version than mine, with a worse audio codec (and no optical audio) and fewer ports, but it uses an 8-pin CPU power plug rather than 4-pin, but with 5 phases of CPU power instead of 6. No idea what this might (or might not) mean for OCing.


Tl;dr: probably a decent board, just dont expect it to be 100% perfect.

 

[Shehriazad]

The board you're talking about is a lower-end version than mine, with a worse audio codec (and no optical audio) and fewer ports, but it uses an 8-pin CPU power plug rather than 4-pin, but with 5 phases of CPU power instead of 6. No idea what this might (or might not) mean for OCing.


Tl;dr: probably a decent board, just dont expect it to be 100% perfect.

OCing I think I'll be fine since I only plan on running the CPU at a crispy 4.5 Ghz. 4.7 Ghz is too much for my casual cooling solution...no idea how the 8-pin will affect it in combination with the different phases (I actually have the SAME board you are using in your machine)

As for the Audio...no optical is unimportant for me and realtek pretty much only touts one difference...which is that it doesn't say " HD Audio Codec with Content Protection"....on the other hand side it also advertises ELNA caps...which the A88X isn't advertising...so I guess it doesn't have it...either way, I only use this PC with headphones....I don't think I'd hear much of a difference.


Either way, thanks a lot for your input...I might post a little review on that board once I gave it a few spins.

 

[PingSpike]

I have two full ATX A88x chipset boards. One is a gigabyte and the other a similarly configured but cheaper Asrock. The gigabyte is very solid, the asrock has a number of quirks and the more recent bioses introduced regressions to AMD-Vi support.

 

[Shehriazad]

Just put in the board and gave it a ride.

Overclock runs at exactly the same Voltage, sound is pretty much the same as far as I can tell with my cheap $60 headphones (except for having a tiny bit less max volume it seems) and after swapping out the board I didn't even need to reactivate Windows....which might be because of the Anniversary uptate...who knows.

Did a soft reinstall (installed new windows and deleted windows.old) and everything works just as before...except that now I can use 16gigs again instead of 8 gigs of ram...praise baby jesus.


If you don't need all the extra connectors...this board seems just fine. Only downside: The board is advertised as black...which it is...but the little metal backplate for the backside of your PC is just boring silver...unlike the A88X one which comes with a blackened plate.