Testing methodology
Comparison systems |
|||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Motherboard | ASRock FM2A75 Pro4-M | Gigabyte F2-A85X-UP4 | ASRock A75M-ITX | ||||
| Motherboard BIOS | 1.70 | F3G | 1.60 | ||||
| Chipset driver | AMD Catalyst 12.8 SB | ||||||
| Processor | AMD A10-5800K | AMD A8-3870K | |||||
| Memory | Patriot IEM 8GB (2x4GB) | ||||||
| Memory timings | 9-9-9-24-1T @ 1,600MHz | ||||||
| Graphics | AMD HD 7660D (onboard) | AMD HD 6550D (onboard) | |||||
| Graphics driver | AMD Catalyst 12.8 | ||||||
| Disk drive | Samsung 830 Series 256GB SSD | ||||||
| Chassis | Corsair Graphite 600T | ||||||
| Power supply | Corsair AX750 | ||||||
| Operating system | Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 64-bit | ||||||
CPU and memory benchmarks |
|||||||
| AIDA64 |
Benchmark that analyses memory bandwidth and latency | ||||||
| HEXUS.PiFast |
Our number-crunching benchmark stresses a single core by calculating Pi to 10m places | ||||||
| PCMark 7 |
An all-encompassing test to evaluate system performance | ||||||
| X264 HD v5.01 | All-core video-transcoding test. Second pass noted | ||||||
| CINEBENCH 11.5 | Using Cinebench's multi-CPU render, this cross-platform benchmark stresses all cores | ||||||
GPU benchmarks |
|||||||
| 3DMark 11 | DX11, run with the entry preset | ||||||
| 3DMark Vantage | DX10, run at the default performance preset | ||||||
| DiRT Showdown | DX9, 1,280x720 medium-quality settings | ||||||
| Batman: Arkham City | DX9, 1,280x720, high-quality settings | ||||||
General benchmarks |
|||||||
| Storage performance | USB 3.0 read and write speed, SSD average read and write speed | ||||||
| Power consumption | While idling and when running X264 HD and Batman: Arkham City | ||||||
Notes
It makes sense to compare the ASRock A75 against a top-line A85X board from Gigabyte, thereby showing you just how well the cheaper board stacks up against an offering that's designed for performance. We've also added in numbers from an ASRock Mini-ITX board running the last-generation A8-3870K APU. The purpose here is to evaluate, as a platform, the advances made by AMD and its partners over the last year or so.
