Test System And Methodology
We used the following pre-defined test system – only the motherboard varies between reviews. We only compare results where consistent components have been used.
A88X Motherboard Test System
- Motherboard – Varies by review
- Processor – AMD A10-6800K APU at Stock Clocks with Turbo Enabled
- RAM – 16GB (2 X 8GB) Corsair Vengeance Pro Series at 2400MHz and 10-12-12-31-2T
- Graphics Card – XFX HD 7970 Double Dissipation (Stock Clocks)
- CPU Cooler – Corsair H100i (Quiet at stock and Performance at overclocked) with Noctua NT-H1 Thermal Paste
- Power Supply – Corsair HX1050W
- Main Storage Drive – Kingston HyperX 240GB SSD over SATA III interface
- Additional Storage Drive – Patriot Wildfire 120GB SSD over SATA III interface
- Chassis – Lian Li PC-T60 Test Bench
- Display – Dell U2711 Ultra Sharp @ 1080p
- Operating System – Windows 7 Ultimate 64 Bit
We would like to thank Asus, Intel, AMD, Corsair, Kingston, Lian Li, Noctua and all our other partners who supplied us with test equipment and hardware. Their generosity makes our testing possible and without them we wouldn’t be able to produce the reviews we do, so thank you!
For the testing procedures we use a variety of professional software and free to use programs which you can see below. The full details of each test will be available preceding the graphs if you are interested in the details for purposes of result replication or further enquiry.
Software used:
- 3DMark 11 v1.05 (Professional)
- AIDA64 Extreme Edition v3.20.2600 (Professional)
- Cinebench R15 Build RC83328DEMO (Free)
- CPU-Z v1.67 (Free)
- PCMark 7 v1.4.0 (Professional)
- Super PI Mod 1.9 WP (Free)
- 3DMark (2013) v1.1 (Professional)
- Rightmark Audio Analyser v6.3 (Free)
Fantastic review and a nice product too! If someone wants to build a system around a current gen premium Asus board then I guess this is the cheapest option. Yet the irony is that it’s somewhat expensive for an APU build! But one look at Asus’s Z87/H87 offerings in this price range and you’d know this value for money.
Totally agree with you on those two e-SATAs – Asus messed this one up! (Should’ve included as a con!!)