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Asrock 880G Extreme 3 review

Asrock 880G Extreme 3
Our Rating :
Price when reviewed : £80
inc VAT

It's a great board at a reasonable price, but you can get more features for the same amount of money elsewhere.

Specifications

AM3, ATX, AMD 880G chipset, supports: Phenom II, Athlon II, Sempron 100

http://www.lambda-tek.com/componentshop

Asrock’s 880G Extreme 3 AM3 motherboard is a well-equipped ATX board with loads of expansion slots, SATA III, USB3 and an integrated ATI Radeon HD 4250 graphics processor. Its three PCI-E x16 slots support ATI’s CrossFireX standard if you insist on having multiple graphics cards.

Considering the small performance increase, these slots are better thought of as additional standard expansion slots for peripherals along with the PCI-E x1 slot. There are also three PCI slots, allowing you to add cards that use this older connection standard.

The motherboard has six SATA III connectors and an eSATA port on its backplane. A supplied bracket allows you to add an eSATA III port to the back of your PC if you need one, though. The motherboard’s backplane also includes two USB3 ports, alongside four USB2 ports and a FireWire connection. The onboard VIA audio processor can output 7.1 surround sound via six analogue stereo ports or optical S/PDIF.

Asrock 880G Extreme 3

Overclockers and upgraders will be pleased with the onboard power and reset buttons, which make the motherboard easy to test before you go the trouble of connecting it to your case’s switches. There’s also a handy Clear CMOS button on the backplane, which allows you to easily restore your motherboard to its default settings. An LED display shows POST codes, making it easy to diagnose errors.

Despite an excellent range of features and a very reasonable price, the Asus M4A88TD-V EVO/USB3’s easy overclocking features give it the slight edge.

Basic Specifications

Rating ****
Processor socket AM3
Form factor ATX
Size 305x244mm
Processor support Phenom II, Athlon II, Sempron 100
Processor external bus 260MHz (2.6GHz HyperTransport)
Chipset north bridge AMD 880G
Chipset south bridge AMD SB850
Passively-cooled north bridge yes
Integrated graphics Yes
Supported memory type DDR3 1066/1333/1600/1800
Maximum memory speed PC3-14400
Memory slots 4
Maximum memory 16GB
Dual-channel support yes

Buying Information

Price £80
Supplier http://www.lambda-tek.com/componentshop
Details www.asrock.com

Internal Ports

Power connectors 1x 24-pin ATX, 1x 8-pin ATX
PCI-E x16 slots 3
Dual graphics architecture Hybrid CrossFireX
PCI-E x4 slots 0
PCI-E x1 slots 0
PCI slots 3
Fan headers 3
Floppy ports 0
IDE ports 0
Serial ATA ports 6
RAID chipset (max disks) AMD SB850 (6x SATA III, RAID 0, 1, 0+1, 5)

Features

Wired network ports 1x 10/100/1000
Sound (ports) Via VT2020 (5x analogue out, optical S/PDIF)
USB2 ports / headers 6/4
Firewire ports / headers 1/1
Legacy ports 1x PS/2, serial header
Other ports 1x eSATA III, 2x USB3, 6x SATA III, DVI, VGA, HDMI
Cables included 4x SATA
Brackets included 1x eSATA
Software included drivers only

Setup and Overclocking

Voltage adjustment CPU/RAM/Chipset
CPU clock max adjustment 500MHz

Read more

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