The A88X-Pro the top of the crop in Asus’ latest range of motherboards for AMD’s new Kaveri range of processors using Socket FM2+. This is the board that I used in the AMD A10-7850K Review.
The board comes in ASUS’ signature golden themed finish, an apt motherboard for someone with ‘gold’ in his or her name such as myself.
The layout is clean but the CPU12V socket’s placement is rather close to the Northbridge heatsink.
Forward facing SATA ports are great as they don’t obstruct GPU placement. There’s a POWER LED indicator and CMOS reset button nearby.
Nicely spaced PCI-E slots for good ventilation when running multiple GPU.
A host of output, from the old VGA / PS/2 ports to the latest like DisplayPort. What else could you ask for? Thunderbolt? 😛
And what I’m most happy to have – LED Status indicator! It’s the best way to find out why the system isn’t booting up, especially for people like me who try various hardware and tweak the settings.
More details at the official product page.
GPU Boost
And so I wonder whether the GPU Boost really works ……..
Unigine Heaven 4.0
*720 Low = no AA, no tessalation, low details.
| Card | 720p LOW(avg) | 720p (avg) |
| A10-7850K | 59.5 | 17.1 |
| A10-7850K (2400mhz RAM) | 56.1 | 21.1 |
| A10-7850K + GPU Boost (2400mhz RAM) | 56.1 | 22.1 |
And it worked!!! 😀 The GPU Boost is no marketing gimmick, I set the option to EXTREME as it was default to AUTO to get the boost.
The Verdict
The board retails at around RM 500 and it’s a solid one, especially for overclocking the APU. The board worked well throughout my long hours of testing the APU.
If you could live without the eSATA ports, DisplayPort and the additional 3rd PCI-E slot then there’s a Plus variant that’s a lot cheaper but works similarly.
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