ASRock FM2A85X Extreme6 Motherboard

On-Board Peripherals

The AMD A85X chipset is a single-chip solution. This chip supports eight SATA-600 ports with RAID (0, 1, 10, and 5). On the ASRock FM2A85X Extreme6, one of these ports was routed to the motherboard’s rear panel as an eSATA-600 port.

All SATA ports are located at the motherboard’s edge, and six of them are rotated 90°, so video cards won’t block them. See Figure 4.

Figure 4: SATA-600 ports

The AMD A85X chipset supports two USB 1.1 ports, 10 USB 2.0 ports, and four USB 3.0 ports. The ASRock FM2A85X Extreme6 offers eight USB 2.0 ports, two soldered on the rear panel and six available through three headers located on the motherboard; and six USB 3.0 ports, four located on the motherboard rear panel and two available on a header located on the motherboard, near the main power supply connector. The two additional USB 3.0 ports are controlled by an ASMedia ASM1042 chip.

The ASRock FM2A85X Extreme6 doesn’t have FireWire ports.

This motherboard supports 7.1+2 audio format, i.e., eight channels plus two independent channels for audio streaming. On this motherboard, the audio is generated by the chipset using the Realtek ALC898 codec, which is an outstanding solution, providing an impressive 110 dB signal-to-noise ratio for the analog outputs, 104 dB signal-to-noise ratio for the analog inputs, and up to 192 kHz sampling rate for both inputs and outputs, with 24-bit resolution. This means you are able to capture and edit analog audio (e.g., converting LPs to CDs or MP3, converting VHS to DVDs or any other digital format, etc.) with this motherboard without adding any background noise.

The motherboard has on-board optical SPDIF output. A header labeled “HDMI_SPDIF1” also provides SPDIF output for you to install a coaxial SPDIF output or to route digital audio to older video cards that require this physical connection in order to have digital audio output in their HDMI connectors.

The analog audio outputs are independent only if you use a 5.1 analog speaker set. If you install a 7.1 analog speaker set, you will need to use either the “mic in” or the “line in” jacks.

The portrayed motherboard has one Gigabit Ethernet port controlled by a Realtek RTL8111E chip.

In Figure 5, you can see the motherboard rear panel with a shared PS/2 keyboard/mouse connector, four USB 3.0 ports, VGA output, DVI-D output, HDMI output, DisplayPort output, clear CMOS button, two USB 2.0 ports, one eSATA-600 port, Gigabit Ethernet port, optical SPDIF output, and the analog audio jacks.

Figure 5: Motherboard rear panel