Asrock articles

Enthusiasts building their own PCs are accustomed to keeping up with latest drivers, especially when it comes to things like graphics cards. Motherboard BIOS updates are also critical to get the most out of your hardware and improved compatibility.

The Asrock DeskMini A300 is a tiny PC that takes advantage of Ryzen processors. Almost every custom designed mini PC that we've seen to date has used Intel inside and while Intel CPUs are very good, they aren't the best choice for this kind of system. At least if you want to game or do any kind of 3D work, for that AMD's Ryzen APUs are unrivaled.

First things first, you need to choose sides. Whether you're going AMD or Intel, there are loads of motherboards to choose from. If you've followed our previous motherboard buying guides covering Z370, B450 and X470 motherboards, you're probably in for a surprise once you see how this one turned out.

With the first AMD B450 motherboards just popping up, truth be told, there aren't that many good ones to choose from, certainly not nearly as many as we'd like and not as many as there could be. Asus and Gigabyte options are somewhat disappointing so far, Asrock has done a decent job, but it's MSI who really turned things around. We hope these picks will help narrow down your search for the perfect B450 motherboard.

There's already loads of great AMD X470 motherboards to choose from starting as low as $130. Asus, Asrock, MSI and Gigabyte have all done a great job with their boards and to be completely honest, for the most part you can't go wrong.

Following to our best motherboard picks on Intel's Z370 and AMD's budget B350 platform, today we're checking out the best value Intel B360 motherboards. Our criteria for this one was simple: the boards must feature some form of VRM cooling to be considered, and of course, pricing. Less than $100 a pop.

Today we're checking out Asrock's latest DeskMini PC, a name that may ring a bell if you read our review of the original a couple of years ago. The latest version features support for MXM mobile GPUs (GTX 1060 or GTX 1080) and Intel's 8th-gen Core series on a small 2.7L chassis.

After looking at our selection of the best AMD B350 motherboards, now we're looking at our favorite Z370 motherboards meant to be coupled with Intel's latest 8th-gen Core processors a.k.a. Coffee Lake. There are loads of great Z370 motherboards to choose from and pricing starts at a little over $100. The good news is that for the most part you can’t go really wrong, but as usual we hope these picks can help you narrow down your choices.

Today we're talking what we think the best AMD B350 motherboards are across multiple categories and budgets. We've selected five boards that include affordable (and very affordable) options, best overclocker and the all-important best looking board.

There are many reasons why you might need to find your motherboard's brand and model number. Looking to update drivers or the BIOS is most common, but you may also want to check compatibility, discover specs, or look for a replacement. And with OEM PCs and laptops, it's not always as straightforward as checking the box of your motherboard's box.

Kick starting 2017, Intel's Kaby Lake processors made some minor performance improvements to Skylake through what might as well be described as factory overclocking. Making the release more exciting, board partners including Asrock launched alongside some drool-inducing Z270 motherboards. Two of which we are reviewing today.

I've been using the Asrock Beebox as my day to day HTPC for a few months and it's been doing a fantastic job, so I didn't expect it to be replaced so soon. Nonetheless, Asrock has sent an updated Beebox-S model sporting Intel's new 7th-generation processor based on the Kaby Lake-U architecture.

Those on the hunt for an affordable book-sized HTPC will have likely come across the impressive Asrock Beebox. Now meet the faster Asrock Beebox-S. Powered by a Core i5-6200U, the mini PC has received other enhancements including DDR4 memory support, a high-speed PCIe 3.0 x4 M.2 slot, USB 3.1 Type-C and 4K support at 60Hz via HDMI 2.0 and DP 1.4.

The Asrock DeskMini 110 mini-STX form factor PC certainly has an industrial look about it, and it looks a bit drab sitting next to the Cubi 2 Plus from MSI. What it lacks in aesthetics, however, it makes up for in ease of installation and flexibility, thanks to those very same design choices, with support for pretty much any Skylake desktop processor and high-speed NVMe SSDs.

For the most part we test using DDR4-3000, as it occasionally shows some benefits over the more typical 2400 and 2666 MHz speeds. Going to 4000 MHz and beyond is a massive increase in frequency (and cost) and I struggled to imagine where this would be useful, particularly when gaming. Then again, curiosity had gotten the better of me...

Building a new PC is all about choices and tradeoffs. Picking between AMD and Intel is usually the first choice you have to make, but it certainly isn’t the most complicated. Instead, that honour goes to the motherboard, with each board maker typically offering at least half a dozen different models based on a single chipset. We've done a lot of the homework for you to save you some time, money, and/or regret. Here's what we believe is the very best out there.

In overclocking circles it was recently noted that BCLK (base clock) overclocking might become a possibility in Skylake processors, but it would be up to motherboard manufacturers to circumvent Intel's restrictions. Last night Asrock contacted us with an updated BIOS that enabled this. We jumped at the opportunity and have already tested and benched a Core i3-6100 Skylake CPU with a 1GHz overclock (4.7GHz) on air cooling.