Looking for a small board drive a 6800K...probably.

Plimogz

Senior member
Oct 3, 2009
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I'm toying with the idea of building up a Richland system just to experience what modern AMD integrated graphics + unlocked multipliers can feel like. And while I'm pretty set on just going straight for the 6800K, I'm having trouble finding an FM2 board which catches my eye around the $100 mark.

First off, let me just point out that I'm up in Canada, so I'm pretty much just looking for interesting products or reviews -- unless we're talking about Canadian deals.

Also, I'm leaning strongly towards either uATX or mini-ITX; with my preference, all things being equal, going to the latter. But I'll happily opt for the slightly larger form-factor if it saves me some money, buys me some better power circuitry, or whatever. Although expansion slots are not at all high on my priorities list.

From what I can tell, with the 100W processors being the upper limit for the socket, I'll be pushing any board I get by OCing the chip, so I'd like something with a little bit extra in that department, ideally.

As it stands, I'm looking at the Asrock FM2A85X Extreme4-M for $85 AR, which looks pretty good, but I just don't see myself needing the second PCI-E 16x or legacy PCI slots and could easily do without some of those SATA ports. Not to mention that I can certainly manage with only 2 sticks of RAM here.

And while the price seems about right, I can't find any good reviews on it; nor can I get over the impression that if all the things which I don't need were removed, I could maybe get a mini-ITX board with all of what I do want, and cram it into a nice little box.