Board Software

ASRock's software is much like it's EFI—functional, but quite dated. It has basic voltage controls with the main thrust of the A-Tuning software being fan control. The System Info tab is detailed, and you're able to see both MOS and thermal sensor temperatures, which is useful. The software is actually easier to deal with than the EFI, especially when it comes to assigning thermal sensors to fan speed.

What we'd really like to see here is some kind of switch to allow for coolant temperature input. This varies far less than air temperature and sits within a narrow range. Tweaking the fan speed with this in mind is difficult here as the range is so wide, whereas coolant temperature needs to focus on a range between say 30 and 50 degrees Celsius at most. Just an idea seeing as ASRock includes three thermistor inputs on this board, but this applies to other manufacturers too. Interestingly you can also switch to the graphics card temp, which would be useful for anyone that's de-shrouded your graphics card to use high performance PC fans. The software can also be set to start at Windows startup if you want to use it as your primary means of fan control, which we wouldn't blame you for, given the EFI is even more basic.

The RGB software needs attention though. We got security errors thrown up during installation. Clicking through these did allow the software to work fully, but thankfully there is RGB control on the EFI too. The software does work well, though, and gives full control over individual headers, PCB and I/O lighting.