Board Software

For included software, we find the long-lived standard of EasyTune for board-level tweaking, wrapped in the same old and familiar interface. The tool itself provides listings of system information for both the CPU and the memory, as well as providing access to voltage and clock adjustments, as seen in the images above. There is a section for automatic overclocking profiles as well as manual settings, and as is usual for high-end boards, we found the voltage section to offer a multitude of settings that can all be adjusted from within the OS.


EasyTune6 also provides access to SmartFan controls, as well as providing a bit of monitoring capabilities, shown in the second and third images above. In all honesty, we find the EasyTune software a bit clunky, and much prefer to access all of these options from the BIOS, rather than from within the OS as quite a few settings still require a reboot before they can be applied. Having used this same tool for years, we really feel it is ready for an update.


What has been updated, however, is the software VRM interface, this time called "3D Power". The four images above show the menus of that software interface, which provides access to all the same VRM options we found in BIOS. It is a nice and easy-to-use software, but again, we much prefer to make such adjustments from within the BIOS itself. At the same time, those that wish to do a bit of tweaking from within Windows do have the option if so desired.


The final piece of software is another familiar one, called "Smart6". Providing an interface to six other tools, the Smart6 panel leads into the software shown in the images below.


We find monitoring software, access to quick-boot options, options to set profiles for the BIOS and lock them with a password, a quick overclock utility, and finally a software called Smart Recovery 2, which provides a tool for system back-up. All of the tools are easy to use, and have been around for a while, so are quite stable as well.

The entire software suite is fairly robust, but it's one area that hasn't seen a lot of changes with the new series of products. All of the software works really well, but we would have been a bit happier with even something as simple as a new skin to match the new products, or something similar to present to software in a new way, but we also like having familiar tools to work with, too.