Adaptive uses the VID of the CPU to control voltage like running stock, only with a changing the voltage to ramp to a higher level or stock if you want. All the motherboards have the same option just different names, Asus adaptive, Asrock offset, Gigabyte dynamic DVID. It is a power saving option that allows the processor to only demand Vcore according to load, multiplier, temperature. Example when running DVID +0.070 or Adaptive +1.335v then prime95 1.332v then running RealBench 1.272v.
It is real easy to set adaptive, I don't bother with manual setting of voltage first, I just go strait to adaptive/dynamic and use HWmontor to capture peak load Vcore that I like when stress testing and I'm done.