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ASRock's Z87 Extreme9/ac motherboard conforms to the ATX form factor. The board uses a solid PCB which looks brown when viewed in a well-lit environment. In a case, the board should look black enough to make it fit in with the style of surrounding components.
Four DIMM slots support up to 32GB of DDR3 memory operating at speeds in excess of 2933MHz. The Z87 Extreme9/ac motherboard's memory support list indicates that 3000MHz+ kits from G.Skill, ADATA, and Avexir are compatible.
The 24-pin connector is located in its usual position, along the upper-right edge of the motherboard. Two USB 3.0 headers are found in the usual location that makes them easy-to-access for front panel devices.
ASRock leaves a sufficient amount of clearance between the LGA 1150 CPU socket and the four DIMM slots to minimise CPU cooler interference issues.
ASRock's Dual-Stack MOSFETs from the twelve phase power delivery system are cooled by a relatively low-profile black and silver heatsink. The Z87 Extreme9/ac motherboard's gold capacitors should also receive enough incidental airflow to keep them cool.
Both of the ‘Hi-Density' 8-pin CPU power connectors are found on the board's upper edge, in very close proximity to the socket area. The power connectors will be very difficult to reach when used inside a confined case, or with large CPU coolers, such as the Phanteks PH-TC14PE.
Four fan headers are positioned around the CPU socket area of the Z87 Extreme9/ac. Two headers are given CPU fan duties, while one features limited speed control, and the other is simply a powered connection.
The Z87 Extreme9/ac features five x16-length PCI-E slots which are capable of housing 4-way SLI and CrossFire configurations, thanks to the PLX PEX8747 switch. Slot PCIE_2 (second from the top) is to be used for a single card configuration as in this mode its 16 PCI-E lanes are fed directly from the CPU, bypassing the latency-increasing PLX switch.
To my annoyance, ASRock leaves an empty space in the fourth slot position. I see this as nothing more than wasted space on a crammed motherboard PCB. Even a PCI-E 1x slot would have been useful there as it would allow users with dual triple-slot graphics cards to install an extra add-on device such as a sound card, while leaving ample cooling room for their graphics boards.
A Broadcom mini PCI-E wireless adapter provides a dual-band, two-stream 802.11ac WiFi connection capable of up to 867Mb/s transfer rates on the 2.4GHz and 5GHz frequency bands. Bluetooth 4.0 connectivity is also provided by the card. The card is connected by a pair of wires to the two antennae located in the Wi-SD box.
In our testing with a Tenda N60 Wireless-N router and Nexus 4 smartphone, both the WiFi and bluetooth worked without problems.
The front panel connections are found in the usual location along the board's bottom edge. An internally-mounted USB port located on the board is useful for future devices such as higher-powered WiFi adapters or permanent memory sticks.
Onboard power and reset buttons are found in the board's bottom-right area. This location makes them easy to access, unless they are blocked by long graphics cards installed in the lower slots.
A molex connector is mounted at a right angle on the board's lower edge. It provides the additional power that is required by multi-VGA configurations, and thanks to its mounting orientation, doesn't impede cable management efforts.
Ten right-angled SATA 6Gb/s ports are located in their usual location along the board's lower-right edge. Z87 SATA 6Gb/s connections are given to the six ports on the left. The four ports to the right operate from ASMedia ASM1061 chipsets and port SATA3_A4 shares its connection with the rear panel eSATA port.
A pair of BIOS chips is located adjacent to the SATA banks. ASRock implements the Z87 Extreme9/ac with a dual BIOS system that can help to prevent the ‘bricking' of a motherboard.
Two outwards-facing USB 3.0 internal headers are found to the right of the SATA ports. Cable management efforts would be made easier if one of the headers was right-angled on the board's edge, as we saw MSI do with its Z87 XPower.
Beneath the ASRock Purity Sound casing is a Realtek ALC1150 audio chip. The isolated circuit also combines a pair of operational amplifiers – Texas Instruments' NE5532 – which feature a 115 dB signal-to-noise ratio, making the Z87 Extreme9/ac motherboard's audio configuration excellent for use with high-quality analogue equipment.
Dual gigabit Ethernet is provided by Intel I211-AT and I217V PCI-E controllers. An Intel DSL4510 controller operates the dual Thunderbolt ports. The left and right pairs of USB 3.0 ports are powered by an ASMedia ASM1074 hub, while the central ports operate from the Z87 chipset.
Motherboard rear ports:
- 1 x PS/2 Mouse/Keyboard Port
- 1 x HDMI Port
- 1 x DisplayPort Input for Thunderbolt™ port
- 2 x Thunderbolt™ Ports (Support Thunderbolt™ devices or DisplayPort monitors)
- 1 x Optical SPDIF Out Port
- 1 x eSATA Connector
- 2 x USB 2.0 Ports
- 2 x USB 3.0 Ports (Intel® Z87)
- 4 x USB 3.0 Ports (ASMedia hub)
- 2 x RJ-45 LAN Ports with LED (ACT/LINK LED and SPEED LED)
- 1 x Clear CMOS Switch
- HD Audio Jacks: Rear Speaker / Central / Bass / Line in / Front Speaker / Microphone
Circled above are the locations of the Z87 Extreme9/ac motherboard's fan headers. A 3-pin and 4-pin header are given CPU duties, three fan connectors can be speed-controlled via the BIOS, and one header is glued at 100% speed (which makes it good for our Corsair H100i's pump power connector).
Motherboard slots and connectors:
- 1 x IR Header
- 1 x COM Port Header
- 1 x Power LED Header
- 2 x CPU Fan Connectors (1 x 4-pin, 1 x 3-pin)
- 3 x Chassis Fan Connectors (1 x 4-pin, 2 x 3-pin)
- 1 x Power Fan Connector (3-pin)
- 1 x 24 pin ATX Power Connector
- 2 x 8 pin 12V Power Connectors (Hi-Density Power Connectors)
- 1 x SLI/XFire Power Connector
- 1 x Front Panel Audio Connector
- 3 x USB 2.0 Headers (Support 6 USB 2.0 ports)
- 1 x Vertical Type A USB 2.0
- 2 x USB 3.0 Headers (Support 6 USB 3.0 ports)
- 1 x Dr. Debug with LED
- 1 x Power Switch with LED
- 1 x Reset Switch with LED
- 1 x BIOS Selection Switch
ASRock equips its Z87 Extreme9/ac with attractive heatsinks which also serve the purpose of cooling the MOSFETs and PLX PEX8747 PCI-E switch. The heatsinks are low profile enough to reduce the possibility of interference with large CPU coolers.
All three heatsinks are connected by a flattened heatpipe. The twelve phase power delivery system is controlled by an ISL6379 digital PWM voltage regulator.
A PLX PEX8747 PCI-E switch provides the lanes required by a 4-way graphics card configuration.
As we mentioned earlier in the review, ASRock's positioning of the dual 8-pin power connectors makes them awkward to access in a confined environment. In our circumstance, it was the Corsair H100i CPU cooler that was preventing clear access to the power connectors.
