The ASrock P55 Extreme4 has proven in our testing to be a very impressive motherboard for the 1156 platform. The balance of featureset and performance is intoxicating …. with in built support for both SATA 600 and USB 3.0 across a total of eight ports. We also like the front USB 3.0 panel which adds value for money to the overall product.
Overclocking is where this product also shines, with the latest beta bios we were able to take our Intel 750 CPU to 4ghz, a 50% overclock, by simply selecting one setting in the bios. Manual overclocking is also well catered for with a wealth of options, meaning we could push the CPU even further to 4.2ghz with higher core voltages.
With support for both Crossfire and SLi and a detailed POST diagnostics display, you will never be wanting for gaming power and backup support if something goes wrong. The fact that ASrock have cut 775 cooler mounting holes into the PCB is also a nice touch, this could save money on a potential upgrade for an enthusiast user who already has a good third party cooler.
Throughout all of our testing we would rate this product as one of the most stable motherboards we have tested, when we pushed our Quad core 750 processor to 4.4ghz, the system safely managed to recover to the bios, without even using the handy CMOS clear on the back panel.
The price in the UK is said to be around the £125 price point which makes it a very solid buy for a discerning enthusiast user who wants USB 3.0 and SATA 600 support for the newest SSD drives. The pre configured overclocking options work wonders for performance and will surely aid those who really don’t have the desire or ability to spend hours in the bios working out stable settings.
KitGuru says: ASRock have really delivered the goods with this product, it is one of the finest 1156 motherboards we have tested to date and is priced very competitively.
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August 10, 2010
#1
Well this seems like a very good value for money product especially with sata 6 and usb 3.0 support. front panel idea is nice also.
August 10, 2010
#2
Well I wasn’t expecting such a positive review, but after reading it all, it certainly appears to be delivering the goods.
August 10, 2010
#3
Very well rounded mobo that, tons of connectivity and good overclocking options also.
August 10, 2010
#4
That is an awesome board, totally stunned me how good it is. I might look at one of these in a month or so for my 750. my current motherboard sucks and I cant get the CPU past 3.5ghz!
August 10, 2010
#5
Its really attractively designed too. no real design flaws I can see. such as sata ports being blocked by gfx etc.
August 10, 2010
#6
ASRock are unfairly seen sometimes as a purely budget maker with no frills designs. This goes some way to change that with this audience I feel.
August 10, 2010
#7
Well color me impressed with this.
August 10, 2010
#8
That looks to be a board that has spent some time on the development table. shame it doesnt have a dedicated controller to keep bandwidth higher when sata, USB and PCI are used however. thiat might be an issue for some people.
August 10, 2010
#9
I have never owned an ASROCK board, but im going to see what AMD products they support now with mobos. seem good prices.
August 10, 2010
#10
SATA 6, USB 3, loads of ports, front mounted panel, good manual, plenty of cables. strong power delivery, SLI and Crossfire support. RAID, Anything it doesnt have?!
August 10, 2010
#11
Very good review, I actually read another review of this via google, ill not say the site name, but it sucked. this gives a lot more info and some testing also which helps!
August 10, 2010
#12
I tried to find some fault, but its hard to really, I think they covered all teh bases. I like the bios flashing option, I know MSI do a similar thing and that works great.
August 10, 2010
#13
Bookmarked to read later in depth. very good support out of the box. Very good design.
August 10, 2010
#14
Well the review is great. product looks brilliant, and I just bought a 655k to go with a good board. So where the hell can I buy the fucking thing ?
August 10, 2010
#15
Can not see it for sale anywhere. what is the point? any ETA on release?
August 10, 2010
#16
I like the bundle deal with it, seems they put almost everything in I could think of. ASRock availability is always poor however, really difficult to buy here.
August 10, 2010
#17
Been looking at another review of this earlier this week, but they did no testing for some reason which seems pointless. its nice seeing some tests. seems to perform well with the 750 which will appeal to be a big audience. I know some people have struggled to hit 4ghz with a 750, even manually overclocking. What settings did the board set up Zardon for 4GHZ ?
August 10, 2010
#18
Great testing and solid review product. Liked the bios page, good detail in there.
August 10, 2010
#19
Christ the captcha interface does my head in. fourth time lucky to get a comment submitted here !
GOOD REVIEW, there thats all I wanted to say.!
August 10, 2010
#20
Did you try it with any dual core 1156′s? good overclocking settings in there also?
August 10, 2010
#21
Zardon I bought a 875K after your article last month – how far did you get with this board and it ? have you tried it yet?
August 10, 2010
#22
Wicked board, nice to see some of the smaller players bringing out good overclocked products.
August 10, 2010
#23
STill, dont think I would touch ASRock, always been a doubt for me as to reliability.
August 10, 2010
#24
You get far too much hardware to test. annoys me
August 10, 2010
#25
The heatsinks are really great design. weird there is no heatpipe though between them.
August 10, 2010
#26
I am impressed with this product, it has a good mixture of features and performance.
August 10, 2010
#27
I need to get a 750 and this board, I suck with overclocking and I love the idea of this doing all the work for you.
August 10, 2010
#28
This isn’t the first board to offer overclocking pre sets, but they seem to work well,. never a bad thing.
August 10, 2010
#29
Very good to see sata 6 and USB 3 support on such a fine level. makes this board well worth buying
August 10, 2010
#30
Gets my vote, nice featureset and the sooner more MAKERS START USING USB 3 the sooner more devices will come out with support. annoys me how slow USB 3 is being adopted..
August 10, 2010
#31
its such a shame this platform doesnt offer tri channel memory support. I know thats for 1366, but it would be a nice addition if it was possible.
August 10, 2010
#32
the i5 platform is good, much better value than 1366 i7
August 10, 2010
#33
this is great, thanks for the review.
August 10, 2010
#34
Very good looking product from ASrock – seems to be a good 1156 board for the money, shame I dont have a 1156 cpu.
August 19, 2010
#35
I would be curious to see AMD AM3 mobo review from ASrock’s portfolio. 890FX Extreme4 maybe
Does anyone know does that mobo support using USB 3.0, SATA3 and PCI-e 16x / dual x8 at the same time? As this Intel based mobo doesn’t. I suppose that’s one kind of a bottleneck if one wants to futureproof his/hers computer…
January 19, 2011
#36
What does it mean: “This motherboard however doesn’t use a PCI Express chip which means potentially there is a possibility of dropped performance when utilising PCI Express 16x slots, USB 3.0 and Sata 600 ports simultaneously.”?
I’m having a WD Black 640 Sata III 6GB/s and I need maximum performance!
January 29, 2011
#37
P55 chipset has 16 physical lanes of PCI-E gen. 2.0. The lack of another PCI-E chip which generates logical lanes means tt when connecting your Sata3 drive, those 16 lanes will become 8lanes for video card + 8 lanes for your hdd. 8lanes * 500MB/s per lane is enough bandwith for using /w both USB3 & SATA3 simultaneously.