ASRock Z68 Extreme7 Gen3 Review

ASrock are using a UEFI interface which is both intuitive and stable. Updating the bios can be handled via Windows and only takes a couple of minutes. Ideal for less experienced users who dislike having to use USB flash drives.

The bios is well laid out and easy to use. We really do value the ASRock designs because they offer overclocked settings for a wide audience who don't feel comfortable overclocking the hardware manually.

As with other ASrock boards, there are ‘built in' settings for the processor you are using, once it is detected. In the case of this Core i7 2600k, right up to 4.8ghz.

System validation is available here.

Achieving 4.6ghz is easy enough, even with modest air cooling. All we had to do was change a single setting in the bios and reboot. Wham – instant 1.2ghz overclock. To get 4.8ghz stable we needed to change a few additional settings, including voltage increases, so we will concentrate on 4.6ghz today – achievable by anyone reading this.

We let the system run with a 2133mhz profile (9-9-9-24) via the ADATA 2200mhz memory, as it wouldn't post when forcing an XMP profile.

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