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This year we have seen ASRock launch an attack on the high end market with a steady stream of quality motherboards for both AMD and Intel platforms. I use several of their boards myself at home and have found them to be very reliable and extremely straightforward to overclock. Today we are looking at their new Z68 Extreme 7 Gen 3 product which combines a fully loaded feature list with an eye popping appearance.
ASRock are working hard to be seen as one of the main choices for the enthusiast user, right up there with Asus, Gigabyte and MSI. The Extreme7 Gen3 is certainly cutting no corners, as it features Premium Gold Capacitors and 100% Japan made conductive polymer Capacitors. There is an advanced V8 + 4 power phase implementation incorporated for maximum stability in overclocked situations. Rest assured that in real world terms this means the board is designed to last the distance.
The Extreme7 Gen3 also includes the NF200 Chip which ensures that a Crossfire or SLI configuration will run at x16/x16 (2 cards) or x16/x8/x8 (3 cards). ASRock have integrated the PLX PEX8608 processor to maximise PCI-E lane support.
With futureproofing for PCIe 3.0 graphics cards (1 GB/s), is this one of the best motherboards that you can buy today?
ASRock Extreme7 Gen3 Overview:
- Premium Gold Caps (2.5 x longer life time), 100% Japan-made high-quality Conductive Polymer Capacitors
- Digi Power, Advanced V8 + 4 Power Phase Design
- NVIDIA® NF200 Chip Onboard (Dual VGA cards at PCI-E x16/x16; three VGA cards at x16 / x8 / x8)
- Integrated PLX PEX8608 chip onboard to offer sufficient PCI-E lanes
- 1x PCIe 3.0 x16 Slot, 4 PCIe 2.0 x16 Slots, Supports AMD 3-Way CrossFireX™ and NVIDIA® 3-Way SLI™
- Supports Intel® HD Graphics Built-in Visuals
- Multi VGA Output : D-Sub, DVI-D, HDMI, DisplayPort
- Supports Dual LAN with Teaming function
- Dr. Debug, Smart Switch Design: Power/Reset/Clear CMOS Switch with LED
- Support Intel® Smart Response, Lucid Virtu Switchable Graphics
- Supports ASRock XFast Charger Technology
- Supports ASRock XFast USB, XFast LAN Technologies
- Supports ASRock On/Off Play, graphical UEFI, ASRock Extreme Tuning Utility (AXTU)
- Combo Cooler Option (C.C.O.)
- 7.1 CH HD Audio with Content Protection (Realtek ALC892 Audio Codec), Supports THX TruStudio™
- Free Bundle : 1 x Front USB 3.0 Panel, 1 x Rear USB 3.0 Bracket, 1 x 3.5mm Audio Cable, CyberLink MediaEspresso 6.5 Trial, ASRock MAGIX Multimedia Suite
Very nice indeed, looks great. I need a system upgrade, it kills me everytime I read a review of a new mobo 🙁
Yeah they are really good now, I hate however how some forums have idiots who are ‘experts’ who say they still suck. I have a P67 board of theirs (B3) and it is brilliant, never a problem. hits 4.6ghz with my 2500k no problem too.
x16/x16 is quite rare on these systems. good job ASROCK. bit expensive though isnt it?
This $275 board is meant for triple card multi-monitor setups, and is in direct competition with the $350 Maximus IV Extreme-Z, $360 UD7, $370 G1. Sniper2 budget and $310 FTW.
IMO, if a current triple-CF/SLI setup is the priority and you already own a dedicated SSD, sacrificing the Z68 futures for the $235 P67 WS Revolution is a better deal.
AFAIK, the NF200 bridge/switch is PCIe 2.0. If it is to handle the traffic from 3 PCIe slots to the CPU, then how will do it at PCIe 3.0 speed with PCIe 3.0 video cards and CPU??
Ramon
Why are the first two pci-e slots so close together?
@ Carl. The second slot is the PCIE 3.0 compatible one. If you use SLI etc, I think you are meant to use slot 1 and 3.
Wich setting in the bios do have you change in the bios to achieve 4,6ghz?