ASRock X79 Extreme4 LGA 2011 Motherboard Review @ [H]

FrgMstr

FrgMstr

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ASRock X79 Extreme4 LGA 2011 Motherboard Review - After the last couple of ASRock boards, I wasn’t sure if I ever wanted to see another one. The ASRock X79 Extreme4 not only surpassed my admittedly low expectations, but proved to be the exact opposite of the last two motherboards. Grab a sandwich and read on. You don’t want to miss this one.
 
Well, maybe, just maybe they got their act together and stepped up production quality. I am interested in seeing the differences, if any, from your review board and a retail board. Let us know.
 
I have one of these and it's rock-solid. I concur with the review completely.
 
Great review as always
ASRock doesn't inspire confidence in me with night and day Variations in quality between different mobos
 
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About time. As a long time fan of ASRock, I'm glad to finally see one of their boards make it thru the [H] testing process.

I am very interested in reading the follow up using the retail board. I hope ASRock isn't trying any shady "bait & switch" bullshit.
 
I was expecting a Silver Award, honestly after all the praise from Daniel.

My Asrock 1155 board has been serving me well, this is the first time I've had a board build by them. I've generally stuck with Gigabyte boards for the past 4-5 years, every now and then using an MSI or Asus board for a build for a friend.

I look forward to the update with the retail board results.
 
I wonder if you guys didn't just run into some production problems or something with the previous boards you tested. My Extreme4 Gen3 board has none of the PCB warping or BIOS issues you guys mentioned, and I compared the PCB thickness on my old Asus board to this one, and I can tell no difference. In fact, it's easily one of the best boards I've ever owned. Maybe they tried to cheap out and save a few bucks and then realized that it was a bad move, I don't know. Not doubting your previous reviews at all, like you said, the inconsistency is surprising.

That said, I'm glad you had a good experience this go round, and good review. I'm assuming the reason you didn't give any awards is due to the possible inconsistencies in the build quality.
 
I personally don't have much interest in ASRock, as I prefer ASUS or MSI, but I am pleased that you are listening to the community and continuing to test their products. More competition is always a good thing, and if it turns out that ASRock's higher end offerings are competitive with the established companies, more power to them. Kudos for the good work.
 
I have this mb and i run my 3930 at 5ghz and 2400 ram and i have not had 0 problems whit it it's the most stable mb I ever had and I love it
 
B2BigAl said:
That said, I'm glad you had a good experience this go round, and good review. I'm assuming the reason you didn't give any awards is due to the possible inconsistencies in the build quality.
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This is the reason why I'm not recommending it without reservations. I'm curious to see if another copy of the board works as well. And again, night and day difference between the ASRock Z68 boards we looked at and their X79 Extreme4. They couldn't be more different with regard to build quality, design and attention to detail.
 
The CPU speed, I don't know if it's a typo but isn't the 3960X supposed to be @ 3.3Ghz default? In the charts it is stated to be @ 3.2Ghz.
 
Nice article, alright board, but I await the retail model before I come to any conclusions myself.
 
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Dan_D said:
This is the reason why I'm not recommending it without reservations. I'm curious to see if another copy of the board works as well. And again, night and day difference between the ASRock Z68 boards we looked at and their X79 Extreme4. They couldn't be more different with regard to build quality, design and attention to detail.
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I believe the Z68 boards were manufactured at a different place.
It would explain the differences in build quality.

Also you briefly mentioned that you are currently reviewing the Extreme9 and didnt bring up any build differences.

With that said though I am eagerly waiting to see your Extreme9 review with all the good things that were said about the Extreme4. :)

The Extreme9 is at the top of my purchase list with the Asus Extreme in second due to price and shitty integrated sound. ( I mean cmon for almost $500 they couldnt throw in their own Xonar sound chip?!) :mad:
 
EpsilonZer0 said:
I believe the Z68 boards were manufactured at a different place.
It would explain the differences in build quality.

Also you briefly mentioned that you are currently reviewing the Extreme9 and didnt bring up any build differences.

With that said though I am eagerly waiting to see your Extreme9 review with all the good things that were said about the Extreme4. :)

The Extreme9 is at the top of my purchase list with the Asus Extreme in second due to price and shitty integrated sound. ( I mean cmon for almost $500 they couldnt throw in their own Xonar sound chip?!) :mad:
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I never said anything about reviewing the ASRock X79 Extreme9. I don't currently have that one on my test bench.
 
I stopped reading once I saw it had TWO legacy PCI slots. Why even waste motherboard real estate with that useless trash? Either put in real PCIe slots or leave them blank for double width GPUs.

PCI. LOL.
 
ianken said:
I stopped reading once I saw it had TWO legacy PCI slots. Why even waste motherboard real estate with that useless trash? Either put in real PCIe slots or leave them blank for double width GPUs.

PCI. LOL.
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I have to admit, I feel about the same. Someone who is going to spend the money to go with an LGA2011 setup probably replaced all their PCI cards long ago. About the only thing I can see anyone hanging onto might be a PCI sound card. Even then, I'd wager few do.
 
Those two typos are fixed, thanks for the extra eyes guys, it is very much appreciated.

J Macker said:
I was expecting a Silver Award, honestly after all the praise from Daniel.

My Asrock 1155 board has been serving me well, this is the first time I've had a board build by them. I've generally stuck with Gigabyte boards for the past 4-5 years, every now and then using an MSI or Asus board for a build for a friend.

I look forward to the update with the retail board results.
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Two issues lean toward NOT giving it an award. The dropping threads at stock speeds under the torture tests and my general uneasiness about overall production quality.

I built a system last week and did not consider Gigabyte into the mix, came down to ASUS and MSI for me.

Dan_D said:
I never said anything about reviewing the ASRock X79 Extreme9. I don't currently have that one on my test bench.
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Hehe, that was a "Kyle's Thoughts" portion of the review. I put the red line break in there and it looks like it ended my portion of the review. Poor formatting on my part.

ianken said:
I stopped reading once I saw it had TWO legacy PCI slots. Why even waste motherboard real estate with that useless trash? Either put in real PCIe slots or leave them blank for double width GPUs.

PCI. LOL.
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Exactly. I can understand one PCI, but two on a NEW mobo? The ASUS board I just put in my box has two, but since one is covered by the video card.....meh.
 
Asrock boards are weird, probably due to bad QC. I have purchase several asrock boards in the past, half worked great and half had serious issues.

Another annoying thing about asrock and other companies is the location of the graphics card power molex. Why is it in the middle of the board? It is be places at the bottom or at the top of the board where the PSUs are located.
 
Thanks for reviewing it. Seems like another good ASRock board.
I really like ASRock products. I currently have 3 systems running their boards.
 
If you are going to spend the kind of money that a X79 system costs, why would you pinch pennies and get something crappy from AsRock???
 
Zarathustra[H];1038256833 said:
If you are going to spend the kind of money that a X79 system costs, why would you pinch pennies and get something crappy from AsRock???
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ASRock has had their share of crap and golden products, just like every other manufacturer out there, even their parent company ASUS. To just write them off is as purely crap is as bad as saying that company X never releases a bad product ever.
 
IMHO, they should have sent you review samples long before, I seem to recall you asking for them previously? Its only when you reviewed some bad ones on your own initiative they figured out they'd better do something to combat the bad PR. At the very least, this shows some uneven quality, which I think was reflected in the user comments relating their experience on the past couple articles.
 
Okay, I found this on another site, it's a bit convoluted, but it boils down to this:
"Pegatron is owned by Asus and ASrock is owned by Pegatron, so Asus owns ASrock" (at least in a roundabout way).
bta061.jpg

I had no idea that ASRock is the 3rd largest motherboard manufacturer.
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/mainboards/display/20091214124254_Pegatron_Technologies_to_Use_Asrock_Brand_to_Compete_Against_Asustek_Computer_Rumour.html
Is that good/bad/indifferent? I dunno, but I wouldn't have guessed it. Still an interesting bit of info though.
 
mynamehere said:
ASRock has had their share of crap and golden products, just like every other manufacturer out there, even their parent company ASUS. To just write them off is as purely crap is as bad as saying that company X never releases a bad product ever.
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True, but when it comes to motherboards in recent memory my experiences have taught me to only trust a few brands. ASUS first - of course -, MSI second (ever since the AMD VRM issue they have been very good) and Maybe Gigabyte as a distant third.

I don't trust anything else right now. Abit used to be up there, but now they ate gone *sniff*
 
ianken said:
I stopped reading once I saw it had TWO legacy PCI slots. Why even waste motherboard real estate with that useless trash?
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Because to some people they are not useless trash. Some specialised scientific and business cards may not be available in PCIe yet. And why replace them if they can be reused? At the enthusiast end, I expect quite a few people have 4-port USB 2 PCI cards knocking around.
 
Nice to see a review that notes the functionality of the BLCK, as it seems the reviews these days do not cover oc'ing in depth as of old. After reading many reviews in deciding this years build, most just passed over the oc'ing features with a reference to how high the multiplier could be set. I assume the locked SB-Es there will be more to say about oc'ing BLCK. I have never owned an ASRock board, before purchasing the Ex9. I agree that the build quality is top notch, but I have my reservations regarding the bios. I do not care for the bios implementation of the oc'ing functions, and find even the Intel X79 has a better layout and options. Still nice boards, and good to see another board manufacturer step up their game.
 
Zarathustra[H];1038257469 said:
True, but when it comes to motherboards in recent memory my experiences have taught me to only trust a few brands. ASUS first - of course -, MSI second (ever since the AMD VRM issue they have been very good) and Maybe Gigabyte as a distant third.

I don't trust anything else right now. Abit used to be up there, but now they ate gone *sniff*
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I debated between a asrock and the little lower end gigabyte I have now because they were the same price. If the quality would have been there like it was on this board I think I would have bought it. I have always bought MSI because I have had no issue what so ever, I wanted to try something new with this build. I went with a gigabyte and have no complaints.
 
Quartz-1 said:
Because to some people they are not useless trash. Some specialised scientific and business cards may not be available in PCIe yet. And why replace them if they can be reused? At the enthusiast end, I expect quite a few people have 4-port USB 2 PCI cards knocking around.
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Yeah. But this is a POWER GAMER board. Not a workstation board.
 
Quartz-1 said:
Because to some people they are not useless trash. Some specialised scientific and business cards may not be available in PCIe yet. And why replace them if they can be reused? At the enthusiast end, I expect quite a few people have 4-port USB 2 PCI cards knocking around.
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When most modern motherboards have more USB ports than you can shake a stick at, why would you possibly need an expansion board to add more?

The only use in the enthusiast market I can think of is for those who have last generation high end sound cards. These are still useful. Other than that, this is probably it, unless you get into the scientific/industry applications where control boards to run external equipment come into play.

We still have one of these controlling our thermal cycling oven :p

5857772026_36ac8cc39a.jpg


286 + DOS all the way :p


Truth is, these people don't buy this kind of board...
 
I would really like more info about asrock build quality. It has been highly rated on some sites as "Asus too" but half price. It has been said that its as a rebranded auto on the same platform but different brands. very few reviews have had the major issues you past reported. Forums seem hit and miss bug I havent noticed any general trend from casual browsing. I greatly appreciate the extra effort in getting retail boards and avoix being gamed by manufactors. Keep up the good work.
 
undercoverDrunk said:
I would really like more info about asrock build quality. It has been highly rated on some sites as "Asus too" but half price. It has been said that its as a rebranded auto on the same platform but different brands. very few reviews have had the major issues you past reported. Forums seem hit and miss bug I havent noticed any general trend from casual browsing. I greatly appreciate the extra effort in getting retail boards and avoix being gamed by manufactors. Keep up the good work.
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It isn't as simple as buying a rebadged ASUS board. These do not share PCB's or component selection. Everything from board design to component selection seems a little bit different, although there is a definite influence from ASUS. The UEFI is similar in many ways to ASUS' but a little more adventurous in it's deviation from the standard BIOS. You are not getting an ASUS board at half the price. In fact, in reality while ASRock is a bit cheaper, they aren't that cheap. At least not the models I've seen. They are a bit cheaper than say MSI or some other brands might be, and certainly not as pricey as Gigabyte and ASUS' models are, but the difference isn't as vast as you might think. At least not on the lower or mid-range end boards like the ASRock Z68 Extreme4 and Pro3.
 
Is Newegg's 3 year warranty claim on that AsRock mobo correct? AsRock's website isn't exactly helpful in that regard and Newegg is wrong or out of date sometimes on the warranty claim.
 
Zarathustra[H];1038263142 said:
When most modern motherboards have more USB ports than you can shake a stick at, why would you possibly need an expansion board to add more?
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Because there aren't enough USB ports. Consider: KVM, trackball (doesn't work through KVM), graphics pad (ditto), memory stick, external hard drive, UPS, HOTAS (x1 - x3 depending on the mix and match), racing wheel, headset (for voice comms), and printer (possibly x2: 1 colour inkjet, 1 mono laser). That's 10-13 without breaking a sweat, and I'm sure I've forgotten some. Oh yes, the USB keyboard extension for MMOs I'm thinking of getting; that's 11-14. And, you know, it's nice to have a couple spare, so you can easily make a requirement for about 16 USB ports on a PC. Which is more than are on the motherboard. And having the ports on the PC is often much more convenient than using external, powered, hubs, especially when it comes to moving the damn thing.
 
I don't have any of that crap. All I have are my keyboard, mouse cable for charging my mouse, Belkin N52 and USB connection from one of my monitors which has a USB hub on it. That's all. Printer is handled via network. I don't care for wheels in driving games and don't own one. (Too clunky IMO.) No KVM as I do everything via RDP. Headset uses standard audio jacks.
 
Quartz-1 said:
Because there aren't enough USB ports. Consider: KVM, trackball (doesn't work through KVM), graphics pad (ditto), memory stick, external hard drive, UPS, HOTAS (x1 - x3 depending on the mix and match), racing wheel, headset (for voice comms), and printer (possibly x2: 1 colour inkjet, 1 mono laser). That's 10-13 without breaking a sweat, and I'm sure I've forgotten some. Oh yes, the USB keyboard extension for MMOs I'm thinking of getting; that's 11-14. And, you know, it's nice to have a couple spare, so you can easily make a requirement for about 16 USB ports on a PC. Which is more than are on the motherboard. And having the ports on the PC is often much more convenient than using external, powered, hubs, especially when it comes to moving the damn thing.


And how could I have forgot my 3G internet dongle?
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Wow.

I use two USB ports on my computer.

One for my mouse and the other connects the USB hubs in my monitors and the card reader built into my U3011.

I guess occasionally I'll hook up a USB thumb drive, but that's rare. So lets make it three.

I have external drives, but they all go over eSATA.

I have printers in the house, but they are all networked.

My keyboard is PS2, as is the trackpoint stick integrated in it.

My headphones (which I also use as a headset with a clip-on mic) are hooked up to a dedicated headphone amplifier plugged into the RCA ports on my Titanium HD.My clip-on mic is plugged in a 3.5mm mic jack.

I knew people used more USB ports than me, but I didn't realize there were those who used that many more.

I tend to view USB as an inferior interface. If there is another, more suitable interface for what I'm using, I try to use that first.

I've never come even close to using up the integrated USB ports in my machine, and if I did, I'd probably just use the USB hubs integrated in each of my monitors rather than get another expansion card.
 
Zarathustra[H];1038274005 said:
Wow.

I use two USB ports on my computer.

One for my mouse and the other connects the USB hubs in my monitors and the card reader built into my U3011.

I guess occasionally I'll hook up a USB thumb drive, but that's rare. So lets make it three.

I have external drives, but they all go over eSATA.

I have printers in the house, but they are all networked.

My keyboard is PS2, as is the trackpoint stick integrated in it.

My headphones (which I also use as a headset with a clip-on mic) are hooked up to a dedicated headphone amplifier plugged into the RCA ports on my Titanium HD.My clip-on mic is plugged in a 3.5mm mic jack.

I knew people used more USB ports than me, but I didn't realize there were those who used that many more.

I tend to view USB as an inferior interface. If there is another, more suitable interface for what I'm using, I try to use that first.

I've never come even close to using up the integrated USB ports in my machine, and if I did, I'd probably just use the USB hubs integrated in each of my monitors rather than get another expansion card.
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I'm the same way. I really don't use all that much in the way of USB ports. My headphones plug into my dedicated sound card (Xonar) which uses a dedicated amp. So I don't really need USB for that.
 
Zarathustra[H];1038274005 said:
Wow.

I use two USB ports on my computer.
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I only use 3 or 4 at work: keyboard, trackball, external HDD, and mobile phone connector.

I'll admit that I expect to cut my home number a bit: when I get ADSL I'll be able to drop the 3G dongle, when I rebuild my Home Server I'll move the UPS and external HDD on to that, I'd like to get a networked printer. And I could split the work and games functions to different PCs. But I try and stay away from hubs: they require yet another power brick and yet another power cable to get tangled. It's so much simpler just to plug everything into the PC, and it doesn't matter if they don't go back in the same socket.
 
If one has $2,000 budget for gaming computer, should he go with Z68 or X79.. taking long term upgrade flexibility into consideration.
 
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