ASRock Z68 Extreme3 Gen3... what am I missing?

probably not missing much. I think this gen that asrock has been around 40 cheaper for their comparable board. Would have to see some reviews and heatsinks removed to discover what brand and model chips they are using to handle things...because some corners were cut to make this board so cheap...it doesn't look different enough from the extreme 4 for that big of a price difference.
 
TehQuick said:
more like $60 difference... 50% price difference is a lot, especially for a budget build.
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Ahh, I missed the part where he was doing a budget build. :confused: I'd be more concerned with future compatibility, which is why I spent the money myself, for the better board.
 
for $130 how bad could it be...board looks good to me and the price is awsome....me being on i7/920 and going through 3 boards to end up with this dfi board, the getting used to 250-300$ per board makes this board almost seem free...
looks great for a budget build...who knows to how long it will be before gen 3 will truly be needed....
 
Ordered 1 today...hopefully a 5ghz 2500k setup....Extreme 4 looks to have a few more sata 3 ports, and usb 3 ports. I would rather save $60. This board supports future Ivy cpu and pcie 3 also, according to asrock site.
 
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dccmadams said:
Ordered 1 today...hopefully a 5ghz 2500k setup....Extreme 4 looks to have a few more sata 3 ports, and usb 3 ports. I would rather save $60. This board supports future Ivy cpu and pcie 3 also, according to asrock site.
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Ordered one as well, same setup 2500K + this board.

Can't wait.
 
Asus has Intel Gigabit Lan and Bluetooth built in and one more usb rear port and one more rear audio port, that's pretty much the difference.
 
Am I missing something here?
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Possibly the fact that ASRock was an Asus spinoff in the early 90's and known for bargain basement MBs but now they want to play with the upper tier manfgs?

I have no personal experience with these boards and I hope it's great!

It'd be nice if you could post a review and give us the scoop on quality, ease of installation, and all that other stuff. :D

Good Luck!
 
Ok, I have been messing with this mobo and 2500k. I am not happy. If you use their "turbo 4.2" mode, it will run and be stable. If you make any changes yourself in the bios, instant boot fail. Everything has to be on auto, and you have to choose their 'Turbo mode" This includes Turbo 4.0, 4.2, 4.4, 4.6, 4.8, and even the magical 5.0.....it doesnt work past 4.2. I ordered the Asus P8P67 3.1v today. This will go back to the egg when it arrives. I will keep messing and hoping with this in the meantime.
 
Bought this board Wednesday, due to show up by Monday. I won't have my i7 till later in the week though. I it doesn't meet my expectations I will spring for one of those sexy Gigabyte boards.

Dccmadams, I was browsing through the manual and I don't think you need to have Turbo 50 enabled. Set it to manual and just adjust the multiplier in the CPU ratio setting.
 
I have turbo 50 disabled. It is separate from the other turbo modes. I cant get mobo to even boot if I select a multi manually. 38, forget about it. If I adjust voltages or make any adjustments, it wont boot. I tried different mem sticks just for the hell of it also. I have oc'ed many, many mobo's over the years, and this has to be the worst I have had to deal with. It is running the "turbo 4.2" mode now, but that crap tool is for noobs. If someone doesnt wave a magic wand over this thing by Monday when my Asus P8P67 arrives, it will be going back to the egg for a refund. At least it looks nice....


UPDATE, Just got an email from asrock Tech(?). I explained everything including trying different memory. I asked for some bios settings recommendations or a new bios, also. His entire email response was, " What setting are you trying to change" and "Is your voltage correct on your memory?" WOW!!!! That was his 24 hr later response? That was as lame as this board appears to be. My ASUS will be here Monday, I will be sending this clunker back to the egg. I just bought my first and last Asrock mobo.
 
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I don't see how you didn't have a positive experience with the board like a lot of people did with the Extreme4 Gen3 as they are they same board -1 pci-e x4 slot.
 
Just telling you my experience. I am not writing this long winded post for the fun of it.
 
I can tell this isn't your first go so the problems you are experiencing are probably legitimate so sorry if I made it look like I didn't appreciate your input on the MB.

But you have to wonder what the differences in OC capability and the UEFI is between the Extreme 4 Gen3 to this model because many users have reported back with raving reviews and successful 5ghz+ OC's on the E4 so it leaves me puzzled as to why AsRock would have chosen to nueter this model.
 
Maybe I got a lemon, but I am not patient enough to wait around for a fix. I will try an Asus board on monday, and if the new cpu/mobo combo responds normally, I will be sending this one back for a refund.
 
dccmadams said:
Maybe I got a lemon, but I am not patient enough to wait around for a fix. I will try an Asus board on monday, and if the new cpu/mobo combo responds normally, I will be sending this one back for a refund.
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So I've put the board through its' paces and mine will definitely boot more than x38 multiplier. I'm 100% stable at 4.5Ghz on my D2 stepping 2500K.

It will post all the way to 4.8Ghz, but isn't stable until 4.5Ghz. temps are 33C idle and 63C load.
 
dccmadams said:
UPDATE, Just got an email from asrock Tech(?). I explained everything including trying different memory. I asked for some bios settings recommendations or a new bios, also. His entire email response was, " What setting are you trying to change" and "Is your voltage correct on your memory?" WOW!!!! That was his 24 hr later response? That was as lame as this board appears to be. My ASUS will be here Monday, I will be sending this clunker back to the egg. I just bought my first and last Asrock mobo.
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Lols, do you really expect a different answer from ASUS tech in a similar situation? They ALL go off a standard answer sheet and don't really read your initial report... And that goes not only for Asrock/Asus but for EVERY hardware manufacturer
 
Xeon User said:
Unless you get the head tech regular "techs" don't know shit.
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that's why they have sheets with canned responses - in every company, and ASUS is no different in that respect. Only EVGA might be different but they are nowhere close in terms of volume of sales with Asus/Asrock or gigabyte. If they were, they'd adopt the same operating procedures.
 
Xeon User said:
How much v-core? I don't mind 1.45v for 5ghz on my chip, it seems about the norm.
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@4.5Ghz Prime95 load, CPUz reports 1.256v.

Edit... on second thought, I'm not happy with 4.5GHz, messing with some settings..

I'm at 4.6Ghz now, 1.28v. ~68-70C
 
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Lotheron said:
@4.5Ghz Prime95 load, CPUz reports 1.256v.

Edit... on second thought, I'm not happy with 4.5GHz, messing with some settings..

I'm at 4.6Ghz now, 1.28v. ~68-70C
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Keep pushing her :cool: If the Hexus reviews is true they were able to do 5.2ghz with a 2500k which would be excellent on the E3 or E4 for the price.
 
dccmadams said:
Ok, I have been messing with this mobo and 2500k. I am not happy. If you use their "turbo 4.2" mode, it will run and be stable. If you make any changes yourself in the bios, instant boot fail. Everything has to be on auto, and you have to choose their 'Turbo mode" This includes Turbo 4.0, 4.2, 4.4, 4.6, 4.8, and even the magical 5.0.....it doesnt work past 4.2. I ordered the Asus P8P67 3.1v today. This will go back to the egg when it arrives. I will keep messing and hoping with this in the meantime.
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Might be the board, but if it will not go past 4.2 on the auto I suspect you will see the same results on the Asus board.
 
I think I'm going to stop where I"m at.. my temps are exactly where I want them. I think this is the limit that the A50 can handle. With a better air cooler and/or water, I'm sure this processor could hit higher speeds.

4.6Ghz @ 1.280-1.288v, ~69c.
 
Xeon User said:
CPU-Z and Prime95/IBT Screen shot plz?
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Well, I took it back down to 4.5Ghz :(

I ran Prime95 for over an hour at 4.6Ghz just fine. Stopped it, ran it again about 30 mins later and my system bluescreened. I'm sure more voltage would fix it, but that would just increase the temps.

So I put it back down to 4.5GHz which is stable and the temps are better. So, not as impressive, but I'd rather keep the temperatures down.

2500ka.jpg

2500kb.jpg
 
Xeon User said:
Well don't take away from the board for that!
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Nope, not the boards fault at all, I'm loving it.

Ok quick review:

Board looks great, svelte black with quality parts, eg Gold Caps, etc. IT for sure feels solid. There are 1155 and 775 mounting holes for CPU coolers.

BIOS, Same as other ASRock bios', in other words great. Lag free and intuitive and mouse capable.

Power and Reset switches on the board itself (as in inside the case) with another" CMOS Clear" button the back-plane. This has come in super handy during my overclocks when a setting I made couldn't get the board to post. 3 failed boots will also prompt the board to reset to defaults so you can get into the bios. (had this happen a few times:)

Overclocking is stupid easy on this board and most settings can be kept auto with no issue. You can use the Turbo overclocking options if you'd like, but the voltages are going to be unnecessarily high which is just going to generate more heat.

A few gripes: I would like few more USB3 ports, only have 2 and no headers. But I have 4 USB2 ports on the back and plenty of USB2 header ports. I would also like more SATA3, but i'd rather not have that buggy Marvel controller, so I'll stick with the Intel controllers. I also know that these are just their way differentiating the more expensive boards. This is a "budget" board after all. So if you can live without these, as I can, there's not much reason to opt for the more expensive boards.

I haven't had much issue with board layout, although the ram chips are pretty high up and as such I had to move my top 120MM fans over to different screw holes, so they aren't completely centered in my Termaltake V3 Black Edition.

Documentation is a little lacking, to be honest, trying to figure out what the settings in the BIOS do. However, Pin-outs for important headers are on the first page which is an obvious thing to do as that's all I ever really look at a motherboard manual for.

If anyone has any other questions for me to answer, I will be more than happy to do so.

Edit: Another thing I thought of, this board, like the other Gen3 ASRock boards are PCIE 3.0 compatible and therefore reportedly IvyBridge compatible.
 
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I have the mATX Pro3-M and I have had success so far. I can't imagine a comparable Asus board would be noticeably different with my setup. The only weird issue is that I have to press the power button twice before it turns on.
 
kirbyrj said:
I have the mATX Pro3-M and I have had success so far. I can't imagine a comparable Asus board would be noticeably different with my setup. The only weird issue is that I have to press the power button twice before it turns on.
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I cross-shopped a BUNCH of boards. I didn't look at that one since it's not CrossFireX/SLI compatible as it only has one x16 PCI-E slot, but I'm sure it's a great single card board.

How are you liking the ASRock UEFI bios?
 
Lotheron said:
I cross-shopped a BUNCH of boards. I didn't look at that one since it's not CrossFireX/SLI compatible as it only has one x16 PCI-E slot, but I'm sure it's a great single card board.

How are you liking the ASRock UEFI bios?
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It's ok. I never minded the old school bios (heck, I used DOS back in the day on my old 386 40mhz). Same options just different colors. I kind of miss the old post screens showing all the detail. Now if you disable the full screen logo, you only get a few lines about the Intel RAID controller. In fairness, it is the only UEFI bios I've ever used.

Other than the 2 power button push to get it started thing, the board is solid.
 
I will try the asus mobo on monday. If still a no-go, I will try a new cpu in the asrock....has to be one or the other.
 
kirbyrj said:
... The only weird issue is that I have to press the power button twice before it turns on.
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I don't know if it's related but I have the Asrock X58 Extreme6 and I was doing the same thing when I started it up. I would press the button and nothing would happen so I would press it again and it starts. One day I pressed it once and was interrupted by the son before I could press it a second time.

It started anyway, after a short delay of about two seconds. I was scratching my head at that and decided to shut it down and try it again. Sure enough, one press, about a two second delay and it fires right up. Now I just press the button before I sit down and by the time I'm seated the system is booting.

Easy 'fix'....lol! You might try this to see if the same thing happens on your board.
 
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