ASRock Z68 Extreme4 Gen3 Motherboard

[solin]

The new Z68 Extreme4 Gen3 motherboard from ASRock comes with a rich software bundle, but also very useful features like C.C.O., Intel Smart Response Technology, Lucid VIRTU or PCI-E 3.0 slots (to be used with future Ivy Bridge CPUs). The color scheme has been reworked, so now the motherboard has a more professional look.

About ASRock:

"ASRock Inc., established in 2002, target at entry to mainstream segment MB business, is an energetic company with the combination of technology and humanity. Devoting efforts to bring customers the innovative and reliable motherboards with the design concept of 3C, "Creative, Considerate, Cost-effective", ASRock has successfully established a well-known leading brand of the best price-performance motherboard in the industry. ASRock products' high recognition stems from company’s devotion to bring the most cost-performance products to users.

Besides creative features and solid products, ASRock engineers also pay special attention to EMI, thermal, acoustics and details to achieve complete customer satisfaction. In addition to price-performance, creative and considerate features, ASRock also pay special on the issue of eco-environmental protection with the released of ROHS products and energy saving functions to save the environment.

To succeed in this ultra-competitive industry, ASRock provides great products with speed-to-market, cost and service to customers.

Facing the constantly changing technologies of motherboard, ASRock will always keep the vision of the future and develop future-proof products upon our 3C design concept to our customers.

It is the commitment to our customers and products, like the spirit presented in our maxim:

"Motherboard, We Master It!" "



- 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
- 2 x PCIe 3.0 x16 Slots, 1 x PCIe 2.0 x16 Slot, Supports AMD 3-Way CrossFireX™ and NVIDIA® Quad SLI™
- Supports Intel® HD Graphics Built-in Visuals
- Dr. Debug, Smart Switch Design: Power/Reset/Clear CMOS Switch with LED
- Support Intel® Smart Response, Lucid Virtu Switchable Graphics
- 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 3.5mm Audio Cable, CyberLink MediaEspresso 6.5 Trial, ASRock MAGIX Multimedia Suite

Some Features:

- Next-Gen PCI-E 3.0 Support

By adapting PCI-E 3.0 quick switch IC onboard, the ASRock motherboards can support the Next-Gen PCI-E 3.0!
PCI Express 3.0 can maximize the bandwidth for the next-gen PCI Express 3.0 VGA cards, provide ultimate graphics performance.



Get PCI-E 3.0 Benefits

• Higher bit rate - 8.0GT/s
• Higher bandwidth per lane - 1GB/s
• Higher efficiency - 98.5% encoding efficiency
• 100% backward compatible with previous PCI-E 2.0 / 1.0 standard



- XFast LAN Technology

ASRock XFast LAN is a smart productivity tool to help you manage your priorities of internet applications, simplify your digital life and accomplish more. The innovative features include : Internet Application Prioritization, Lower Latency in Game, Traffic Shaping and Real-Time Analysis of Your Data. It's the smartest way to control your web programs.



- ASRock XFast USB Technology - Faster Than Your Imagination!

ASRock XFast USB Technology redefines the new standard in high performance computing. Proving once again to be the pioneer in motherboard industry, ASRock XFast USB Series Motherboards integrate with the latest XFast USB Technology which delivers the world's fastest USB data transfer speed. According to the below graph, it shows that the ASRock XFast USB technology can even boost USB 3.0 performance up to 386.14%!



- On/Off Play Technology

Even when the system is powered off (in ACPI S5 mode), On/Off Play Technology still allows users to enjoy the great audio experience from the portable audio devices through the PC speaker.

- Graphical UEFI – The Revolutionary BIOS Interface

Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) is a revolutionary BIOS utility which offers tweak-friendly options in an advanced viewing interface. Compared with traditional BIOS design, the latest UEFI utility provides lots improved functions. The major features of UEFI include:

1. Graphical Visual Experience – UEFI provides an improved visual interface with colorful icons and makes your computing environment more versatile to replace the traditional dull BIOS page.

2. Mouse Enabling – Besides keyboard control, you can freely use mouse to select your ideal settings in UEFI as well.

3. Supports 3TB bootable HDD - UEFI breaks the limitations of 2TB bootable HDD on traditional BIOS. With UEFI, you can enjoy 3TB bootable HDD size.*

*Windows® Vista™ 64bit or Windows® 7 64bit OS is required.

- THX TruStudio

THX TruStudio is specially designed to bring the same great audio experience found in live performances, films, and recording studios to the PC.

- Lucid Virtu™

With Lucid Virtu software, next-generation PCs with 2nd Generation Intel® Core™ processor platforms will dynamically assign tasks in real time to the best available graphics resource based on power, performance and features.



- Intel® Smart Response Technology (ASRock Updates Intel® RST Driver For Intel® Smart Response Technology)

For users who are tempted to connect the SSD and HDD on motherboard, the Intel® Smart Response Technology can make the SSD become the "Cache of the HDD" to boost up the HDD access speed.



- Digi Power

By adopting digital Pulse-width modulation (PWM), the ASRock motherboard can provide CPU Vcore voltage more efficiently and smoothly. Compared to analog PWM, digital PWM can optimize the CPI power solution and provide a proper and stable Vcore for the processor.

- AXTU - The All-in-1 Tuning Software

ASRock Extreme Tuning Utility (AXTU) is an all-in-one software to fine-tune different features in an user-friendly interface, which includes Hardware Monitor, Fan Control, Overclocking, OC DNA and IES. In Hardware Monitor, it shows the major readings of your system. In Fan Control, it shows the fan speed and temperature for you to adjust. In Overclocking, you are allowed to adjust the CPU frequency, ratio and some voltages for optimal system performance. In OC DNA, you can save your OC settings as a profile and share with your friends. Your friends then can load the OC profile to their own system to get the same OC settings. In IES (Intelligent Energy Saver), the voltage regulator can reduce the number of output phases to improve efficiency when the CPU cores are idle without sacrificing computing performance.

- Premium Gold Caps

Premium Gold Caps are luxury capacitors. These 100% Japan-made solid capacitors are sleek, high gloss caps with a premium gold coating representing long life and stable performance.

- PLX PEX8608 chip onboard

Compared with others Z68 chipset motherboard which brings limited PCI-E lanes, ASRock Z68 motherboard break the limitation and offer sufficient PCI-E lanes solution by embedding PLX PEX8608 chip onboard. Users can simply enjoy all PCI-E devices.

ASRock Motherboard With PLX PEX8608 chip (Take Z68 Extreme4 for example)


With PLX PEX8608 chip, it generates more PCI-E lanes for PCI-E devices, so that all PCI-E devices are able to work at the proper speed simultaneously!

Other Brand Z68 Motherboard Without PLX PEX8608 chip


With traditional switch, if users want to run the PCI-E x4 slot at PCI-E, then the other 3 PCI-E x1 slots can not be used. If users install device in any of the PCI-E x1 slot, then the PCI-E x4 slot will suffer to downgrade running at PCI-E x1.

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[A Guy]

Nice post solin

A Guy

[LizardMan]

Thank you for the detailed post

[JayCub]

Good post as always Solin, when i was looking into motherboards some users say Asrock are not a great motherboad manufacturer, or this could be fan boy stuff as i thought they where part of Asus in the early years.

The specifications are outstanding and i like the look of the z68 boards, depends what you want to use if for.