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The ASRock Z87 Extreme 6 isn't the most dramatically designed board we have tested in recent months. We would class the appearance as more functional, rather than a dramatic eye catching design such as the latest Gigabyte Z87 motherboards. It is an ATX form factor board.
The motherboard PCB is dark brown and the layout is clean. ASRock are using Premium Gold Capacitors on the board with a 12 power phase design and dual stack MOSFET's.
Around the CPU socket is a medium sized heatsink split into two sections and connected with a heatpipe, this helps to cool the VRM's. There is enough room here to fit a large cooler such as the Noctua NH D14, although we opted for the Corsair H100i today.
The Z87 Extreme 6 is a dual channel board, which has four slots for a maximum of 32GB of memory. Officially, ASRock say the board supports DDR3 2933+(OC)/2800(OC)/ 2400(OC)/ 2133(OC)/ 1866(OC)/ 1600/ 1333/ 1066 non-ECC, un-buffered memory.
We weren't expecting 10 SATA ports on the ASRock Z87 Extreme 6. The other boards we have reviewed so far have had either 6 or 8 ports. 6 of these SATA ports are controlled by the Z87 chipset with RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5 and RAID 10 offered. There are a further 4 SATA ports controlled by the ASMedia ASM1061. The SATA A3_A4 connector is shared with the eSATA port.
There are three PCI Express 3.0 x 16 slots on this board – PCIE2/PCIE4 and PCIE 5. The board will run in x16 if a single graphics card is used. If two are used then PCIE 2 and PCIE 4 will step down to x8. Three cards will run at x8 PCIE2 x8, x4 PCIE4 and x4 for the PCIE5 slot. There is also a PCI Express 2.0 x 1 slot on the board and a Mini PC Express slot with 2 PCI slots. ASRock say the board supports AMD Quad CrossfireX, 3 way Crossfire X and standard Crossfire X. It also supports Nvidia Quad SLi and standard SLi.
ASRock are heavily promoting this motherboard to audio lovers. They are using the RealTek ALC1150 with an EMI Shielding cover.
The Realtek chip is rated at a 115dB signal to noise ratio, one of the highest in the industry. They have also included the TI NE5532 headset amplifier with another TI NE5532 differential amplifier to drive phones up to 600ohms.
There is an LED diagnostic readout alongside a handy power and reset button, bottom of the board.
The following connectors are included on the motherboard.
- 1 x IR header
- 1 x COM Port header
- 1 x Power LED header
- 2 x CPU Fan connectors (1 x 4-pin, 1 x 3-pin)
- 3 x Chassis Fan connectors (1 x 4-pin, 2 x 3-pin)
- 1 x Power Fan connector (3-pin)
- 1 x 24 pin ATX power connector
- 1 x 8 pin 12V power connector (Hi-Density Power Connector)
- 1 x SLI/XFire power connector
- 1 x Front panel audio connector
- 2 x USB 2.0 headers (support 4 USB 2.0 ports)
- 1 x Vertical Type A USB 2.0
- 2 x USB 3.0 headers (support 4 USB 3.0 ports)
- 1 x Dr. Debug with LED
- 1 x Power Switch with LED
- 1 x Reset Switch with LED
The rear I/O panel includes the following connectors:
- 1 x PS/2 Mouse/Keyboard Port
- 1 x DVI-I Port
- 1 x HDMI-Out Port
- 1 x HDMI-In Port
- 1 x DisplayPort
- 1 x Optical SPDIF Out Port
- 1 x eSATA Connector
- 2 x USB 2.0 Ports
- 4 x USB 3.0 Ports (ASMedia Hub)
- 2 x RJ-45 LAN Ports with LED (ACT/LINK LED and SPEED LED)
- 1 x Clear CMOS Switch
- HD Audio Jack: Rear Speaker / Central / Bass / Line in / Front Speaker / Microphone
Good price, and well built. great review, very honest. The bios is quite ugly looking, not like some of their past efforts. maybe this was rushed.
Im still in love with the MSI board you reviewed last week. want it badly
the layout is good and the SATA config is best yet, shame about the bios. Gigabyte are miles ahead now IMO. hard for the others to follow. they really stepeed it up this time around
I don’t see why people care so much about how the BIOS looks. As long as it does what you need it to do, who cares? I can’t remember the last time I went into my BIOS since I got my 2500K OC stable at 4.8Ghz. Set it and forget it!
Can’t wait to get my Extreme6 Z87 board on Wednesday!
what brings a red flag to my mind is your review..
you say the board wont post with 2933mhz memory but there are two SPECIFIC 2933mhz g.skill memories listed on the board’s compatible memory… did you even check to make sure it matched? cuz you sure didnt indicate the model in your review. for all we know you just tried something you “thought” would work.
oh and buy the way, this memory: F3-2933C12Q-32GTXDG costs SEVENTEEN HUNDRED DOLLARS on newegg.
thats right, enough to buy your college bound kid their first used econo car. so even if you are talking about that memory, are you fricking HIGH? what are you testing a low/mid model motherboard and putting ram that expensive for in it and crying?
the 16gb version, F3-2933C12Q-16GTXDG, is a STEAL at eight hundred dollars.
the motherboard memory list is here, on that place called the internet. i hear it has useful information. you may want to check it some time, because either you didn’t, and slammed the mobo for no reason, or wanted to put some fricking ferarri ram in a dodge challenger… derp derp?
http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Z87%20Extreme6/?cat=Memory
Fallboat. Clearly you haven’t read the review, or can’t read properly. Not sure which. The memory worked with ASUS, MSI and GIGABYTE Z87 boards we previously tested in the last week – some of which aren’t actually much more expensive than this one. These other boards booted with the motherboard set at a lower speed setting and would overclock via BLCK to allow for the 2900mhz+ speeds. This board was the only one that wouldn’t post at all with it in the slots, regardless of the speeds, settings or timings.
Would people buying this board want 2933mhz memory? Who knows, people are selling it right now and it boots in other Z87 boards we tested. Should we ignore the fact it doesn’t or mention it doesn’t? One is lazy, the other isn’t. Some motherboard manuals list supported memory speeds up to 2,133mhz but work perfectly with 2,600mhz memory+. This is common knowledge, except to very inexperienced users.
The board was not ‘slammed’ either, we just mentioned the negative point compared to other Z87 boards we tested in previous weeks, seems logical to mention the fact.
I enjoyed your colourful message but it would help if you read the content properly before exploding in a fit of rage.
So to be clear, you tried the F3-2933C12Q-32GTXDG listed on the ‘supported list’ and it didn’t work?
Or you tried a variant not specifically supported, to see what would happen?
I’d like to know because the board looks interesting, but if it can’t post with ram it’s supposed to support, I think I’ll skip it.
That said about Ram modules it seems like 1600MHZ is the sweet spot for Haswell and works well. Also must PC geeks run about 1600 or 1866 for there set ups now days as its relatively cheap to buy and works. But my overall concern in this whole review would be the amount of Bios that was tested!! I want to buy this board, but i need to confident that the Bios will work properly and not cause me huge problems etc.
trawling through, I found the RAM tried in the MSI z87 Mpower Max review was:
F3-2933C12D-8GTXDG (12-14-14-35 1.65v)
which isn’t on the supported list, in case anyone is interested.
I think the issue is both the XMP profile, and the board’s treatment of BLCK adjustments
Like ajay57, I too would like to be confident of the BIOS – I think I’ll hold off for a couple of months and see what eventuates.
Just finished a build with this motherboard and I guess I got lucky as no problems with the GSkill F312800cl10d-16gbxl or the bios
CraigO…
Just curious as Im thinking of getting this board… how has it worked for you so far since July?? Thanks