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ASRock ships the Z87 Extreme11/ac in its typical motherboard packaging, except it size has been up-scaled to accommodate the E-ATX board and its accessory pack.
Plenty of information regarding the relevant features is outlined on the packaging’s rear side.
Further information regarding the motherboard’s features is outlined on the inside of the box’s flap.
Potential customers are given a glimpse of the motherboard through a transparent window built in to the packaging.
A quick installation guide, software setup guide, ASRock Home Cloud sheet, drivers disk, and case sticker form the Z87 Extreme11/ac’s supplied literature.
ASRock places many of the provided cables and accessories inside a high-quality, draw-string bag made from a felt-like material.
A healthy bundle is supplied with the Z87 Extreme11/ac. The main notable omission is a purpose-built 4-way SLI bridge. Typically, ASRock would warrant criticism through opting for the cheap alternative by using a multi-bridge approach to support 4-way SLI. But given the motherboard’s usage priorities of performance rather than style, the decision to opt for the less concise but cheaper multi-bridge option can be understood.
ASRock also provides two anomalous screws which I have yet to link with a specific application.
The accessory bundle consists of:
- 10x SATA cables, latching.
- 2x molex-to-SATA power adapters.
- 2x screws.
- 2x 2-way SLI bridges, rigid.
- 1x extended 2-way SLI bridge, rigid.
- 1x 3-way SLI bridge, rigid.
- 1x colour-coded IO shield.
- 1x Wi-SD Box (inc. USB 3.0 power cable and 2.5″ HDD screws).
The Wi-SD Box
ASRock uses the Wi-SD Box for many tasks. It functions as a SD/MMC/MS card reader, USB 3.0 4-port bay, and has the pair of wireless antennae built into its front panel.
An internal USB 3.0 header is used to take a pair of USB 3.0 connections from one of the motherboard’s internal headers, before passing them onto the ASMedia ASM1074 hub which splits one of the connections into four front-mounted ports.
The remaining SuperSpeed connection is used to provide bandwidth to Realtek’s RTS5307 USB 3.0 card reader controller. Usage of the RTS5307 controller indicates that fast memory cards, such as the Class 10 ADATA Premier Pro, will not be bottle necked by the connection speed, as they would be with a USB 2 controller.
On its rear side, the Wi-SD Box can be used to secure a pair of 2.5″ drives in place. ASRock supplies the necessary mounting screws.
ASRock uses the ancient floppy power connector to provide current to the Wi-SD Box. Many modern power supplies do not feature a floppy connector, so ASRock would be wise to ship future iterations of the Wi-SD Box with a SATA-to-floppy or molex-to-floppy power adapter. We tested the Wi-SD box with only the USB 3.0 cable connected and found its operation to be faultless.
A pair of wires connects the WiFi adapter found on the motherboard to its antennae located in the Wi-SD Box. ASRock makes these wires long enough to be routed behind the motherboard in a large case, such as our NZXT Phantom 630.
Thankfully, ASRock builds the Wi-SD Box in a 5.25″ front factor, rather than the outdated 3.5″ size – support for which is omitted from many modern cases, such as our NZXT Phantom 630.
Superb review and what a hell of a motherboard, out of my price range, but I agree, its a masterpiece of engineering prowess!
I hear a lot of negative press about asrock, being ‘cheap’ etc, but in recent years its completely changed. I own a Z77 asrock board and its been rock solid, and holds a good overclock. I would buy them again. This is a fully loaded mobo, thats for sure!
Its a good point, Haswell on a core per core basis and clock per clock basis is actually Intels’ ‘fastest’ chip. better than the 4960x etc.
I haven’t read all of the review yet, but it looks to be mighty impressive, with a price tag to match. Good review indeed Luke.
Z87 good chipset. Extreme mainboard