ASRock Z87 Extreme11/ac Motherboard Review

1. Introduction2. ASRock Z87 Extreme11/ac: Packaging and Bundle3. ASRock Z87 Extreme11/ac: Board Layout and Features4. ASRock Z87 Extreme11/ac: BIOS5. Testing Methodology6. Tests: System-related7. Tests: Processor-related8. Tests: Gaming-related9. Tests: Motherboard-related10. Overclocking: Frequencies11. Overclocking: Performance12. Comparison: PLX x16 link vs CPU x8 link13. Technical: Power Consumption14. Closing Thoughts15. View All Pages

The ASRock Z87 Extreme11/ac conforms to the E-ATX form factor meaning that it will need to be housed in a wider-than-normal chassis, such as our NZXT Phantom 630.

ASRock equips the board with a black PCB which is significantly darker than the company's usual dark-brown colour.

Four DIMM slots support up to 32GB of non-ECC DDR3 memory operating at speeds in excess of 2933MHz. The Z87 Extreme11/ac motherboard’s memory support list indicates that 3000MHz+ kits from G.Skill, ADATA, and Avexir are compatible.

The 24-pin connector is located slightly further up the board than its usual position. Two USB 3.0 headers are found in the usual location that makes them easy-to-access for front panel devices.

Both headers are provided by a single USB 3.0 connection from the Z87 chipset which is then split by an ASMedia ASM1074 4-port hub. This means that a single 5.0Gb/s link to the chipset is shared between the four ports. Don't expect to be able to stuff 20Gb/s of data through the USB 3.0 ports; the connections' combined transfer rate is far more likely to top-out at around the 450MB/s mark (5Gb/s minus USB 3.0 overheads).

All six of the outwards-facing SATA 6Gb/s ports located adjacent to the 24-pin connector operate from the Z87 chipset. The outwards-facing orientation has a negative effect on cable management, but a neat interior isn't necessarily a priority for a proportion of the Extreme11/ac board's target audience.

Given the workstation-orientated design of ASRock's Z87 Extreme11/ac it only makes sense that the board supports consumer-grade LGA 1150 chips, as well as the workstation-orientated Xeons.

ASRock’s Dual-Stack MOSFETs from the twelve phase power delivery system are actively-cooled by a beefy VRM heatsink and 40mm fan. The Z87 Extreme11/ac motherboard’s gold capacitors should also receive enough incidental airflow to keep them cool.

An ISL6379 digital voltage controller is in command of the twelve phase CPU power delivery system.

Both of the ‘Hi-Density’ 8-pin CPU power connectors are found on the board’s upper edge, in very close proximity to the socket area. The power connectors will be very difficult to reach when used inside a confined case, or with large CPU coolers, such as the Phanteks PH-TC14PE.

Five fan headers are positioned around the CPU socket area of the Z87 Extreme11/ac. Two headers (one of which is 4-pin) are given CPU fan duties, two feature limited speed control, and the other is simply a powered connection.

Four full-length PCI-E slots are located on the Z87 Extreme11/ac, as well as three standard PCI-E x1 connectors. In addition to the conventional slots, ASRock equips the board with a single mini-PCIe connector which is provided with its own, unshared bandwidth from the Z87 chipset. By default, a Broadcom 802.11ac dual-band, two-stream WiFi and Bluetooth 4.0 card is installed in the mini-PCIe slot.

Slot spacing is as ideal as it gets for 4-way graphics card configurations. Only slot PCIE5 (third full-length slot from the top) is wired for full x16 bandwidth. As such, ASRock encourages users to place their graphics card in the aforementioned slot for it to receive sixteen PCI-E 3.0 lanes. As shown by the block diagram (below), the x16 slot receives its bandwidth by doubling-up a pair of downstream connections which have been processed through the latency-inducing PLX chip. Single card (single GPU, more specifically) users may be better served using slot PCIE1 which receives eight Gen 3 lanes which bypass the PEX 8747 device.

Slots PCIE1 (x8) and PCIE5 (x16) are used for 2-card configurations. PCIE3 (x8), PCIE5 (x8), and PCIE7 (x8) get used for 3-card configurations. PCIE1 (x8), PCIE3 (x8), PCIE5 (x8), and PCIE7 (x8) get used for 4-card configurations. As soon as slot PCIE1 is populated, the quick switch device transfers eight of the CPU's PCI-E lanes directly to the slot, hence decreasing the PLX chip's connection with the processor from x16 to x8.

Amidst the storm of PCI-E devices and lanes, ASRock also slips a pair of mSATA connectors between three expansion slots. Both connectors share bandwidth with chipset-fed SATA ports, hence they are able to operate at SATA 6Gb/s speeds.

Supplied to us by ASRock, the Z87 Extreme11/ac motherboard's block diagram provides an alternative method of displaying the information written above.

Eight PCI-E Gen 3 lanes from the PLX switch are routed through to the LSI 3008 SAS controller, giving it the bandwidth required to provide for a double-digit number of drives. Natively, the LSI SAS 3008 provides eight SAS ports, but ASRock utilises the same company's 3x24R expander to provide a total of sixteen SAS connections. Don't expect to be able to obtain the bandwidth of sixteen SSDs, though; ASRock states in its promotional material that the storage speeds can reach up to 6.1GB/s.

Moving analysis over to the PCH side of the board, ASRock uses the six SATA, four USB, eight PCI-E 2.0 FlexIO configuration. One PCI-E lane is provided to each of the Intel NICs, as well as the mini-PCIe slot. A PCI-E 2.0 x4 connection powers the Intel DSL5520 Falcon Ridge controller which provides a pair of Thunderbolt 2 ports. Not wanting to switch off two of the three PCI-E x1 physical slots, ASRock incorporates PLX's PEX 8605 Gen 2 switch which multiplies the chipset's only remaining PCI-E 2.0 lane to the three required.

ASRock's methods of achieving effective lane allocation are innovative to say the least. The company has done a noteworthy job in designing a product which caters for so many bandwidth-heavy devices through the LGA 1150 platform's sparse PCI-E subsystem.

A sliding fastener mechanism is used for the Z87 Extreme11/ac board's PCI-E x16-length slots, rather than the widespread deflecting-catch mechanism that is used on most (all?) other high-end boards. The mechanism is typically reserved for low-cost, entry-level motherboards, such as the mATX ASRock H77 part that I use in my personal system.

The mechanism uses a questionable design which is very easy to break when installing expansion cards. I tried installing the heavy Asus R9 280X Matrix Platinum graphics card after sliding the latch to the open position. Whether the latch had moved between me opening it and attempting to install the graphics card, or whether it wasn't fully open in the first place is unclear. But when pushing the graphics card into the slot, the mechanism failed causing the sliding latch to fracture. The piece detached from the end of its PCI-E x16 slot.

This becomes even more of an issue when considering the fact that the fasteners do not seem particularly strong nor do they stay in their open position without sliding about.

We contacted ASRock who told us that the feedback had been sent to the head office in Taiwan.

We would advise care to be taken when installing a heavy expansion card. The same goes for the removal of a card; a quick glance at the uppermost PCI-E x16 slot and PLX heatsink shows the circa-3mm gap between the two. We had no choice but to slide a thin ruler between the back of the graphics card and the heatsink in order to open the badly-designed mechanism.

The typical front panel connections are found in their usual locations – audio to the left and chassis headers to the right. ASRock also equips the Z87 Extreme11/ac with a pair of downwards-facing molex power connections which provide extra current to multi-VGA configurations.

Onboard power and reset buttons and a diagnostic panel make an appearance, as well as the convenient internal USB 2.0 port. The port's internal location makes it ideal for housing flash drives which are used for software licensing or other USB devices which do not require removal.

The six outwards-facing SATA 6Gb/s ports located nearest the 24-pin connector operate from the Z87 chipset. Ports SATA3_4 and SATA3_2 share their connections with MSATA1 and MSATA2, respectively. SATA3_5 shares its bandwidth with the rear panel eSATA connector.

Operating from a PCI-E 3.0 x8 LSI SAS 3008 controller, and multiplied via a 3x24R expander, sixteen SAS 12Gb/s ports are located on the Z87 Extreme11/ac. The ports are compatible with SAS drives with transfer rates of up to 12Gb/s, or SATA devices with up to 6Gb/s speeds. A small memory chip underneath the chipset heatink acts as the controller's cache.

Many people may be quick to question the requirement for sixteen SAS ports. In an IO-heavy workstation system (such as multi-stream, ultra-resolution video creation and editing), the ability to use a double-digit (maximum of 10 for RAID) number of drives in a stable RAID array from the dedicated controller, plus an additional six devices from the Z87 chipset, may reap the rewards of increased productivity.

Commonplace on many of ASRock’s Z87 motherboards, the Extreme11/ac is also outfitted with the Purity Sound audio solution.

Purity Sound uses Realtek’s ALC1150 audio codec to provide a 115 dB signal-to-noise-ratio. Other notable components which form the Purity Sound system include a pair Texas Instruments NE5532 operational amplifiers and isolated circuitry.

With the Extreme11/ac motherboard's target audience potentially consisting of audio and video professionals, the support for headphones with impedance ratings of 600 Ohms could be proven useful.

Dual gigabit Ethernet is provided by Intel I211-AT and I217V PCI-E controllers. The dual ports allow for teaming to increase data transmission bandwidth.

An Intel DSL5520 controller operates the dual Thunderbolt 2 ports. The controller uses a PCI-E 2.0 x4 connection from the Z87 chipset to provide 20Gb/s of bandwidth to the pair of bi-directional 20Gb/s ports. Up to twelve devices can be daisy-chained to a Thunderbolt 2 port. With its built-in DisplayPort connectivity, the Thunderbolt 2 connection can also be used to connect to monitors with a resolution up to 4K, albeit with a reduced refresh rate.

ASRock's DP-in (DisplayPort input) design permits for usage of a discrete graphics card while sending its display signal via the motherboard's Thunderbolt 2 ports. This has the benefit of allowing users to harness the compute (or gaming) power of a discrete graphics card while also enjoying the benefits of the Thunderbolt 2 connection, such as support for the use of long cables without signal degradation (far longer than DisplayPort).

We tested the Thunderbolt 2 ports with our Dell U3011 monitor. The ports were able to output a 2560 x 1600 display resolution, with a corresponding drop in the monitor's refresh rate, using our 4770K processor's onboard graphics.

As was the case with the front panel USB 3.0 headers, four of the six SuperSpeed ports found on the rear panel operate via an ASMedia ASM1074 hub and therefore share a single connection's link speed. The eSATA 6Gb/s port shares its bandwidth with internal port ‘SATA3_5'.

Motherboard rear ports:

• 1 x PS/2 Mouse/Keyboard Port
• 1 x HDMI Port
• 1 x DisplayPort Input for Thunderbolt™ 2 port
• 2 x Thunderbolt™ 2 Ports (Support Thunderbolt™ devices or mini DisplayPort monitors)
• 1 x Optical SPDIF Out Port
• 1 x eSATA Connector
• 2 x USB 2.0 Ports
• 2 x USB 3.0 Ports (Intel^® Z87)
• 4 x USB 3.0 Ports (ASMedia ASM1074 hub)
• 2 x RJ-45 LAN Ports with LED (ACT/LINK LED and SPEED LED)
• 1 x Clear CMOS Button
• HD Audio Jacks: Rear Speaker / Central / Bass / Line in / Front Speaker / Microphone

Circled above are the locations of the Z87 Extreme11/ac motherboard's nine fan headers. The red circles indicate free fan headers while the blue circles point out connections which are used for active motherboard cooling equipment. A standard 3-pin header powers the MOSFET fan, while the chipset fan operates from a physically non-standard connector.

Distribution of the fan headers is excellent. Our only slight niggle would be the lack of a free header near the SATA ports – a position which is easily-accessible for a case's front fan.

ASRock uses an assertive motherboard cooling implementation to eliminate the possibility of controller overheating. I (along with many others) typically question the relevance of a MOSFET fan. The same can be said for a chipset blower. But in this case, I believe ASRock's decision to use the pair of cooling fans to be the correct one.

The all-in-one motherboard cooling block will receive a large amount of heat from the PLX bridge chip, twelve phase CPU VRM, Z87 PCH, and pair of LSI chipsets. With this in mind, ASRock's decision to opt for an actively-cooled solution looks like the sensible one. Many workstation users or enthusiast gamers will be happy to trade a low-noise solution for greater stability.

I can confirm that fan noise was not an issue throughout testing. ASRock claims that the circa-36mm chipset fan only spins up when it is required. I cannot confirm whether this is true or not; the fan was operational for all load environments with our 4770K processor installed and an R9 280X graphics card lingering millimetres above it. With a lower-power processor, ASRock's claim may be justified.

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