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Today we will be testing the ASrock Z68 Extreme 4 with an Intel Core i7 2600k in an overclocked state @ 4.8ghz with various configurations of video card installed.
Processor: Intel Core i7 2600k @ 4.8ghz
Cooler: Noctua NH D14
Motherboard: ASrock Z68 Extreme 4 (& Asus P8P67 Deluxe for some compares)
Memory: ADATA 8GB DDR3 1600mhz gaming memory
Drives: Crucial 128GB Real SSD & 2TB Samsung storage drive // OCZ Vertex 3 240GB (CrystalDiskMark & HDTach)
Power Supply: ADATA 1200W PSU
Optical Drive: Asus BluRay SBC-06d1S-U
Chassis: Thermaltake Level 10 GT
Monitors: 3x Dell U2410 and Dell U3011 Ultrasharp.
Graphics cards:
AMD HD6990
Nvidia GTX580
Nvidia GTX570
AMD HD6970
AMD HD6950
Software:
Windows 7 64 Bit Enterprise Edition
Catalyst 11.4
Forceware 266.66
Fraps Professional
SiSoft Sandra
CPUz
GPUz
CPUID Hardware Monitor Professional
Cinebench R11.5 64 bit
CyberLink PowerDvd 10 Ultra
Cyberlink Media Espresso
CrystalMark
HDTach
HQV Benchmark V 2.0
3DMark 11
Unigine Heaven Benchmark
Games:
Far Cry 2
Resident Evil 5
Battlefield Bad Company 2
Tom Clancy HAWX 2
Alien V Predator
Lost Planet 2
Metro 2033
Dead Space 2
Batman Arkham Asylum
Battleforge
Crysis Warhead
Devil May Cry 4
Left4Dead 2
All the latest BIOS updates and drivers are used during testing. We perform under real world conditions, meaning KitGuru tests across five closely matched runs and averages out the results to get an accurate median figure.
Thats a great product, ive read a few reviews lately on various sites and they seem to score well. Arent they owned by ASUS ?
I haven’t even got my P67 changed yet to B3 revision. might just sell it on ebay and buy one of these.
The B3 revision was overhyped. there was no big deal about the sata problems anyway. just a lot of nonsense. Intel lost a billion over basically very little.
The SSD caching technology is a great idea, but I think it might end up in no mans land.
why? well the people who are educated enough to know about it, will already have an SSD as a boot drive. a mechanical drive for storage. therefore useless.
Those people who have a simple system with say a 500GB HD and nothing else, they wont rush out to get an SSD to take their system apart to set it up for caching. Its not that easy to do all that, and joe public wont even understand the differences. its a mid way no mans land approach imo. cool idea mind you.
Come on, why not spend some time fixing teh bandwidth issues with two cards? rather than spend such a long time on bloody SSD caching 10 people will use.
Its too close to p67, its confusing people. I think they are trying to lose the P67 flawed concerns, I know people who arent buying Intel atm, even though P67 is fixed and wouldnt even affect 99% of people buying one.
How much is it?
Its only marginally more expensive that P67, but I wonder if its cause of that sh**ty lucid nonsense they put on it. who the f*** wants that? eh?
Im not interested in these products. Its such a dumb release IMHO.
How often do ASRock update their bios. their website is slow as all hell for me to find out. I heard it was terrible.
I like the CPU slot area, its free of crap. really helps with some fitting.s I just opted for a D14 last month. No interest in Z68 for the time being. I use a 128GB SSD already. seems about the only thing worth moving for. Lucid? seriously?
Shame you didnt use the 2500k. no one uses it anymore for reviews. you used it for the verification too ! im gutted 🙁
this can take 8GB DDR3 modules? are they even out yet?
I wouldnt touch ASROCK with a 50 foot stick. I bought a board from them last year and it died installing windows. POS.
I think ASROCK should make one with a dedicated sound card like ASUS, realtek onboard is crap.
long time reader, but I hate this recapthca nonsense so I never post.
If this goes through, can I make a request? Can you include temperature results from your review? placing diodes on the heatsinks? I really would like to know how hot the heatsinks get. no one does this and its so impotrant.
ASRock will have a tough time in the UK. ASUS really dominate. and @Fred, no they arent a part of ASUS
Umm, not to be disrespectful, but isn’t the point of virtu that it will save you power on i mode, though GPUs these days tend to have very capable power-scaling capabilities – shouldn’t you have looked into the this?
@Tommyboy and @Victor, Lucid Virtue is actually an excellent feature when setup in discrete mode (screen connected to the GC instead of on the motherboard towards the Intel HD Graphics on the CPU) : whenever I need to transcode a video from one format to another, Virtue will automatically switch processes to the CPU’s GPU instead of the graphics card, the later being much MUCH more efficient than any Graphic cards on the market (about 40% gain). A must have for any serious video transcoding job. The only thing is that not many software vendors had the time to implement routines specifically coded with Intel’s HD “libraries” in mind – Media Espresso deos this, but I don’t know about others like Adobe or Autodesk, however they should implement Intel’s HD capabilities, it’s so much more efficient! In short, Virtue will switch between your GC and Intel’s HD depending on the task at hand and choosing the most proficient GPU for the job.