ASRock X79 Extreme9 Motherboard Review

Allan 'Zardon' Campbell January 4, 2012 Featured Announcement, Motherboard

Rating: 9.0.

ASRock have been releasing a wide range of quality motherboards in the last year and can now firmly be recognised as one of the major players in the industry. Today we are looking at their top of the line X79 motherboard, entitled the ‘Extreme 9'. This board is fully loaded and is marketed to compete against flagship products from companies such as Asus, MSI and Gigabyte. We are testing today with the Intel Core i7 3960X Extreme Edition processor, 16GB of 2,133mhz memory and Nvidia GTX590 running in a Quad SLI configuration.

When Intel launched the new X79 platform in November last year, we were on hand with multiple reviews, featuring the 3960X EE with several Asus and Gigabyte motherboards.

It has taken a little while longer for ASRock to bring their flagship product to market, so we hope it has been worth the wait.

Specifications overview:

Premium Gold Caps (2.5 x longer life time), 100% Japan-made high-quality Conductive Polymer Capacitors
Intel® Core™ i7 processor family for the LGA 2011 Socket
Supports Quad Channel DDR3 2400+(OC), 8 DIMM slots, Max. capacity up to 64GB
Digi Power Design, Advanced 16 + 2 Power Phase Design
5 x PCIe 3.0 x16 Slots, Supports AMD 3-Way CrossFireX™ and NVIDIA® 3-Way SLI™
Broadcom Dual LAN with Teaming Function
Supports ASRock X-FAN, XFast RAM, XFast LAN, XFast USB, XFast Charger, Graphical UEFI, UEFI System Browser, AXTU
Creative Sound Core3D 7.1 CH, Supports THX TruStudio PRO™
Free Bundle : ASRock Game Blaster, Front USB 3.0 Panel, CyberLink MediaEspresso 6.5 Trial, ASRock MAGIX Multimedia Suit

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11 comments

Ron
January 4, 2012 at 12:40 pm

very nice indeed. costs a fortune, as expected however !
Raymond Oliver
January 4, 2012 at 12:53 pm

Beautiful looking mobo, they are getting good reviews lately. The whole X79 platform however is just so expensive. my 2500k is working a treat, so im waiting on the mainstream boards to come out soon for the next generation intel chips. should be really interesting.

is it just me, or do we NEED amd to start competiting. Intel’s prices are just too high and they have sadly no reason to lower them.
Glynn McDermott
January 4, 2012 at 1:39 pm

A very impressive board, ive never opted for ASROCK in the past, but going on the strength of media reviews ive read recently they seem to be really improving their reputation.

I always thought they were a budget brand from ASUS, but im not sure where I got that from.
SolarFox
January 5, 2012 at 3:16 am

I have GA mobo-s for last 10 years, but last one was Asrock Z68 + 2600K and i`m very happy. GA was too high priced for what they offer 🙁 LACK of hdd ports on P67 distracted me immediately from buying GA.
And Intel can hold high price i will not buy until price drop down a LOT. I`m not in hurry and probably 80% or more peoples also. They will reduce price when sell drop. They will not until there are a peoples who want 5% faster pc`s for 1000$ more.
Joe
January 5, 2012 at 5:55 am

But who will pay 300+ for a MB they only stand behind for two years. Asus will sell you one that is good for 5.
Joe
Cyras
January 28, 2012 at 3:18 pm

Can you upload the L1.92 Bios please?
GeekOrbit
May 16, 2012 at 11:37 pm

Lovely motherboard but the majority will never see it in person..