ASRock Z68 Extreme7 Gen3 Review

Rating: 9.5.

This year we have seen ASRock launch an attack on the high end market with a steady stream of quality motherboards for both AMD and Intel platforms. I use several of their boards myself at home and have found them to be very reliable and extremely straightforward to overclock. Today we are looking at their new Z68 Extreme 7 Gen 3 product which combines a fully loaded feature list with an eye popping appearance.

ASRock are working hard to be seen as one of the main choices for the enthusiast user, right up there with Asus, Gigabyte and MSI. The Extreme7 Gen3 is certainly cutting no corners, as it features Premium Gold Capacitors  and 100% Japan made conductive polymer Capacitors. There is an advanced V8 + 4 power phase implementation incorporated for maximum stability in overclocked situations. Rest assured that in real world terms this means the board is designed to last the distance.

The Extreme7 Gen3 also includes the NF200 Chip which ensures that a Crossfire or SLI configuration will run at x16/x16 (2 cards) or x16/x8/x8 (3 cards). ASRock have integrated the PLX PEX8608 processor to maximise PCI-E lane support.

With futureproofing for PCIe 3.0 graphics cards (1 GB/s), is this one of the best motherboards that you can buy today?

ASRock Extreme7 Gen3 Overview:

• Premium Gold Caps (2.5 x longer life time), 100% Japan-made high-quality Conductive Polymer Capacitors
• Digi Power, Advanced V8 + 4 Power Phase Design
• NVIDIA® NF200 Chip Onboard (Dual VGA cards at PCI-E x16/x16; three VGA cards at x16 / x8 / x8)
• Integrated PLX PEX8608 chip onboard to offer sufficient PCI-E lanes
• 1x PCIe 3.0 x16 Slot, 4 PCIe 2.0 x16 Slots, Supports AMD 3-Way CrossFireX™ and NVIDIA® 3-Way SLI™
• Supports Intel® HD Graphics Built-in Visuals
• Multi VGA Output : D-Sub, DVI-D, HDMI, DisplayPort
• Supports Dual LAN with Teaming function
• Dr. Debug, Smart Switch Design: Power/Reset/Clear CMOS Switch with LED
• Support Intel® Smart Response, Lucid Virtu Switchable Graphics
• Supports ASRock XFast Charger Technology
• Supports ASRock XFast USB, XFast LAN Technologies
• Supports ASRock On/Off Play, graphical UEFI, ASRock Extreme Tuning Utility (AXTU)
• Combo Cooler Option (C.C.O.)
• 7.1 CH HD Audio with Content Protection (Realtek ALC892 Audio Codec), Supports THX TruStudio™
• Free Bundle : 1 x Front USB 3.0 Panel, 1 x Rear USB 3.0 Bracket, 1 x 3.5mm Audio Cable, CyberLink MediaEspresso 6.5 Trial, ASRock MAGIX Multimedia Suite

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