ASRock X99 Extreme11 Motherboard Review

Rating: 9.0.

With the highest possible compute performance that consumers can purchase, Intel's Haswell-E processors and the X99 chipset make a viable combination for users with demanding workloads. If the price, features, and performance are right, there's nothing stopping a semi-professional buying a consumer-grade motherboard to house their LGA2011-3 CPU and DDR4 memory.

Bearing that in mind, ASRock has given its X99 series of motherboards the ‘Extreme11' treatment. What exactly does that mean? It translates into a high-end, feature-heavy motherboard whose secret sauce is deployed in the form of an LSI SAS 3008 storage controller to provide eight SAS 12Gbps connections.

Star of the X99 Extreme11 show is, without doubt, the LSI SAS 3008 storage controller. Other notable features come in the form of 4-way SLI and CrossFire support, thanks to a couple of PLX PEX8747 PCIe bridge chips, and dual 32Gbps Ultra M.2 connectors.

It is clear that (high-speed) storage capability is an important factor for ASRock's X99 Extreme11. Could this be the board that will garner the interest of users with IO-heavy workloads?

Features:

• 18 x SATA3 (8 x SAS3 12.0 Gb/s + 10 x SATA3 6.0 Gb/s) from LSI SAS 3008 Controller
• 4-Way SLI™ & 4-Way CrossFireX™ (x16) supported by 2 embedded PLX 8747 bridges
• ASRock Super Alloy components
• Supports Intel^® Core™ i7 and Xeon^® 18-Core Processors Family for the LGA 2011-3 Socket
• Digi Power, 12 Power Phase design
• Supports Quad Channel DDR4 3200+(OC), with maximum capacity up to 128GB
• Supports DDR4 UDIMM ECC*, RDIMM Memory (*ECC is supported with Intel^® Xeon^® processors.)
• 5 PCIe 3.0 x16, 2 embedded PLX PEX 8747
• 7.1 CH HD Audio with Content Protection (Realtek ALC1150 Audio Codec), Supports Purity Sound™ 2 & DTS Connect
• Intel^® Dual Gigabit LAN with Teaming Function
• 10 SATA3, 8 SAS3, 2 eSATA, 2 Ultra M.2 (PCIe Gen3 x4 & SATA3)
• Supports ASRock HDD Saver Technology, Full Spike Protection, APP Shop

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