ASRock Z77 Extreme4 Review

ASRock are back again with their black n’ gold theme for LGA1155 Intel Z77. How well will Extreme4 team up with Ivy Bridge Core i5 3570K?

Product on Review : Z77 Extreme4
Manufacturer and Sponsor : ASRock

Street Price: £113-119 inc. VAT (GBP)

ASRock have been around for a lot longer than many actually realise. Prior to LGA1155 ASRock were just beginning to gain momentum within the motherboard enthusiast market – showing promising products but perhaps lacking exposure and certain refinement. As soon as Sandy Bridge and LGA1155/P67 hit, ASRock were on hand to show their ambition, and that they were a worthy contender in a market that has fierce competition.

It was with the Z68 chipset that ASRock really kicked things off. Their refresh and new revision projected them directly into the mainstream and high-end segment – with a vengeance. Last year I had the pleasure of reviewing the Z68 Extreme4 Gen3 – one of ASRock’s mid-range offerings that oozed flare and finesse; so much so that many enthusiasts would come to own such a motherboard.

So today we are will be looking at the next step in ASRock’s development. Intel recently launched their new Z77 chipset, paving the way for their newly released 3rd Generation Processors aka Ivy Bridge. Questions will surely arise, can ASRock extend their prowess with this new chipset; will the new Z77 Extreme4 handle Ivy Bridge well? We are here to answer all of your questions, so let’s waste no further time and begin our analysis of Z77 Extreme4.

ASRock – on the Z77 Extreme4

ASRock Z77 Extreme4 is designed with a 8 + 4 Power Phase design. It features sturdy components and completely smooth power delivery to the CPU. Plus, it offers unmatched overclocking capability and enhanced performance with the lowest temperature for advanced gamers as well.

Technical Specifications

CPU
– Supports 3rd and 2nd Generation Intel® Core™ i7 / i5 / i3 in LGA1155 Package
– Digi Power Design
– 8 + 4 Power Phase Design
– Supports Intel® Turbo Boost 2.0 Technology
– Supports Intel® K-Series unlocked CPU
– Supports Hyper-Threading Technology
Chipset
– Intel® Z77
– Supports Intel® Rapid Start Technology and Smart Connect Technology
Memory
– Dual Channel DDR3 memory technology
– 4 x DDR3 DIMM slots
– Supports DDR3 2800+(OC)/2400(OC)/2133(OC)/1866(OC)/1600/1333/1066 non-ECC, un-buffered memory
– Max. capacity of system memory: 32GB
– Supports Intel® Extreme Memory Profile (XMP) 1.3 / 1.2
BIOS
– 64Mb AMI UEFI Legal BIOS with GUI support
– Supports “Plug and Play”
– ACPI 1.1 Compliance Wake Up Events
– Supports jumperfree
– SMBIOS 2.3.1 Support
– CPU Core, IGPU, DRAM, 1.8V PLL, VTT, VCCSA Voltage Multi-adjustment
Graphics
– Supports Intel® HD Graphics Built-in Visuals : Intel® Quick Sync Video 2.0, Intel® InTru™ 3D, Intel® Clear Video HD Technology, Intel® Insider™, Intel® HD Graphics 2500/4000
– Pixel Shader 5.0, DirectX 11 with Intel® Ivy Bridge CPU. Pixel Shader 4.1, DirectX 10.1 with Intel® Sandy Bridge CPU.
– Max. shared memory 1760MB
– Multi VGA Output options: D-Sub, DVI-D and HDMI
– Supports HDMI 1.4a Technology with max. resolution up to 1920×1200 @ 60Hz
– Supports DVI with max. resolution up to 1920×1200 @ 60Hz
– Supports D-Sub with max. resolution up to 2048×1536 @ 75Hz
– Supports Auto Lip Sync, Deep Color (12bpc), xvYCC and HBR (High Bit Rate Audio) with HDMI (Compliant HDMI monitor is required)
– Supports HDCP function with DVI and HDMI ports
– Supports Full HD 1080p Blu-ray (BD) / HD-DVD playback with DVI and HDMI ports
Audio
– 7.1 CH HD Audio with Content Protection (Realtek ALC898 Audio Codec)
– Premium Blu-ray audio support
– Supports THX TruStudio™
LAN
– PCIE x1 Gigabit LAN 10/100/1000 Mb/s
– Broadcom BCM57781
– Supports Wake-On-LAN
– Supports Energy Efficient Ethernet 802.3az
– Supports PXE
Expansion / Connectivity Slots
– 2 x PCI Express 3.0 x16 slots (PCIE2/PCIE3: single at x16 (PCIE2) / x8 (PCIE3) or dual at x8/x8 mode)
– 2 x PCI Express 2.0 x1 slots
– 2 x PCI slots
– Supports AMD Quad CrossFireX™ and CrossFireX™
– Supports NVIDIA® Quad SLI™ and SLI™
SATA3
– 2 x SATA3 6.0 Gb/s connectors by Intel® Z77, support RAID (RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 10, Intel® Rapid Storage and Intel® Smart Response Technology), NCQ, AHCI and “Hot Plug” functions
– 2 x SATA3 6.0 Gb/s connectors by ASMedia ASM1061, support NCQ, AHCI and “Hot Plug” functions (SATA3_A1 connector is shared with eSATA3 port)
USB 3.0
– 2 x Rear USB 3.0 ports by Intel® Z77, support USB 1.0/2.0/3.0 up to 5Gb/s
– 2 x Rear USB 3.0 ports by ASMedia ASM1042, support USB 1.0/2.0/3.0 up to 5Gb/s
– 1 x Front USB 3.0 header by Intel® Z77 (supports 2 USB 3.0 ports), supports USB 1.0/2.0/3.0 up to 5Gb/s
Connector
– 4 x SATA2 3.0 Gb/s connectors, support RAID (RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 10, Intel® Rapid Storage and Intel® Smart Response Technology), NCQ, AHCI and Hot Plug functions
– 4 x SATA3 6.0 Gb/s connectors
– 1 x IR header
– 1 x CIR header
– 1 x COM port header
– 1 x HDMI_SPDIF header
– 1 x Power LED header
– CPU/Chassis/Power FAN connector
– 24 pin ATX power connector
– 8 pin 12V power connector
– Front panel audio connector
– 3 x USB 2.0 headers (support 6 USB 2.0 ports)
– 1 x USB 3.0 header (supports 2 USB 3.0 ports)
– 1 x Dr. Debug with LED
Rear Panel I/O
– 1 x PS/2 Keyboard/Mouse Port
– 1 x D-Sub Port
– 1 x DVI-D Port
– 1 x HDMI Port
– 1 x Optical SPDIF Out Port
– 2 x Ready-to-Use USB 2.0 Ports
– 1 x eSATA3 Connector
– 4 x Ready-to-Use USB 3.0 Ports
– 1 x RJ-45 LAN Port with LED (ACT/LINK LED and SPEED LED)
– 1 x Clear CMOS Switch with LED
– HD Audio Jack: Rear Speaker / Central / Bass / Line in / Front Speaker / Microphone
Other Features / Miscellaneous
– ASRock Extreme Tuning Utility (AXTU)
– ASRock Instant Boot
– ASRock Instant Flash
– ASRock APP Charger
– ASRock SmartView
– ASRock XFast USB
– ASRock XFast LAN
– ASRock XFast RAM
– ASRock Crashless BIOS
– ASRock OMG (Online Management Guard)
– ASRock Internet Flash
– Lucid Virtu Universal MVP
– Hybrid Booster:
– CPU Frequency Stepless Control
– ASRock U-COP
– Boot Failure Guard (B.F.G.)
– Combo Cooler Option (C.C.O.)
– Good Night LED
Smart Switch
– 1 x Power Switch with LED
– 1 x Reset Switch with LED
– 1 x Clear CMOS Switch with LED
Support CD
– Drivers, Utilities, AntiVirus Software (Trial Version), CyberLink MediaEspresso 6.5 Trial, ASRock MAGIX Multimedia Suite – OEM
Accessories
– 1 x ASRock SLI_Bridge_2S Card
– Quick Installation Guide, Support CD, I/O Shield
– 2 x SATA Data Cables
Hardware Monitor
– CPU Temperature Sensing
– Chassis Temperature Sensing
– CPU/Chassis/Power Fan Tachometer
– CPU/Chassis Quiet Fan (Allow Chassis Fan Speed Auto-Adjust by CPU Temperature)
– CPU/Chassis Fan Multi-Speed Control
– Voltage Monitoring: +12V, +5V, +3.3V, CPU Vcore
Form Factor
– ATX Form Factor: 12.0-in x 8.6-in, 30.5 cm x 21.8 cm
– Premium Gold Capacitor design (100% Japan-made high-quality Conductive Polymer Capacitors)
OS
– Microsoft® Windows® 7 / 7 64-bit / Vista™ / Vista™ 64-bit / XP / XP 64-bit compliant
Certifications
– FCC, CE, WHQL
– ErP/EuP Ready (ErP/EuP ready power supply is required)

Packaging & First Look

Unlike the X79 Extreme4-M and Z68 Extreme4 Gen3 the Z77 Extreme4 is presented in a black box with 555 XFAST being a particular feature that ASRock are wanting to market. The back of the box has even more details on 555 XFAST and the fundamental features that Z77 Extreme4 comes along with.

Inside the box there are a number of items within the accessories bundle including:

• Docummentation: Quick Installation Guide, Software Guide, 555 XFAST, MVP Guide
• Support CD: Drivers, Utilities, AntiVirus Software (Trial Version), CyberLink MediaEspresso 6.5 Trial, ASRock MAGIX Multimedia Suite OEM
• 1x I/O Shield
• 1 x SLI Bridge (Rigid)
• 2 x 6Gb/s SATA Cables

For a full unbox of the Z77 Extreme4 – check out our video: ASRock Z77 Extreme4 Unbox.

Packaging for Z77 Extreme4

Accessories bundle for Z77 Extreme4

With the packaging now out of the way we can finally get our first look at the Z77 Extreme4. Following in the footsteps of the Z68 Extreme4 Gen3, the Z77 Extreme4 has a black and gold theme. All ports, slots and heatsinks are black and the signature gold solid capacitors can be seen used throughout the motherboard. The PCB is actually brown though it does appear to be particularly dark and even black in some light. The heatsinks have been completely re-designed on the Z77 variant – aesthetics are generally much more toned down and I prefer them compared to the Z68 Gen3. There is an air of grace, sleekness and professionalism now present.

Those with a keen eye will notice that the Z77 Extreme4 slips out of the standard ATX specifications in terms of physical dimensions, making it slimmer.

ASRock Z77 Extreme4 Size: 30.5 cm x 21.8 cm
Standard ATX motherboard: 30.5 cm x 24.4 cm

Z77 Extreme4 continues the black and gold theme

On the next page we will take a closer look at the various aspects of ASRock’s Z77 Extreme4.

Closer Look

We’ll now go on a close up tour of the integral features that come with Z77 Extreme4, starting with the CPU socket. Being LGA1155 this motherboard has support for Intel’s 2nd and 3rd Generation of CPUs – Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge. Around the CPU socket is a 8 + 4 phase power design and covering the MOSFETs is a dual heatsink design. Unlike rival motherboards Z77 Extreme4’s heatsinks does not have a heatpipe running through them and compared to previous motherboards such as Z68 Extreme4 these heatsinks are much more subtle and have a touch of finesse.

Behind these heatsinks is an 8-pin CPU power connector for smooth power delivery whilst overclocking.

Attractive heatsinks cover the MOSFETs

Z77 Extreme4 has support for dual channel DDR3 – from 1066MHz right through to an astounding 2800+ (OC). There is a maximum capacity of 32GB and support for Intel XMP 1.2/1.3. Immediately next to the memory slots is a native USB 3.0 port, allowing for USB 3.0 functionality at the front of your computer chassis.

Memory slots support 32GB and Intel XMP

Moving to the storage ports the Z77 Extreme4 has a mixture of SATA 2 3GB/s and SATA 3 6GB/s ports. The 4x black SATA ports are SATA2 3GB/s whilst the 4x grey SATA ports are SATA3 6GB/s. The 2x grey ports on the left are supplied by Intel Z77 and the 2x grey ports on the right are supplied by AS Media (ASM1061).

HDD storage SATA storage ports – SATA 2 and SATA 3

Again, compared to a vast majority of the motherboards rivalling Z77 Extreme4 the heatsink covering the Intel Z77 chip is significantly smaller. The Intel Z77 heatsink is discreet and blends into the motherboard very well.

Discreet heatsink covering Intel Z77 chip

On the next page we will continue our tour of Z77 Extreme4’s features.

Closer Look (Continued)

At the bottom of the motherboard – behind the SATA ports are two noteworthy features – power and reset buttons and DrDebug.

The Power and reset buttons are now becoming a popular addition and are extremely useful if you are perhaps testing the system outside of a computer chassis – it saves you having to hook up the chassis power button cables.

DrDebug meanwhile features a LED panel – this panel displays codes as you go through POST and into Windows and can be very useful at identifying potential problems. Codes displayed on this panel correspond to the User Manual and can identify problems with memory or other components.

Onboard power and reset buttons with LED debug

Over at the PCI-Express slots there are an assortment of PCI, PCI-E x1 and PCI-E x16. ASRock have chosen to include 2x PCI slots for legacy devices – the justification for this is legible. Not that many enthusiasts nowadays use legacy PCI. Further to this there are 2x PCI-E 2.0 x1 slots at the top and bottom of this area and then there are 2x PCI-E 3.0 x16 slots for graphics. The top slot is x16 whilst the bottom is x8 so if you are going to be using a single card solution it would be better to use the top slot, but if you do go with a dual card configuration then this will drop to x8 for both cards – I should also mention whilst saying this that there is support for NVIDIA SLI and AMD Crossfire (or ATI Crossfire as it says on the PCB!).

A selection of PCI and PCI-E

Lastly the rear IO. Here there is a again quite a wide selection of options. From left to right there is:

• PS2 Keyboard/Mouse
• 2x USB 3.0 ports
• VGA/DVI and HDMI display ports
• Clear CMOS button
• 2x USB 2.0 ports
• eSATA 3GB/s port
• Gigabit LAN (RJ45) port
• 2x USB 3.0 ports
• 7.1 Channel audio jacks with optical S/PDIF

With Intel’s 2nd and 3rd Generation Processors having and integrated graphics chip the Z77 chipset has video outputs to provide connectivity. Some motherboards have different combinations of ports but it’s good to see that ASRock have chosen the most popular choices.

The rear IO has a lots of options including a Clear CMOS button with LED

Test Setup & Overclocking

CPUs Intel Core i5 3570K (3.40GHz) Ivy Bridge
Cooling Alpenfohn K2 – Mount Doom
Motherboard ASRock Z77 Extreme4
Memory Corsair Vengeance 8GB 2133MHz CL11 DDR
Graphics XFX R7970 Black Edition
Storage Kingston HyperX 240GB SSD
PSU OCZ Fatal1ty 750W

Benchmarks

Cinebench 11.5 – CPU Score
x264 HD 4.0 – 1st and 2nd pass encoding
SiSoftware SANDRA 2012 – CPU & Memory benchmarks
AIDA64 – CPU benchmarks
3DMark 11 – DX11 3D Performance and Extreme preset
Games – DIRT 3, Skyrim and Battlefield 3

Other Software
Core Temp
LinX stress Test
CPU-Z

Overclocking

As previously mentioned in our Intel Core i5 Sandy Bridge Roundup – overclocking with Ivy Bridge is identical to Sandy Bridge. It is achieved by altering the multiplier rather than the BCLK. So the BCLK stays at 100MHz and the multiplier is modified. So if we have 100MHz on the BCLK and 40 for the multiplier this will obviously output 4GHz.

For this section of the review the maximum overclock was achieved by using the Intel Core i5 3750K and monolith CPU cooler – Alpenfohn K2 with 2x 120mm and 1x 140mm fans. The multiplier for Core i5-3570K was nudged up in small increments starting with 43 and upon booting into windows LinX was run 5 times in order to observe temperatures and confirm stability.

The 3750K managed to overclock up to 48 – 4.8GHz from 3.40GHz, a 41% overclock. This is a significant increase and required 1.38 vcore and PLL overvoltage enabled. I pushed for the 5GHz milestone but sadly the temperatures increased far too high under load when nudging up vcore to achieve such a frequency. The temperatures rose to over 90*C.

This maximum overclock will be used throughout our benchmarks – as well as stock 3570K frequency with turbo boost enabled.

ASRock Extreme Tuning Utility

Accompanying Z77 Extreme4 is a software suite called ASRock Extreme Tuning Utility (AXTU). This software is an all-in-one suite that provides information and options covering various aspects of hardware on a clean GUI.

With AXTU hardware can be monitored, fan speeds can be tweaked and overclocking can be achieved with an interface to allow voltage and multiplier to be adjusted on-the-fly.

XFAST 555 Features & Benchmark

XFAST 55 Microsite

Beginning with ASRock’s new Z77 range is a feature that they are proud to announce as XFAST 555. This feature takes three key elements – RAM, LAN and USB and allows each to be significantly optimised “up to 5 times faster”.

XFAST RAM

This feature boosts RAM performance by creating a virtual disk from system memory and can be used for applications such as Adobe Photoshop. Below is the a screenshot of XFAST RAM within AXTU. You can specify just how many MB to use for the boost and even switch this on for a variety of uses.

XFAST LAN

With XFAST LAN, priority can be made for a variety of different applications and protocols that are network related. Traffic shaping can be controlled and various profiles can be set. This is especially useful if for example you share the internet connection with a group of people.

XFAST USB

The last of the three features is XFAST USB. As you may have guessed by now, this feature delivers a boost to the USB 3.0 ports. The idea with this feature is that all of the USB 3.0 ports found on Z77 Extreme4 can be configured to “Turbo” mode to significantly boost the transfer rates of any USB device that is inserted.

So to investigate whether this feature really does work I plugged in a Kingston DataTraveler Ultimate 32GB USB 3.0 and ran Flash Memory Toolkit – an application that allows for the benchmarking of USB drives/sticks by monitoring read/write transfer rates with different sized files.

To discover the effectiveness of USB 3.0 Turbo Boost I ran the benchmark in Normal mode and Turbo mode on the same drive – below are the results.

As you can see from the results, XFAST USB appears to prefer bigger file sizes and is generally faster with read transfers than write.

Lucid VIRTU MVP

An interesting feature that first appeared on the desktop environment with the Sandy Bridge architecture was the integrated graphics on the CPU. This meant that regardless of if you had a discreet graphics solution you always had the ability to use “Built in” processing power to watch movies, view 3D content and take part in some casual gaming.

With Ivy Bridge, Intel have stepped up with new graphics architecture by delivering full DX11 functionality. With HD-4000 there is a significant increase in execution units which mean even greater performance enhancements when compared to HD 2000/3000 – found on Sandy Bridge CPUs. To the end user this should translate to being able to handle 1080p movies, more complex gaming titles and even more intense 3D renders.

This motherboard has HDMI/VGA/DVI ports to allow connectivity to Intel’s IGP with support via Lucid VIRTU MVP. What VIRTU does is – it allows the user to utilise both discrete GPU and Intel’s IGP (built in graphics on the CPU) without the need to change hardware or switch the outputs.

VIRTU brings in many unique features, a great deal of them are associated with power management – relating to heat, fan speed, and other useful elements. There are two different modes to use when considering VIRTU:

i-Mode
This provides the user with Intel features and power saving options when not being used for 3D gaming. Display must be connected to video output on the motherboard to use this feature.

d-Mode
This mode allows gamers to enhance their 3D experience and performance – combining a discrete graphics solution and the iGPU. In this mode we can use VIRTU to assist with things like transcoding and media encoding in general. The overriding thought on this is that even entry level AMD and NVIDIA graphics cards have their own technologies for handling media encoding such as AMD Stream and NVIDIA CUDA – both of these technologies are deemed as being exceptional alternatives and don’t offer any real advantage over VIRTU using IGP for these types of task.

Display drivers for discreet graphics card must be installed prior to VIRTU drivers.

For more information on VIRTU please go to: Lucidlogix Virtu MVP

Power Consumption

It’s interesting to note the power consumption across all motherboards. Although they are using P67 and Z68 chipsets, energy results can fluctuate between manufacturers due to the features and specifications that are integrated. First of all, for the idle tests the system is cold booted into Windows and no additional applications are executed – the watts are noted on the external energy monitor we use and then the system is loaded with 3DMark 11 – watts are again monitored for the duration of the test and the highest rated wattage result is then noted down. Below are the results of this energy test.

Encoding Performance – X264 HD

Simply put, this test measures how fast your machine can encode a short, DVD quality MPEG-2 video clip into a high-quality x264 video clip. What’s x264, you ask? It’s more or less the next-generation Xvid/DivX codec. I think it’s ideal for a benchmark because the application (x264.exe) reports fairly accurate compression results (in frames per second) for each pass of the video encoding process, and it uses multi-core processors very efficiently.

x264 HD gives results for 2 passes when compressing an MPEG-2 clip into x264. It presents 4 separate results for each pass giving a total of 8 – all results are given in FPS. For each pass I have averaged out the results.

Processing Features Performance – AIDA64

Get your copy of AIDA64 here!

This simple integer benchmark focuses on the branch prediction capabilities and the misprediction penalties of the CPU. It finds the solutions for the classic “Queens problem” on a 10 by 10 sized chessboard. At the same clock speed theoretically the processor with the shorter pipeline and smaller misprediction penalties will attain higher benchmark scores. For example — with HyperThreading disabled — the Intel Northwood core processors get higher scores than the Intel Prescott core based ones due to the 20-step vs 31-step long pipeline. CPU Queen test uses integer MMX, SSE2 and SSSE3 optimizations.

Processing Power Performance – Cinebench

CINEBENCH can measure systems with up to 64 processor threads. This test scene contains approximately 2,000 objects which in turn contain more than 300,000 polygons in total, and uses sharp and blurred reflections, area lights, shadows, procedural shaders, antialiasing, and much more. The result is displayed in points (pts). The higher the number, the faster your processor.

Bandwidth Performance – SiSoftware SANDRA

SANDRA isn’t always a benchmark that is included in hardware reviews but I believe it shouldn’t be ignored. SANDRA provides a vigorous package that tests your system in a rather large array of benchmarks. There are many aspects of benchmark that can be executed. We will be considering – CPU and memory tests.

3D Performance – 3DMARK 11

Designed to measure your PC’s gaming performance 3DMark 11 makes extensive use of all the new features in DirectX 11 including tessellation, compute shaders and multi-threading. Trusted by gamers worldwide to give accurate and unbiased results, 3DMark 11 is the best way to consistently and reliably test DirectX 11 under game-like loads.

3DMark 11 is a very popular 3D performance benchmark suite and needs little introduction. For the test settings both Performance and Extreme presets are run with ‘benchmark only’ being selected. This provides good analysis. Many will only test the performance preset, using the extreme mode we can examine the board under much more severe stressing – at 720p and 1080p.

Gaming Performance – DIRT 3, Skyrim & Battlefield 3

It’s important for us to perform a number of game benchmarks as well as the synthetic tests because gamers will want to know if there are any significant benefits. So here we have a selection of popular gaming titles, critically acclaimed and action-packed.

Settings
DIRT 3
– 1680×1050 4xMSAA – Ultra Quality *Benchmark tool*
Skyrim
– 1680×1050 2xAA – Very High Quality *FRAPS – 1st episode*
Battlefield 3
– 1680×1050 2xAA – Ultra Quality *FRAPS – Sepur Fedelis*

The gaming titles selected demand GPU power over CPU power – in each test the difference is rather marginal.

Conclusion

Last year I had the pleasure of publishing a review of ASRock’s Z68 Extreme4 Gen3. Not only was I impressed with this motherboard from a review standpoint but I liked it so much that it formed the foundation for my own personal rig and I have been using it ever since. You can attribute no greater praise, than from personal recommendation!

So here we are again, but at the next stage in ASRock’s development – this time with the new Intel Z77 chipset. The Z68 Extreme4 Gen3 set the benchmark – has ASRock built on success?

The answer is a resounding – yes! From a visual perspective the aesthetics are once again eye-catching and very unique. The black and gold theme continues with even further refinement, there is a fresh heatsink design, which personally I much prefer and to be honest with you I didn’t think that the aesthetics on a motherboard could get any better.

If the visual appearance doesn’t concern you then maybe the features and performance do. The benchmarks on the previous pages proved that the mid-range Z77 Extreme4 can hold its ground against MSI and ASUS high-end offerings. Overclocking our Ivy Bridge 3570K to 4.8GHz demonstrated some key benefits across a variety of environments too, so it’s worthwhile pushing that frequency up – even if you don’t move to Intel Ivy Bridge.

It’s good to see that ASRock are thinking outside of the box with their product development too. Their new wave of Z77 motherboards come equipped with XFAST 555 which seeks to optimise performance for RAM, LAN and USB. These features do work and ASRock have set the foundations for some useful applications, it will be interesting to see where they will go with XFAST in the not too distant future.

The Z77 Extreme4 can be purchased for as little as £119. Taking a look at the current availability of Intel Z77 motherboards at popular etailers confirms that this motherboard is an absolute bargain and I would say – if you are on a tight budget then give this board some consideration, but even if you aren’t, you should certainly consider it anyway.

The only negative I have for this motherboard is that it slips outside of typical ATX specifications. It’s 3cm thinner than a standard ATX motherboard and as a result may lack secure mounting on the far side since this isn’t a common size, which also means you should be very careful when plugging in the 24-pin ATX motherboard power – as the motherboard may flex.

So ASRock have done it again with the Z77 Extreme4 and they walk away with Gold and Amazing Value awards… The looks are there, the features are there, the performance is there and the price is there. Go and buy one!

Pros
+ Wonderful aesthetics
+ Strong performance
+ Lots of useful features
+ Overclocking is easy and effective
+ BIOS has been improved
+ Brilliant value for money

Cons
– Thinner than standard ATX – lacks case mounting down far side