Exclusive hands on pictures of ASRock's new Gen3 motherboards

[siopao1984]

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Exclusive hands on pictures of ASRock's new Gen3 motherboards by VR-Zone.com

Last week details of ASRock's new PCI Express 3.0 motherboards appeared on the web and today we bring you exclusive hands on pictures of the Z68 Extreme3 and Z68 Extreme7. ASRock will be using the new styling for all of its upcoming motherboards, so expect a lot more black and gold in the future, the only exception being the Fatal1ty boards of course.

Neither board holds any real secrets beyond the specs that were posted last week, but this is the first high-resolution, detailed picture of the Z68 Extreme3. A couple of things with missed with regards to the rear I/O of the Z68 Extrem3 includes a PS/2 port and optical S/PDIF out. The board also sports a POST80 debug LED which is an unusual feature for a board this far down in the pecking order. The Z68 Extreme3 is in our opinion looking like the Z68 board to get from ASRock if you're looking for something that won't be horrendously expensive, yet offering a well-balanced feature set.



Moving on we have the Z68 Extreme7 and we're still quite flabbergasted that ASRock has made a board like this. All of the heatsinks are screwed on and the attention to detail is very high. Some interesting things that we thought we should point out is that ASRock is using two SATA 6Gbps controllers from ASMedia for this board, but more interestingly it also has a pair of Broadcom Ethernet controllers. A peculiar addition we also noticed is a pin-header for a PS/2 port, although no actual port is supplied as far as we're aware.



As it happens, a UK online retailer has listed a price for the Z68 Extreme7 and as we mentioned last week, it's going to be expensive. The board is listed at £250 (S$490) which makes it one of the most expensive Z68 boards out there pretty much only beaten by Asus' Maximus IV Extreme-Z so far.

We'd like to pick up on something here, namely PCI Express 3.0. According to ASRock, any current 6-series motherboard should at least in theory work with PCI Express 3.0, but as soon as you involve lane switches you run into problems unless the switches are PCI Express 3.0 compliant. Sandy Bridge does not have hidden support for PCI Express 3.0 and you won't be seeing any performance advantage until Ivy Bridge comes out, or at least this is not something that ASRock has seen in their testing.

We've put a few more pictures of the boards on the next page, alongside with a few pictures of the Fatal1ty Z68 Professional Gen3. Do note that the boards we looked at were pre-production boards and the heatsink finish isn't that of final products.

[balipseyev]

hhmmmmnnnn lamia oy... "Dark Chocolate"

[fineupgrades]

Dark Chocolate with Gold ..hehehe...

[regilsolon]

kalami og katam is sa dark choco almost Php 20K

[siopao1984]

kalami og katam is sa dark choco almost Php 20K

actually sir it is listed as
490.00 SGD = 17,233.43 PHP

@ 1 SGD = 35.1703 PHP

The board is listed at £250 (S$490) which makes it one of the most expensive Z68 boards out there pretty much only beaten by Asus' Maximus IV Extreme-Z so far.

expensive board gyud

[street_of_no_return]

choya gyd sa FATALITY oe

[dhekoy33]

payter na kaayo ang asrock mobo's dah..

[negative_black03]

payter na kaayo ang asrock mobo's dah..

lage sauna moingon cila baratohon ang asrock, pero karon kumbate na kaayu sa ubang mobo players.. btw, asrock user ko before, wla jud koy problema sa ilang boards bisan katung tag 2K kapin ra nga mobos nila.

[arki.gerbz]

maninintal....

[rejiel]

bag.o nsad o ..laway mode nasad.... apil na sad ni sa lista ni sir siop nga iyang palitonon... panghatag sir ha..hehe