**Official** Asrock Z68 Extreme4 thread. Share your experiences, OCs & tech issues!

[Ket]

I'll wait for your results I've pushed through as much as I can right now. With Computex coming up everybody is crazy busy so we'll have to wait a week or two for all the hubub to settle down again

[Strike@ps3]

FYI , Asrock will be releasing two high-end motherboards .. Asrock currently are also targeting to the high-end motherboard segment and mid-range motherboard segment too... seems like asrock is chasing and catching up those high-end motherboard manufacturer.

Fatal1ty Z68 Professional

This is a premium motherboard, aimed at the highest end gaming machines. It has a large number of features, slots and overclocking capabilities; as you would expect from such an ultimate board. The red and black colored board suggests its function is impressed as well as its stylish look. One of the unique features, for instance, is Fatal1ty Mouse Port, a customizable technology for F-Stream PC gamers; with a wide range from 125 Hz to 1000 Hz to make adjustment, gamers can obtain more precise control of their mouse. To build up your unique gaming masterpiece, the Fatal1ty Z68 Professional motherboard will surely serve all gamers’ needs very well.

Z68 Extreme7
Stunning Board Packed With Power And Features - Z68 Extreme7
Another spotlight of Z68 lineup is ASRock’s flagship board: Z68 Extreme7. The board comes with a bucketful of technologies aimed at bringing the best kit to users. Exclusively equipped with NVIDIA NF200 chip, this board offers sufficient PCIE x16 lanes when users are using multi-GPU settings. Each card will be fully running at X16 speed without having to sacrifice performance. Based on Intel Z68 chipset and featuring several state-of-the-art onboard solutions from industry heavy hitters such as Intel Smart Response Technology and Lucid Virtu Switchable Graphics Capability, together with a range of new and exclusive ASRock features, the Z68 Extreme7 motherboard is equipped to make geeks swoon!

This board is marked by its versatile solutions, to name a few, advanced V8 + 4 power phase design, 5 PCI Express X16 slots cater for Quad CrossFireX and Quad SLI, Intel HD Graphics with built-in Visuals, 4 VGA options (D-Sub, DVI-D, HDMI and DisplayPort), front USB 3.0 panel, manageable smart switches, and Dr. Debug, offering flexible options which will appeal to DIY users. Beside its onboard equipments, this board also features Graphical UEFI, AXTU, On/Off Play and XFast USB to optimize USB drive speed performance. With a wide range of prominent functions, advanced DIY users should not miss Z68 Extreme7!

[EzyRyder]

Right Ket, so I have just updated to BIOS 1.4 (couldn't download the Beta from Megaupload for unknown reasons) but I still have the eSATA problem. I swith the caddy on, windows slows down to a crawl, mouse lags... etc... until I switch the caddy off.

The drive works fine inside the computer. In fact I have been taking data out of it for the past few days in case I had to sell the caddy.

[Ket]

Noted. The issue will be looked at but it might take a few weeks.

[Aedubber]

Ket you lucky @!$#^@& you !! LOL ... How would you say the z68 does against the x58s ? I mean should i really upgrade or still hold onto what i have .. The gigabyte x58 UD5

[Ket]

In terms of bandwidth, you get a lot more. I'm sitting at 24.1GB\s read, 23.2GB\s write and 25.7GB\s copy with my CPU @ 4.5GHz and memory @ 2133MHz. CPU performance once OCd a 2500K sits just behind a 980X or thereabouts, and a OCd 2600K sits right at the levels of a 980X. Considering a Ivy Bridge chip should be a simple drop-in to Z68 boards with a UEFI update, I would say a Z68 is worth the investment as things currently stand, and with the future in mind. With Asrock, you know any board I'm sent to test will exemplify the word "perfection". Very few bugs get by my radar

[richierich]

Ordered a Pro3 to pair with a 2500K. I hope to get a decent OC with not that high of voltage.

[Ket]

I haven't got my hands on the midrange boards I'm working with Asrock on their higher end boards. From what I do know of that board though, it should do well If you come across any UEFI bugs drop me a PM and I'll pass the info on to my contacts.

[Anvil]

I got this MB yesterday and have been playing with it since late last night and I'm really impressed.
I upgraded to the latest official bios (1.4) using the windows utility, it came with 1.10.

I've just been doing some light OC and 4.5 without PLL Overvoltage is "stable" on the standard Intel cooler, stable as in IBT running for some time.

The only changes I've done is changing to Offset mode where I increased the default value a few notches and that's pretty much it.

Hardware used is the 2600K, 8GB Vengeance (2x4), IGP and the old Vertex 120GB, thats about it for now.

Just have to wait for a new cooler, completely forgot about it and the H70 I've got as a spare just isn't compatible with the Silverstone FT02.

And again, so far I'm really impressed!

[Ket]

Thats the aim Asrock certainly worked hard to make sure no bugs early UEFI versions had on the P67 worked their way into the Z68

[Lestat]

my Z68 Pro-3-M will be here tomorrow along with a 2500k, 16GB of gskill Ripjaws 1333 and a Swiftech Polaris 120.
and my GTX 460 should be here next week... so i will be using an 8800 GT until then.

i am concerned about the 16GB though.
can anyone confirm that there shouldnt be any issues with that much ram?
i dont need that much but for $149.00 i couldnt pass it up.

also i know its using the UEFI bios but what about the auto overclock? how is it working and what should i be watching out for?
overvolting of the CPU? ram? etc?
i am praying for a low voltage cpu that wont need a bunch of volts to OC but i have never been very lucky there.

this is my first Sandybridge and of course new Z68 board so i am pretty green with all the bios settings they have.
if anyone has some bios settings they want to share with me, and anyone else, that would be awesome.

it isnt any guarentee that it will work with my hardware but its a starting point where i wouldnt even know where to start otherwise.

[Anvil]

I cant see why 16GB shouldn't work.

I've been using 16GB on other SB MB's for quite some time w/o any issues so it never really crossed my mind but I'll do a test on my MB later today.

I never do auto OC, it's pretty easy doing it the "normal" way.

[Ket]

Overclocking SB is a doddle. Start by setting CPU vcore to say 1.3v, hit up a 45x multiplier.. and thats it. You probably won't even need to raise VTT or anything until you start trying to OC the memory (which does give nice gains in my testing)

[EzyRyder]

Hi Ket,

some more additional info for you...

got this from a thread I created in the TweakTown forums...


I have the same eSATA problem with my Asrock X58 Extreme 6 motherboard and Windows 7 x64. Whenever I try to use my external hard drive with the eSATA port on the motherboard, the computer slows down and the mouse lags. It doesn't stop until I turn off the external hard drive, and the hard drive never does show up in Windows.

The external hard drive works fine if I plug it into the eSATA port on the front panel of my computer case (which is hooked up to one of the sata3 ports on the motherboard). It also works fine when hooked up to a different computer.

I know that the eSATA port and the internal #6 sata3 port are shared on the Asrock motherboard, but I don't have anything plugged into the #6 internal sata3 port. I have also tried using the eSATA port with nothing plugged into any of the sata3 ports on the motherboard and had the same problem.

I don't know what else to do. I guess for now I'll just use an eSATA to SATA bracket instead of the eSATA port on the motherboard. But I wish I could figure out how to get it working properly. "

I have exactly his same problem, it might be an issue with the Marvell controller may be as I have noticed the 2 boards share the same controller.

[Ket]

I have forwarded some findings about the SE9120 controller regarding its performance and have made my contacts aware of the eSATA issue. For now all we can do is sit tight, with Computex underway I probably won't hear much until the beginning of next week at least.

[Lestat]

Overclocking SB is a doddle. Start by setting CPU vcore to say 1.3v, hit up a 45x multiplier.. and thats it. You probably won't even need to raise VTT or anything until you start trying to OC the memory (which does give nice gains in my testing)

thanks for the tip Ket.
i will eventually go into the manual overclocking as i always have done but just like the 775 core2 boards alot of them had voltage settings that were hard to understand and worse yet could kill your cpu if you werent careful so i just want to be able to see a screen shot or picture from a camera for what someone is using now so i can kind of understand where to start and also start learning why i have to use this voltage.

perfect example... when reading about the ASRock Z68 i didnt know that the sandybridge chips had the entire bus system linked, so that if you OC'd the old fasion way (front side bus increase) you increased the entire bus of the board, not just the FSB.
i knew it was all done with the cpu turbo multiplier but i didnt know that the cpu bus clocks couldnt be messed with without crashing your board.

little things like that are what i need to learn about.

[EzyRyder]

I have forwarded some findings about the SE9120 controller regarding its performance and have made my contacts aware of the eSATA issue. For now all we can do is sit tight, with Computex underway I probably won't hear much until the beginning of next week at least.

No worries, I know you did. I was just giving you some more extra feedback to support the issue

[Lestat]

how can i stop the cpu from throttling back because of temps..... it hits 60deg when running P95 and it throttles back.
i have all the temp throttling settings in the bios disabled.

[Lestat]

well mother f'er......
either this board just killed my brand new swiftech 120mm fan that came with the Swiftech Polaris 120 or the fan was sh|t to begin with....

isnt this a great start to a new system

[radier]

It is not throttling because of the temp but because of the Turbo Power and Core Current limits. Set them manually to 255/255/300.

Sent from my GT540 using Tapatalk

[Lestat]

uhm... what? lol.


this is why i asked for a screen shot slash picture from a camera.
if you could spare a minute on your next reboot could you post a screenie of your bios.

ok so is this what you mean

Turbo Boost Power Limit
Short Duration - 255
long duration - 255
Long Duration Maintained - ???? (default is 1 sec)

core current limit - 300

[radier]

Exactly

http://min.us/mvbFnm7

Sent from my GT540 using Tapatalk

[AAbenson]

guys am i understanding this correctly that the Asrock Z68 series will be able to run an Ivy Bridge when released

[Lestat]

Exactly

http://min.us/mvbFnm7

Sent from my GT540 using Tapatalk

awesome man thank you!

5ghz and barely any vcore increase?!?! 0.03 ? wow...
i can only get 4.4Ghz at 1.3v
thats 1.3v under load w/ level 3 load line calibration
and i am a complete retard, i am posting in the xtreme 4 thread when i have the z68-M board god how'd that happen i was in the Z68 thread i swear when i originally posted my questions...


so i ended up finding at least 1 stick of ram phsically bad.
throws memtest errors every time at the same location during memtest.

so now i have to rma the whole 16GB kit... lovely.

[richierich]

So far I'm priming my 2500K Batch 3049A305 @ 4.5GHz 1.31vcore in BIOS (CPU-z shows 1.296 under load). Will try higher in a little bit.