**Official** Asrock Z68 Gen3 Extreme7 & Extreme4 thread

[Ket]

Asrock Z68 Gen3 Extreme7



Thats right, it's that time again Just starting to trickle their way into the UK market are the Asrock Z68 Gen3 Extreme7 and Gen3 Extreme4. As with the other Asrock threads I've made, this thread is for Gen3 owners to discuss, share advice, and of course I come in if any problems or bugs are found

You can find the specifications of each board here;
Extreme7 Gen3
Extreme4 Gen3

Extreme7 & Extreme4 UEFI & Driver Package Download:

Download Link

Driver Package Contents:

ASMedia USB 3.0 v1.14.8.0 [E7G3]
Broadcom BCM57781 v15.2.0.4B
Etron USB 3.0 v1.113 [E4G3]
Intel HD Graphics v8.15.10.2761
Intel ME v8.0.13.1502
Intel PCH v9.3.0.1019
Intel RST v11.2.0.1006
Marvell 88SE9120 v1.2.0.1020
Realtek HD Audio R2.70
Lucidlogix Virtu v1.2.114

How to flash the UEFI:

Unzip the UEFI to a USB pen drive formatted to FAT32
Enter UEFI and use the built-in flash program (remember to have your pen drive in a USB2 port for this)
After the flash, enter UEFI and load defaults, save and exit.
Remove power cord, CMOS battery, set CMOS jumper to "clear", press power button 3 times, leave for 5 mins.

[LoneWolf]

And some glimpses of the Extreme 4 Gen 3, mine arrived yesterday.

[Ket]

Extreme4 Gen3 is a nice looking board indeed. Not that it matters to me, but I'm sure theres going to be quite a few users who don't look at the manual to see which DIMM banks are for dual channel and will ask why they only have single channel Too many people are used to colour coded DIMM banks.

[AAbenson]

LoneWolf can you post please how much volts does it take to get the cpu to 4.5ghz with this board?
some UEFI setting pics would be great too,thanks.
im thinking about exchanging my Asus Evo p67 with this one as soon as theyre available.

[grimpy]

I got this board today and having a few probs getting it to run at 4.5GHz with a 2600k, ive disabled all the power saving features but under load running LinX it's actually dropping to 3.3GHz. Any ideas why?



Heres my bios settings:

[xdan]

Raise Core current limit(first bios picture) to 250 or 300(it's about TDP).
Also SPREAD SPECTRUM - DISABLED
And let HT activated, 2600K it's not a hot cpu even with HT(at least i think you don't use stoc cooler).
Also from what i know overclocking works even with power saving options and TURBO enabled, so try with them too.

[anzial]

asrock bios screenshot.jpg

[RealTelstar]

I love the colors of the x7 so much...
any news about price?

[ClockZ]

Colors are much better IMO, Might have to give a extreme 7 a try....looks really good.

[Mungri]

These boards look great, and they have the slot layout done perfect too for two graphics cards with a 3 slot spacing each plus room for a soundcard!

The all black is awesome, these would be my first choice picks for a Z68 board, and I wouldnt normally ever think of getting an Asrock board.

[RealTelstar]

p67 gen3 is also all black if u prefer it.

[LoneWolf]

LoneWolf can you post please how much volts does it take to get the cpu to 4.5ghz with this board?
some UEFI setting pics would be great too,thanks.
im thinking about exchanging my Asus Evo p67 with this one as soon as theyre available.

I don't have a K-series CPU (I needed the virtualization tech for my VMWare use, and the K-series doesn't have all of it). 4.1GHz will be the highest I can manage on the standard Core i5-2500. I'm burning my system in first, and then I'll tweak it.

I originally used the Socket 775 mounts that came with my Thermalright TRUE Black, but it's awkward even though the Asrock mainboard supports it. I ordered the 1156 Bolt-Thru kit made for the Venomous-X and Ultra120 series, and set things up a second time this evening. That mounting kit is by far more easy to work with, and does a better job, but I have to let the AS5 thermal interface material cure for a bit.

These boards look great, and they have the slot layout done perfect too for two graphics cards with a 3 slot spacing each plus room for a soundcard!

The all black is awesome, these would be my first choice picks for a Z68 board, and I wouldnt normally ever think of getting an Asrock board.

Normally, I wouldn't either. However, the Z68 Extreme 4 (non-Gen 3) was highly rated, and the more I reviewed the specs of the Gen 3, the more I wanted to give Asrock a try for the first time.

I've used a lot of boards over the past fifteen years -- AOpen, ASUS, Abit, Intel, MSI, and Gigabyte. Everything I see so far says this board can run with the best of those.

[BDM123]

Watching for Xtreme7 results

[Altered]

Any idea when or if the Z68 Gen3 Extreme7 board will be for sale? Im looking to do a i5 2500K build now. I am hoping the price isnt through the roof though.

[LoneWolf]

Any idea when or if the Z68 Gen3 Extreme7 board will be for sale? Im looking to do a i5 2500K build now. I am hoping the price isnt through the roof though.

My understanding was that the entire Gen3 line was supposed to be available during August, but I know nothing more than that.

[Ket]

To date in the UK there is only one place I know of selling the Extreme7 and its rather expensive. Once more sites start stocking the Extreme7 I'm sure it'll be able to be picked up for a reasonable price. On the other hand, quite a few places already have the Gen3 Extreme4 in stock and it can be picked up for around £140.

[grimpy]

Ive got a major problem thats really starting to do my head in now, i keep getting this BSOD.

Ive ran prime for 4 hours straight today with the blend test then ran it for 5 hours on small fft's then ran occt cpu & linpack for an hour each and a 25 run LinX with no problems.

Ive just loaded up teamspeak and the same BSOD hit me i never get this BSOD when stressing my system anyone any ideas?

[icecpu]

@ grimpy : I got same problem for my 2500K, up voltage 5 notch and no more BSOD, I'm very sure it's needs more voltage for cpu

[grimpy]

Will try that just seems strange that i never got this BSOD whilst benching and under stress.

[RealTelstar]

The idle bsods are quite common on SB, so it's definitely not a motherboard fault.

PS: Ket can we discuss about the p67 x4 gen3 and the z68 x3 too in this thread?

[Ket]

Yep thats fine, this thread is for all Gen3 Asrock boards

[LoneWolf]

First review, by Vortez (a site I've not heard of, but not bad)

http://www.vortez.net/articles_pages..._review,1.html

[Ket]

If its reviews you are after, I've been sent a small army of links by one of the guys at asrock

http://www.hardwareheaven.com/review...onclusion.html
http://www.pcr-online.biz/news/36766...3-motherboards
http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=31309
http://www.fudzilla.com/motherboard/...n3-motherboard
http://www.techradar.com/reviews/pc-...-985972/review
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4nEGYvzVbY

I'm a bit stranded when it comes to giving you guys some real hands on experienced in-depth testing as I don't have a Gen3 board at my disposal.

[MacClipper]

OK I am definitely not forgetting you guys here, let me share a bit of my quick pics.

Preview : Caught in between the 2 Extremes - the Asrock E3 and E7 Gen3 Z68 mobos!

And they came in together just today!

These 2 models represent the highest and lowest ends of the latest Asrock Extreme Gen3 series of Intel Z68 motherboard range. Both sport the new highly attractive Asrock look which means dark stealthy colours offset by gold highlights in the form of 100% Japanese 'Gold' caps used as well as the stylised gold branding letters emblazoned on the heatsinks.

OK, let's rock with Asrock and roll out the preview with some quick pics...


Little Boy & Fat Man?






Z68 Extreme3 Gen3
ASRock > Products > Z68 Extreme3 Gen3

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
2 x PCIe 3.0 x16 slots, Supports AMD Quad CrossFireX™ and NVIDIA® Quad SLI™
Supports Intel® HD Graphics Built-in Visuals
Dr. Debug, Smart Switch Design: Power/Reset/Clear CMOS Switch with LED
Support Intel® Smart Response, Lucid Virtu Switchable Graphics
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™

Quicks pics


Bundle





Mobo







Heatsinks & Branding









Gen3 support!




Simply more dash for your cash

[MacClipper]

Z68 Extreme7 Gen3
ASRock > Products > Z68 Extreme7 Gen3

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)
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 :love:
Support Intel® Smart Response, Lucid Virtu Switchable Graphics
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™

Mobo slot layout
- dis is ze intercepted top secret internal plan for taking over ze bunker...






Bundle






Heatsinks & Branding









Mobo
- all screwed down affair for the heatsinks







Wanted to show how tall, thick and heavy these heatsinks are on the E7.






Just compare the shipping weights of the 2 mobos, one is about twice as heavy as the other - man, that's really crazy heavy!






CPU Support area

3 fan headers & flexible LGA775/1155 mounting holes


Full house socket caps


Updated 160811 - earlier slot layout was apparently erroneous, corrected layout now in place.