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

[EzyRyder]

I understand the PCI-E 3.0 comment but why not Windows 8?

[Ant4res]

Same question here...
BTW my new P67 extreme 4 came to me yesterday and have to say it s beauty and powerful, no issues.

[KILLER_K]

Well, I was approved for an RMA on my Asrock board to my purchaser (thank-you NewEgg). In its place went a Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD5.
No UEFI BIOS, no floppy controller, no 2-digit diagnostic LCD.

I got a full refund from newegg and went with a asus maximus extreme z. No issues on the board at all. Asrock just dropped the ball on this one and like others i just got a bad board it seems. And i just didn't feel like playing rma and board swap to keep trying.

@ Arise; Thanks for the updated info. Just seems i got a bad board, so i went with another brand this go around. Thanks

@ The pci-express 3.0 comment; really by the time you need it you will be updating your motherboard honestly. It isn't like you are going to need it with your current gen video cards. It is a nice feature to have but not needed right now.

@ Windows 8 comment; I'm not sure what you mean by this. Windows 8 will care less if you have a pci-express 3.0 or lower when you install it. Thanks

[RealTelstar]

Same question here...
BTW my new P67 extreme 4 came to me yesterday and have to say it s beauty and powerful, no issues.

Good *cross fingers*

[watercooled]

tomorrow i have coming

asrock p67 extreme4 gen 3
2500k
corsair vengeance 4gb
noctua nh-d14
haf x

will i have issues fitting this cooler on the asrock board and the vengeance ram ?

[Ant4res]

tomorrow i have coming

asrock p67 extreme4 gen 3
2500k
corsair vengeance 4gb
noctua nh-d14
haf x

will i have issues fitting this cooler on the asrock board and the vengeance ram ?

Hi man, i have the asrock p67 extreme 4 board ang gskill memories with the noctua nh-d14 and everything worked perfect. Maybe you could go into noctua´s website to see compatibility with your memories.

[icedtea]

LoneWolf, KILLER_K, nice to hear that you guys were able to return your boards and have had better luck with your new boards from ASUS/Gigabyte. Hope ASRock USA ups their customer support in the future as they could and should have helped you guys out more.

@ Windows 8 comment; I'm not sure what you mean by this. Windows 8 will care less if you have a pci-express 3.0 or lower when you install it. Thanks

I think he's talking about Windows8 requiring UEFI, as some (most?) of Gigabyte's current boards still use BIOS. But I don't know about the Gigabyte boards, maybe they'll do something about it when the time comes. Who knows what will happen in the future, there are already rumors about current boards not being compatible with Ivy

will i have issues fitting this cooler on the asrock board and the vengeance ram ?

I think you won't have any problems but you may need to adjust the NF-P12 upward when using the fans in a push-push configuration. It'll push the height up abit, but with the HAF X width it shouldn't be a problem. Pull-pull should fit easily.

[watercooled]

any bios tips with the 2500k and the extreme4 p67 ?

[LoneWolf]

I got a full refund from newegg and went with a asus maximus extreme z. No issues on the board at all. Asrock just dropped the ball on this one and like others i just got a bad board it seems. And i just didn't feel like playing rma and board swap to keep trying.

@ Arise; Thanks for the updated info. Just seems i got a bad board, so i went with another brand this go around. Thanks

@ The pci-express 3.0 comment; really by the time you need it you will be updating your motherboard honestly. It isn't like you are going to need it with your current gen video cards. It is a nice feature to have but not needed right now.

@ Windows 8 comment; I'm not sure what you mean by this. Windows 8 will care less if you have a pci-express 3.0 or lower when you install it. Thanks

The MIVE-Z is a nice board. About the only nitpick I have is the lousy placement of the USB3 header. Like your ASUS for you, my Gigabyte board works perfectly for me. I don't even think I got a bad Asrock board; I think I got a good board (no defective hardware, that is) with a buggy BIOS, followed by a complete lack of support. I might have considered an Extreme 7 Gen 3 if I had confidence I wouldn't have the same issues. I hope someone at Asrock sees these threads and makes some changes, though I don't count on it.

I'm more disappointed by Gigabyte's misrepresentation of PCIe 3.0 on their boards than I am about my board not having it. Kind of like the way that in hindsight, I'd have waited for LGA-2011 systems had Asrock not come out with what I thought was the perfect board (causing my purchase of CPU and RAM and going with LGA 1155). Oh well; I planned so that I'd have RAM that would last through another DDR3 board, so at least that would be transferable if I went X79 at some point.

I have no idea where that Windows 8 comment came from; that makes about as much sense as a submarine with a screen door. Of course, DaveFran has only two posts; perhaps he recently got a job with MSI and is just earning his paycheck.

[watercooled]

i5 2500K @ 5GHZ| Asrock p67 Extreme4 Gen 3| 8GB 1600MHz G.Skill Ripjaws X | GTX 470 |Haf X |Win7 64bit


5GHZ 1.48v
prime stable
max temp 73

[RealTelstar]

nice, nice.
Any bugs, watercooled?

[watercooled]

nothing yet that i have noticed

[shilent]

I'm very interested in this board, could someone explain to me exactly what the core current limit function does? What do the numbers mean?

[acidwap]

Hiya All, First time poster and new the the forums here.

Just like to say this is one fantastic forum and board. I've read all 21 pages of the other extreme4 forum and and all 7 pages here. The people here and regular posters (ket especially) are awesome. And entertaining too! That spat between Lone Wolf and the other guy made for some pretty funny reading.... indeed some people just don't get rational calm discussion. haha

After reading all the pages here i'm pretty much sold on the Extreme4 Gen3 and have decided to use it for my new SB build. (just holding to see if imminent release of Bulldozer will cause intel to drop prices a little, every cent helps! )

However i do have a question that's pop up in the last couple of days. I'm not sure if anyone noticed but bit-tech recently did a review on the Extreme4 Gen3... in the last few days actually. ->Extreme 4 Gen 3 Bit Tech review.
The review was more or less to my expectations and reads like most other review of that particular board. Still quite happy to buy it. Though there was 1 bench test result that confused me a little... the sata performance test... link

The interesting thing about this bench was the difference in the intel chipset sata3 performance between the Z68 Asrock Extreme4 Gen3 & the Asus P68 Sabertooth... I know one should take any benchmark with a grain of salt and that at the core, the two boards use different chipsets. ie P67 & Z68
However, aren't the sata3 controllers on the intel chipsets the same? Or am i mistaken? I can understand that there is a performance differences between different brands of 3rd party controllers (such as JMicron vs Marvell) But shouldn't sata3 controllers from intel perform more or less the same across different manufacturers? What am i not seeing? Hardware / software bias? incorrect testing methodology?... finger of god touch the sabertooth board for a sec?

It's not a deal breaker really, but curiosity wise, I'd like to know. Anyone like to shed some light on this?
thanks in advance.
acidwap

[RealTelstar]

All p67 and z68 boards have the intel controller with 4 sata2 ports + 2 sata3 ports, which PERFORMS ALL THE SAME.
Then, motherboard manufacturers add another 2+ ports, usually sata3 using third party controllers, marvel, asmedia, etc. - these never perform as good as the intel one, and if not really needed (i.e. for an esata backup disk), can/should be disabled.

[davefran]

Hiya All, First time poster and new the the forums here.

Just like to say this is one fantastic forum and board. I've read all 21 pages of the other extreme4 forum and and all 7 pages here. The people here and regular posters (ket especially) are awesome. And entertaining too! That spat between Lone Wolf and the other guy made for some pretty funny reading.... indeed some people just don't get rational calm discussion. haha

After reading all the pages here i'm pretty much sold on the Extreme4 Gen3 and have decided to use it for my new SB build. (just holding to see if imminent release of Bulldozer will cause intel to drop prices a little, every cent helps! )

However i do have a question that's pop up in the last couple of days. I'm not sure if anyone noticed but bit-tech recently did a review on the Extreme4 Gen3... in the last few days actually. ->Extreme 4 Gen 3 Bit Tech review.
The review was more or less to my expectations and reads like most other review of that particular board. Still quite happy to buy it. Though there was 1 bench test result that confused me a little... the sata performance test... link

The interesting thing about this bench was the difference in the intel chipset sata3 performance between the Z68 Asrock Extreme4 Gen3 & the Asus P68 Sabertooth... I know one should take any benchmark with a grain of salt and that at the core, the two boards use different chipsets. ie P67 & Z68
However, aren't the sata3 controllers on the intel chipsets the same? Or am i mistaken? I can understand that there is a performance differences between different brands of 3rd party controllers (such as JMicron vs Marvell) But shouldn't sata3 controllers from intel perform more or less the same across different manufacturers? What am i not seeing? Hardware / software bias? incorrect testing methodology?... finger of god touch the sabertooth board for a sec?

It's not a deal breaker really, but curiosity wise, I'd like to know. Anyone like to shed some light on this?
thanks in advance.
acidwap

Just ran Atto on my Extreme4 Gen3 Z68, looks like they messed up somewhere. This is on an Agility 3, which should be slower than the Vertex they used.


By davefran at 2011-09-10

[davefran]

I have no idea where that Windows 8 comment came from; that makes about as much sense as a submarine with a screen door. Of course, DaveFran has only two posts; perhaps he recently got a job with MSI and is just earning his paycheck.

I was reading a post on another forum, concerning the Windows 8 requirements, as released from Microsoft. This clearly stated it would require a FULL Uefi to implement all of the new features in windows 8.
If I worked for MSI don't you think I'd use one of their products, rather than a rivals.
But seeing as you've got 88 posts in coming up to 7 years on this forum, must mean your knowledge is vasty superior to anyone elses

[acidwap]

All p67 and z68 boards have the intel controller with 4 sata2 ports + 2 sata3 ports, which PERFORMS ALL THE SAME.
Then, motherboard manufacturers add another 2+ ports, usually sata3 using third party controllers, marvel, asmedia, etc. - these never perform as good as the intel one, and if not really needed (i.e. for an esata backup disk), can/should be disabled.

Hi RealTelstar. Thanks for the reply and info. Appreciate it. But it wasn't quite what i was asking. My bad, perhaps I was too long winded.
I was interested in knowing why apparently in that particular bit-tech review, benchmarking sata performance. There was a disparity between the intel sata3 controller on the asrock board and the intel sata3 controller on the asus board. --->Bench mark link here<--- According to that benchmark a vertex 3 plugged into the intel sata 3 controller on the asus performed much higher than the same vertex 3 plugged into the intel sata 3 controller on the asrock extreme4 gen3 board (and the rest of the compeditors by the looks of it.) This (like you've explained) shouldn't happen, and was exactly what i was thinking.

However thanks to davefran and his quickbench of his Agility SSD and useful screenshot, I think I can draw think out some theories as to why...
a) the boards were benched at different times, and something in ssd changed (perhaps firmware). eg. old firmware when benching asrock, new firmware when benching the asus.
b) the test for some reason or another were skewed to highlight the asus board (unlikely though and in no way am i saying this is what happend. it's just a possibility)
c) human error when benching... (wrong setting, wrong ports, wrong cables etc.)

What ever the reason, davefran's benchmark screenshot has put me at ease more or less.... He's shown his Asrock Extreme4 Gen3 sata3 ports perform as expected. Thanks all.

If anyone has any other theories and speculation it would be interesting to hear.
acidwap

[acidwap]

Just ran Atto on my Extreme4 Gen3 Z68, looks like they messed up somewhere. This is on an Agility 3, which should be slower than the Vertex they used.
By davefran at 2011-09-10

Hey mate.

Just wanted to say thanks for doing the bench and the screenshot... I see there is a thank statistic but I don't know how to do it... i'm new to this whole forum board thing...

anyway, thanks again.
acidwap

[MacClipper]

This should be interesting in the light of the recent spat between the other mobo makers over true and fake PCI-e 3.0 hardware. Knowing me, I just had to pester Asrock for the way their mobos were designed for PCI-e 3.0 and they sent me this pdf file as an answer.

Anyone wants to dissect this and see if their design is up to the PCI-e 3.0 mark?

ASRock Gen3 Series design introduction.doc.pdf - Ziddu

For those too lazy to download the pdf, I have screenshot the 2 different Asrock PCI-e 3.0 designs and posted them below as a quick reference.





And then I sought further clarification from Asrock concerning the role of the PLX bridge chip and this is the answer I got.

Dear Mac,

Please kindly refer to the attachment for Z68 Extreme7 Gen3 block disgram.
PCI-E Gen3 Switch IC is connected to Ivy Bridge.
But PLX chip is connected to Intel PCH and then connect some onboard devices.

PLX 8608 chip doesn't affect PCI-E 3.0 work, please kindly don't worry about this.

Thanks!

HTH

[icedtea]

If anyone has any other theories and speculation it would be interesting to hear.
acidwap

Maybe they used a bad cable, forgot to install Intel RST, the SSD had been heavily abused and is showing degradation, or just a bad M/B.

Though not a SandForce, I'm using a Crucial m4 64GB SSD 0009 firm and it does read at over 500MB/s so it shouldnt be a problem.

Although I haven't had any serious problems (other than the FDD which I dont use), some have reported a few glitches so if you are getting the board you'd be safer getting it from a trusted dealer.

[RealTelstar]

Hi RealTelstar. Thanks for the reply and info. Appreciate it. But it wasn't quite what i was asking. My bad, perhaps I was too long winded.
I was interested in knowing why apparently in that particular bit-tech review, benchmarking sata performance. There was a disparity between the intel sata3 controller on the asrock board and the intel sata3 controller on the asus board. --->Bench mark link here<--- According to that benchmark a vertex 3 plugged into the intel sata 3 controller on the asus performed much higher than the same vertex 3 plugged into the intel sata 3 controller on the asrock extreme4 gen3 board (and the rest of the compeditors by the looks of it.) This (like you've explained) shouldn't happen, and was exactly what i was thinking.

That table is weird, it shows too big differences across various motherboards. Since there is no hardware difference, all depends on drivers (intel RST) and firmware of the SSD used. Edit: ah, yes and degradation
In short, I wouldnt worry and look instead at more serious reviews.

[davefran]

Hey mate.

Just wanted to say thanks for doing the bench and the screenshot... I see there is a thank statistic but I don't know how to do it... i'm new to this whole forum board thing...

anyway, thanks again.
acidwap

Cheers acidwap, you're very welcome, just glad I could be of some assistance

[sprach]

Hi everybody!
I've recently purchased the ASrock Z68 Extreme4 Gen3 coupled with a 2500k and I hereby report the following problems:
1. Having installed a Silver Arrow to cool the CPU, its fins touch my X-fi Titanium PCIX 1 card which is installed in the PCIX 1 slot right beneath the CPU socket. As a solution, I had to put some cloth between the back of the sound card and the cooler fins so that they don't get into contact directly.
2. My Razer Copperhead mouse is not working in UEFI 1.0; it is stuck in the middle of the screen and can only be moved up- and downwards, whereas the controls are inverted. This should be fixed with a UEFI update, I guess...
3. The second CPU fan connector misreads the RPM of the Silver Arrow's vent and the RPM often fail to show up in UEFI as well as in AIDA 64 and HWMonitor. This occurs randomly from boot to boot or power down cycle. It worked fine, then it stopped and so on.
4. My Lamptron FC5V2 fan controller, although fully powered up with a Molex connector, does not display anything on its screen (voltage & RPM), it is only backlit. It worked flawlessly on my previous board and has started to fail since changing the motherboard. This occurs randomly from boot to boot or power down cycle. It worked fine, then it stopped and so on.
5. ... and the most annoying problem is that the mobo has problems picking up my 2nd video (GTX 470) which I'm running in SLI mode.
Out of 5 boots into Windows, it fails to pick up the second card about 3-4 times. This is happening completely random. As a side-note, I have also plugged in the supplementary Molex power connector which is recommended by ASrock for SLI/CFX use.
I primarily bought this mobo because of its features and the layout, whereas it can accommodate my SLI with trislot coolers, however it refuses to recognize most of the time my second card.

Can anyone, please, provide some assistance on fixing my issues, especially points 3, 4 and 5? Thanks in advance for your support.

My specs are the following:
2500k @stock speed + Silver Arrow
Z68 Extreme4 Gen3
4x2GB Kingston HyperX 1600
2 x GTX470 in SLI, both cooled with Accelero Extreme GTX Plus
X-FI Titanium Fatality PCIX1
Vertex3 + WD 1.5TB Green + Asus DVDRW
Coolermaster Real Power 1000W
Lamptron FC5v2 fan controller + 6 x 120 vents
Saitek Eclipse II + Razer Copperhead

If anyone's interested, here are some links with BIOS updates. The forum is German.
http://www.pctreiber.net/forum/intel...2_15069.0.html
http://www.pctreiber.net/forum/intel...0_15078.0.html
P.S. Haven't tried them yet, but will give them a shot when I get home.

[SoMBrA]

Hello everyone, first of all thanks for the great thread

I was almost ready to buy ASRock Z68 Extreme 7 but then I'm seeing some problems here and there, and I'm thinking maybe change to Gigabyte, i don't mind pay more for that, but i know there will be things i will not use (as other said already before)

I was thinking going to Gigabyte Z68 UD7, since it will match very nice with my new build, and also love the layout and it's rock solid (hope!)

Do you recommend Z68 UD7 over the Z68 Extreme 7?
Any other recommendation? I know ASUS are having some trouble with the B3 so maybe i should avoid them...

If possible with Black PCB :>, really like the looks ASRock and Gigabyte