Quote Originally Posted by piquadrat View Post
>jpm
-The last (third long) pci-e slot. On Asus if one wants to set it to 4x mode he has to switch off e-sata, some usb ports and pci-e x1 AFAIR. No such restrictions in Asrock's case.
-Asus had a little advantage in P67 concerning usb3 compatibility (Nec chip). But it is no longer valid as they changed usb3 controller in Z68.
-USB3 front panel as a bundle in Asrock.
-surprisingly robust community of Asrock users and faster response with bios updates from their support team.
thanks piquadrat - am surprised that the NEC USB3 chip is viewed as a better choice? recently the Etron EJ168 (used in the ASRock Z68 Extreme4 board, among others) passed USB-IF certification:

http://vr-zone.com/articles/etron-te...ion/12343.html

the ASMedia USB3 controller (used on the P8Z68-V Pro) has also passed this certification, although this article mentioned a potential Etron advantage over both ASMedia and NEC in that it is fully xHCI 1.0 compliant. has the NEC chip been proven better in practice?

also on the topic of chip selection, i noticed the ASRock board uses a Broadcom LAN chip that i've heard good things about.