Tuesday, November 1st 2011
ASRock LGA2011 Lineup Complete with X79 Extreme4
ASRock's first wave of socket LGA2011 motherboards comes a full circle with the X79 Extreme4. The series consists of the X79 Extreme4, X79 Extreme4-M (micro-ATX), X79 Extreme7, and X79 Extreme9. There aren't many micro-ATX LGA2011 motherboards that we're hearing about, and hence ASRock might get the opportunity to charge a premium for the X79 Extreme4-M, making this the most affordable LGA2011 board from ASRock's stable. It still packs a lot of features and connectivity. To begin with, it is consistent with the black and gold styling of the other boards, including the active fan-heatsink over the X79 PCH.
The LGA2011 socket is powered by an 8-phase VRM design, which is identical to that of the X79 Extreme4-M. The socket is wired to four DDR3 DIMM slots, supporting quad-channel DDR3 memory (one DIMM per channel). It has an interesting combination of expansion slots, making use of all 7 spaces available to the ATX form-factor. It includes three PCI-Express x16 (first two are permanent PCI-Express 3.0 x16, the third is permanent PCI-Express 2.0 x8), two PCI-Express 2.0 x1, and two legacy PCI. Storage connectivity includes two SATA 6 Gb/s and four SATA 3 Gb/s internal ports wired to the X79 PCH, three additional SATA 6 Gb/s and one eSATA 6 Gb/s wired to ASMedia-made SATA controllers.There are four USB 3.0 ports in all, driven by two ASMedia-made controllers, these include two ports on the rear panel, and two by internal header. 8+2 channel HD audio with optical and coaxial SPDIF outputs, one gigabit Ethernet connection, Firewire, and a number of USB 2.0 ports make for the rest of the connectivity. The board supports 3-way SLI and CrossFire, the XFastLAN feature works to lower pings in online games, and the audio features THX TruStudio software. The board is driven by UEFI firmware.
The LGA2011 socket is powered by an 8-phase VRM design, which is identical to that of the X79 Extreme4-M. The socket is wired to four DDR3 DIMM slots, supporting quad-channel DDR3 memory (one DIMM per channel). It has an interesting combination of expansion slots, making use of all 7 spaces available to the ATX form-factor. It includes three PCI-Express x16 (first two are permanent PCI-Express 3.0 x16, the third is permanent PCI-Express 2.0 x8), two PCI-Express 2.0 x1, and two legacy PCI. Storage connectivity includes two SATA 6 Gb/s and four SATA 3 Gb/s internal ports wired to the X79 PCH, three additional SATA 6 Gb/s and one eSATA 6 Gb/s wired to ASMedia-made SATA controllers.There are four USB 3.0 ports in all, driven by two ASMedia-made controllers, these include two ports on the rear panel, and two by internal header. 8+2 channel HD audio with optical and coaxial SPDIF outputs, one gigabit Ethernet connection, Firewire, and a number of USB 2.0 ports make for the rest of the connectivity. The board supports 3-way SLI and CrossFire, the XFastLAN feature works to lower pings in online games, and the audio features THX TruStudio software. The board is driven by UEFI firmware.