Introduction

Well, here we are again with another ASRock motherboard review. This time, however, ASRock prefaced sending me the hardware with a quip that they are billing this board as the "Ultimate Mainstream X299 Motherboard". The board, of course, is the ASRock X299 Extreme4. The ultimate board? Really? With a really affordable $200 price tag (affordable for this platform), that seems a grand claim. How do we assess this claim?

Here's what ASRock says about this board:

"ASRock X299 Extreme4 compares to other entry-level X299 motherboards. It can fully support both KabyLake-X and SkyLake-X CPUs, with a 11-phase power design and a massive VRM heatsink so it can even support Core i9-7980XE with ease. This makes the X299 Extreme4 become the best mainstream X299 motherboard."

Well now. The best mainstream X299 motherboard? To make that claim seems pretty grand for sure, but to me, there is a clear reason why they can confidently do so: the dual 8-pin VRM means this board is ready for the Core i9-7980XE, with a huge heatsink that will help the VRM push Intel's monstrous 18-core CPU when overclocking, but staying cool enough so as not to throttle. There are many boards in the entry-level category for the X299 platform that are limited to 275W–300W power draw. The behemoth Core i9-7980XE CPU can easily draw that 300W at stock with MultiCore Enhancement enabled, meaning the Core i9-7980XE will crush the VRM of many of those boards just at "stock". So with all that in mind, I strapped my own Core i9-7980XE CPU into the ASRock X299 Extreme4, powered it up, and immediately began overclocking. Let's take a look.

Specifications

Packaging and Contents

As per the usual for us here at TPU, the first thing we look at is the box. Although highly repetitive, box design and styling can play an important part with board products, especially when manufacturers do things like ASRock does here. The box is simple and to the point both front and rear, but a bit too flashy for what it is, though that's not what's so special about this board's box.


What IS special is that ASRock cradles the majority of the motherboards they ship in a decent layer of closed-cell foam, which helps save boards from shipping and handling damages that might occur between the factory and your doorstep or local store. Having spent considerable time working at PC stores building systems, I personally understand and appreciate things like this. When you build 300+ systems a week, having to rebuild one once the system hits stability testing is a huge pain, and this simple foam surround nearly completely eliminates dead-on-arrival motherboards.


There are a few accessories included in the box. Here's what I found:

• Quick installation guide, manual, support DVD, and other papers
• 1x Rear I/O cover
• 4x SATA 6Gb/s cables
• 1x HB SLI bridge
• 1x Wi-Fi bracket
• 3x M.2 screws