Introduction ASRock Z68 Extreme3
ASRock are very proud of their latest series for the Sandy bridge
range the Z86 series motherboard, but they are especially proud of one
board in particular, a board we have here today, the ASRock Extreme 3
Gen 3. With Japanese Gold plated caps against all of the black and metal
cooling heatsinks on the north and south bridges makes this one of the
most attractive, cool looking boards I have seen to date. With the Gen 3
supporting 3-way CrossfireX and Tri-SLI with the supported super fast
ASRock XFast Lan feature that boost your whole systems performance,
including touch screen BIOS, at this low price tag that gamers and
enthusiasts wont blink an eye lid at, makes this motherboard one of the
best Sandy Bridge boards on the market.
Features
- 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™
- Free Bundle : 1 x 3.5mm Audio Cable, CyberLink MediaEspresso 6.5 Trial, ASRock MAGIX Multimedia Suite
First Impressions
After opening this very cool looking box with its brushed metal printed image. The motherboard is inside surrounded and cushioned by foam.
Inside the box, the contents include:
- User manual, Quick Start Guide, Driver CD
- Software: CyberLink MediaEspresso 6.5 Trial, ASRock MAGIX Multimedia Suite
- Crossfire Bridge
- 3.5mm Audio Cable
- 2 x 6GB Sata Cables
- Motherboard BackPlate
The Board
As mentioned in the Introduction, as you can see this board look fantastic, with the Gold “Jap” caps, and the overall black and metal colour scheme, and finished off with that gold triangles on the coolers makes this board really stand out. The board has easy accessible buttons plastered all off it to make your life so much easy when it comes to tuning and performance and maintenance upkeep. I hope you think that board looks great as well?
ASRock Z68 Extreme3 Gen3 Motherboard
Here is the motherboard layout and all of its features labelled nice and easily for you courtesy of ASRock.
The Z68 chip is covered with a cooling block, which in turn the block
is covered with this cool metal armour over it. Also as you can see we
have the onboard power button and reset. This is very handy for those of
you who perhaps have an open test bench, like us. You can also clearly
see the LED debugger display.
Here are the cooling blocks for the north and south bridges, that are
not just the usual blocky towers, but have a really nice shape to the
keeping in with them whole theme of the motherboards design and colour
scheme, surrounded by all the Japanese gold caps.
The I/O panel has the following features and ports courtesy of
ASRock’s manual. The CMOS button on the motherboard is an extremely
necessary feature for all overclockers out there. It is nice to see it
included with the ASRock Z86 series; I don’t know how we would live
without it.
ASRock Overclocking Utility Software
The ASRock Z68 also comes with hand easy tool for overclocking while
in windows, AXTU program. It doesn’t allow you to touch the main core
voltage in windows, which means you can reach a easy overclock to 4.4GHz
instantly in windows. What a brilliant feature for amateurs. It also
gives you all the temperatures, and the individual fan speeds, which you
can change. As you see below.
The screen images below describe themselves. However what I can say
is, being able to adjust the multiplier in windows is great, as long as
you do not overclock your clock speed past about 4.4GHz. Due to not
being able to adjust voltages line in this software, anything past that
level will be unstable without voltage tweaking. The multiplier
adjustment doesn’t have a failsafe, or a block, so if you go to high,
your system will freeze and crash.
The board comes featured with the software program Lucid Virtual,
which utilises the full capabilities of the Sandy Bridge platform with
the Z68 model, of which it was built for.
“With Virtu software, next-generation PCs with 2nd Generation Intel®
Core™ processor platforms will dynamically balance the advanced
power-efficient, built-in media features of Intel Core processor
graphics with the high-end, DirectX 11 3D, anti-aliasing and performance
features of discrete GPUs, while significantly reducing the power drain
of traditional entertainment desktops. Ultimately, the consumer is
assured optimal simultaneous performance in 3D gaming and video
functions like transcoding and HD playback without the need to swap
video cable connections between GPUs.”
To find out more about Lucid Virtu click here.
Test Setup and Overclocked Results
|
Motherboard |
ASRock Z64 Extreme GEN3 |
|
CPU |
Intel core i7-2600K (3.4GHz) |
|
RAM |
GeIL EVO Corsa CL9 2133MHz (2 x 4 GB) |
|
Graphics Card |
Asus ATi Radeon HD 6970 2GB |
|
Hard Drive |
Plextor SSD 120 GB |
|
PSU |
Antec HCG 750w |
|
CPU Cooler |
Thermolab Trinity |
“Performance (P) 1280 x 720 (720p) with a moderate load suitable for most gaming PC’s”
“Extreme (X) 1920 x 1080 (1080p) with a heavy load suitable for high-end gaming PC’s”
3DMARK 11 tests are done in “Benchmark only” mode.
AIDA64
CPU Photoworrx
CPU Queen
FPU Mandel
CPU AES
x264 HD
Cinebench
Sissoftware Sandra Lite 2010
Games Testing
Game Benchmark: Crysis 2
“Although this opening scene is by far not the most demanding for graphics, it is extremely consistent, and will give a accurate look into the slight performance changes in frame rates that each motherboard outputs.”
Game Benchmark: Dirt 3
Dirt 3 has a benchmark tool setting already in the game. Settings were all set to max.
Game Benchmark: Just Cause 2
Just Cause 2 has a benchmark tool setting already in the game. We will be using the benchmark level Dark tower, as it using some physics and effects in it with explosions going off.
It seems we are getting much better frame rates with the ASRock board compared to other, which is great news.
Conclusion
ASRock do not brag enough about the Z68 Extreme3 Gen3, which is odd
when you take into consideration the excellent results it outputs. The
Z68 models in the Sandy Bridge range are clearly models not to be
reckoned with. The Extreme3 Gen3 comes right at the top of the
benchmarks all the time, if not exceeding the standards of its rival
brands such as Gigabyte and soon to be MSI and Asus motherboards. The
board has so many of the latest features and with the included Lucid
Virtu the performance is increased more than other board would be. The
Z68 has been built around the Intel core K series processors making the
Z68 the ideal Sandy Bridge foundation to build the rest of your system
onto. If that’s not enough for you, the price will definitely take away
those doubts. This board offers you top of the range Sandy Bridge
performance.
- £120
- $186
Debugging Error
One problem that was faced from the start with the ASRock Extreme3
Gen3 was, the debugging error on the motherboard that was arising every
time you start up the system it will say 45 on the debugger I/O. This
code is not in the manual at all. The problem can be solved by
downloading and updating your BIOS to 5.0.2v. After doing so ASRock
suggest you try insering the RAM moduals into A2 and B2 slots instead of
A1 and B1, after this the RAM worked fine.
source:www.hardwarelook.com
