Asrock Z68 Extreme4

For testing Intel'southward latest chipset Asrock provided united states with their Z68 Extreme4 motherboard, which is currently retailing for $200, making it slightly more affordable than the P67 Extreme6 we tested in our recent P67 motherboard roundup. In fact, we considered the Extreme6 to exist the best all-around value for enthusiast shoppers.

Besides the inclusion of Z68'southward new features, the Extreme4 appears to offer many of the same keen features seen on the P67 Extreme6. The spec sheet includes 64Mb AMI UEFI Legal BIOS with GUI support, iv USB iii.0 ports, four SATA 6Gb/southward connectors, 8-channel sound, eSATA 6Gb/s and Gigabit LAN.

Asrock has added quite a bit of functionality to the stock Z68 chipset. Whereas all Z68 motherboards take six SATA 3Gb/south ports (two tin can work at 6Gb/s speeds) Asrock has expanded the storage capabilities of their Z68 Extreme4 by including the Marvell 88SE9120 controller, which supports a pair of 6Gb/s SATA ports each using a PCI Express two.0 x1 (5.0Gb/due south) lane.

While the Marvell bit doesn't offering any RAID functionality, it does support NCQ (Native Command Queuing) and it provides the Asrock Z68 Extreme4 with a g total of SATA ports. Networking is covered by a Broadcom BCM57781 Gigabit Ethernet controller which supports Wake-On-LAN and Energy Efficient Ethernet 802.3az.

Etron EJ168A controllers also occupy one PCI Express 2.0 x1 (5.0Gb/s) lane each to provide a combined four USB 3.0 ports. 1 controller powers two rear USB 3.0 ports while the other feeds a pair of front mounted ports using the supplied onboard header.

Asrock has added quite a few PCI Express devices and that presents a trouble equally the Z68 features just viii PCIe 2.0 (5.0Gb/s) lanes. As a workaround, Asrock employs the PLX PEX 8608 switch to evangelize viii more flexible ports -- though we suspect many have been used to connect the PLX switch to the Z68. This isn't an platonic solution, simply it'south the merely mode Asrock could strap on so much actress hardware.

We found that the 8-aqueduct audio is delivered past a rather traditional pick in the Realtek ALC892 codec which supports THX TruStudio Pro. Despite seeing this chipset on numerous Asrock boards before, we were unable to dig up whatever real info on it. The Realtek website only lists 8-channel codecs from the ALC861 to the ALC889.