ASRock X58 Extreme Pro Reviews

At this point in testing, we have found no obvious reasons not to recommend the X58 Extreme for users seeking balanced performance and features at a very reasonable price point, well, for X58 products. The board does not have the overclocking prowess of more expensive boards but it will not embarrass you either. We tend to look at the overall aspects of a product and the company building it instead of focusing on Super Pi or 3DMark numbers. As such, it appears that ASRock has delivered another outstanding product for the budget hunter in all of us.

Those mainboards that we really like usually receive our Editor’s Choice award. This time, the situation is a little different. I personally would probably prefer some other model, but ASRock X58 Extreme has every right to claim our new title “X-bit Recommended Buy”.

Pricewise, the X58 Extreme from ASRock is about right with a price of around $170. Still, this is not an enthusiast board by any means; it can get you a semi-decent OC and game pretty well, but the problems we saw does not endear it to us. If you are looking for a low cost board to get you into the Core i7 playing field, you might consider the ASRock X58 Extreme. However, I would caution you to be prepared for some bumps.

A full-fledged X58 motherboard for under $170 was just a dream a year ago, fully realized with the ASRock X58 Extreme motherboard. ASRock offers most of the features of the X58 SuperComputer with the exceptions being 3 full length PCI Express slots instead of four and better BIOS options. Performance is on par or better than that of the X58 SuperComputer which is much more expensive but has an additional PCI Express slot for another video card and supports the Tesla video cards from NVIDIA. ASRock has really done an outstanding job with this motherboard offering the performance of the more expensive X58 boards on the market and virtually all of the features you would expect from this chipset, making this a solid Editor's Choice for this price point.