ASRock X79 Extreme6 Pro Reviews

While the ASUS P9X79 Deluxe is a great board with a high price tag, the ASRock X79 Extreme6/GB actually performed a tad better and costs $90 less at $279.99. The Game Blaster is an intriguing component for gamers, especially the teaming function, and although its scores were up-and-down in our tests, the ASRock board had some high marks and also hit the highest overclock of all our systems.

Throughout this review we pointed out several minor issues we uncovered with the ASRock X79 Extreme6/GB mainboard. However, in conclusion I would like to once again stress its indisputable advantages. This mainboard comes with sufficient accessories bundle including a universal panel that provides two additional USB 3.0 ports. The PCB layout is overall good; it offers eight memory DIMM slots, two processor fan connectors supporting rotation speed adjustment, additional SATA and USB 3.0 controllers, buttons and POST-code indicator. The digital processor voltage regulator circuitry is built with high-quality components including tantalum capacitors. It works as 12+2 and supports dynamic adjustment of the number of active phases depending on the processor load even during overclocking. Three graphics card slots allow building AMD Quad CrossFireX, 3-Way CrossFireX and CrossFireX, as well as NVIDIA Quad SLI, 3-Way SLI and SLI configurations. The mainboard has pretty convenient BIOS that offers everything necessary for system configuring and fine-tuning. Everything we have just said can also be applied to a similar ASRock X79 Extreme6 mainboard, but the “SB” model comes with additional expansion card featuring a second Broadcom network controller and Creative Sound Core3D Audio processor. This is a unique distinguishing feature of the ASRock X79 Extreme6/GB mainboard, because there are not that many other products that come bundled with a Creative sound solution.

It is clear to us that ASRock is working hard to improve the quality of its products. We were glad to see the voltage regulator circuit of the X79 Extreme6/GB using a high-end design with SMD capacitors, and Japanese solid capacitors throughout the motherboard. The X79 Extreme6/GB provides many features at a very aggressive price: three PCI Express 3.0 x16 slots working at x16/x16/x8 supporting SLI and CrossFireX, five SATA-600 ports, one eSATA-600 port, six USB 3.0 ports, two FireWire ports, and an add-on “Game Blaster” sound card, which provides a digital signal processor (DSP) to improve audio quality and an additional Gigabit Ethernet port. A comparable sound card retails for USD 100, providing an outstanding value to this motherboard. Therefore, the ASRock X79 Extreme6/GB is an excellent option if you are looking for a socket 2011 motherboard with the features it provides, at a very competitive price.