ASRock Z87 Extreme3 Pro Reviews

The Extreme3 is a match for most of its competitors, including the monster (and very expensive) MSI Z87 Xpower. It even has a slight edge its closest rival, MSI's Z87-G43. By trimming back the inessentials and focusing on performance, the Extreme3 offers genuinely impressive value.

While we might have talked about how the Asrock Z87 Extreme3 is the slowest Z87 board we’ve yet tested, it’s important to remember that the margins between boards are incredibly slim. Even at stock the biggest difference between it and a board more than twice its price is just seven per cent, and when overclocked this dropped to no more than two per cent, even with the 100MHz peak-overclock handicap. While it’s not fair to class the Extreme3 as a slow board then, it’s still far from perfect, especially considering its £130 price tag. While attractive and reasonably well laid out its feature set is very much by-the-numbers, with few of the nice little extras we like to see such as on-board buttons and POST-code readouts. This would be fine if it were priced more competitively, but at £132 you’d only have to spend an extra £15 to net yourself a Gigabyte Z87X-UD3H, replete with every on-board button you’d need. If such extras are of no consequence to you, then MSI’s Z87-G45 Gaming is £15 cheaper and offers a near identical feature set to the Extreme3. While by no means a bad board, Asrock looks to have gotten the price/features balance a bit wrong with the Extreme3, leaving it stuck between better featured boards which demand a minimal premium, or cheaper competition which matches it feature for feature. Unless it receives a price cut to allow it compete, there are plenty of better choices elsewhere.