Review: ASRock X79 Extreme4
Published by Marc Büchel on 30.11.11Page:
Fazit
| Allgemein | + | - | |
| At a first glance ASRock leaves a good impression with its Extreme4. There even is plenty of space around the CPU socket to install large coolers comfortably. Nevertheless one can really see that this is an entry level board. You can see this at the feature count on the board. It looks almost empty compared to some other high-end models. But on the other hand this is also an advantage. The layout is very clean an well thought in this case. The only thing which is a no-go concerns the active southbridge cooler. This could definitely be realized by a passive cooling element. | - Design - 3 x PCI-Express 3.0 Slot |
- Active chipset cooling | |
| Layout | + | - | |
|
Generally the ASRock Extreme4's Layout has been very well thought. Once more practical are the angled SATA connectors as well as the power- and reset-buttons. There even is a debug display which is very useful in case you should have issues with a component in your system or the board itself. Even the placement of the PCI-Express x16 is very well chosen. If you should choose to intall a graphics card in the last PCI-Express x16 slot you wont block the connectors at the bottom edge of the board. |
- Angled SATA connectors - Power/Reset-Button onboard - Debug display - Spac around the CPU socket - Placement of the PCI-Express slots |
||
| Performance | + | - | |
| Only in SuperPi and WPrime this motherboard can convince from a performance point of view. In 3D Mark 11 as well as 3D Mark Vantage it lacks behind. In Super Pi it is the same. This board simply doesn't reach the same performance level as the competition. Running the SiSoft Sandra benchmarks show that the Extreme4 either gets the first or the last place which es very inconsistent. In games we see that Street Fighter performs well but the other two games just run slower than on the competitors motherboards. | -
SuperPi - Power Consumption |
- 3D Mark - PC Mark - Games |
|
| Power Consumption | + | - | |
| As soon as one takes power consumption into account one can see the impact of onboard features. The fact that the Extreme4 only comes with a few features makes it draw less power and in the end scores quite well regarding efficiency. | - Power hungry features - Power consumption under load - Energy efficiency |
||
| Recommendation | + | - | |
| If you're looking for a rock solid basis which doesn't need to offer the absolute maximum in performance, regarding Intels latest Core i7-3930K, then the ASRock Extreme4 will be a good choice. Furthermore you should be not be bothered by an active southbridge cooler. This motherboard comes at an attractive price point of CHF 242.- (est. EUR 202.-). | -
Enthusiasts - High-End PC - Gaming System |
||
| Rating | |||
| We give the ASRock Extreme4 sufficient three out of five stars. | |||
Discuss this article in the forums
Author: m.buechel@ocaholic.ch
| Navigate through the articles | |
Layout and Design: ASUS Rampage IV Formula |
Layout and Design: Gigabyte GA-X79-UD7
 |
|
|