Layout
Already at a first glance the
ASRock Extreme4 looks very good with its harmonic design. The combination of
black, grey and gold suite nicely. The layout itself is well thought and there
is for example plenty of space around the CPU socket to install even todays
largest CPU coolers. The fact that there are SATA connectors which have been angled by 90
degrees allows an easy installation of oversized graphics cards.
ASRock
equipped the Extreme4 with an 8+2 phase power design regarding CPU and memory. Therefore
the memory gets
two Phases and the CPU can rely on six phases. Furthermore ASRock implemented a
digital power design which should emit less electromagnetic radiation than its
analogue counterpart.
In total you'll find four DIMM-slots on the
Z87M Extreme4. Officially supported are DDR3 2800+(O.C.) / 2400(O.C.) /
2133(O.C.) / 1866(O.C.) / 1600 / 1333 MHz. There is enough space between the DIMM-slots and the CPU socket which
means that you won't encounter compatibility problems with big coolers.
Also supported are Xtreme Memory Profiles (XMP) in version 1.3.
On the Z87M Extreme4 the southbridge is being cooled by a
passive cooling block. A closer look at the VRM area, shows
that there are two additional heatsinks. In order to hit a very attractive price
point ASRock didn't put a heatpipe inbetween these two cooling blocks.