ASRock Z68 Extreme4 Motherboard Review
Bluetooth 11 May 2011
The P67 and H67 went through some issues with early steppings and recalls were made. In addition, there is also the problem of limiting features of the embedded graphics within the processor by P67 and overclocking on the H67.
To iron out these issues, Intel releases yet another chipset for the LGA1155 socket processor. This chipset, known as the Z68 will answer some of these issues. In addition, it also introduced new features e.g. Intel Smart Response Technology – ISRT to speed up system performance.
Before we go into all these, let’s take a look at what has the ASRock Z68 Extreme4 has to offer.
The Z68 Extreme4 being the highest end of the trio comes with 3x PCIe2.0 x16, supports ATI Quad CrossFireX, Quad SLI and has 2 PCIe 2.0 x1 slots. For graphics, it uses the embedded HD graphics within the processor and has output ports D-Sub, DVI-D, HDMI and DIsplayport.
It supports 7.1ch HD audio and THX TruStudio. ASRock Z68 Extreme4 has 4 SATA3, 1 eSATA3, 4 SATA2. The Z68 Extreme4 has the most USB ports. It has 4 USB 3.0 (2 front, 2 read) and 10 USB 2.0.
The Z68 Extreme4 also support Intel Smart Response System – this ISRT allows a SSD to operate like a cache to the HDD thereby speeding up system and system response. With Lucid Virtu, it is capable of dynamically assign tasks in real time to the best available graphics resource based on power, performance and features. With Lucid Virtu, you can now tap the power of the high speed video compression within the graphics processor of the CPU even with the use of a standalone add on graphics card. Lastly, it supports ASRock’s XFast USB which we have reviwed before.
In the package, you will also find Cyberlink MediaEspresso 6.5. CyberLink MediaEspresso 6.5 trial now supports Intel® Quick Sync Video hardware transcoding and is optimized for second generation Core i7, i5, and i3 processors to accelerated conversion of all your favorite media files for your favorite portable players. access speed.
Other features include AXTU (ASRock Extreme Tuning Utility), SmartView, ASRock App Charger, C.C.O (allowing you to use LGA775 coolers on the board).
The Package
