Often, I find myself just looking over a product for minutes on end before even looking over the documentation. I mean, who wants to look at that stuff? Anyway, while sitting here looking over a rather sharp motherboard, the word ASRock seemingly jumped out at me. It’s nice to occasionally be surprised when opening a product box. Let’s take a look at the ASRock X58 Extreme 3 motherboard and you’ll understand the happy confusion.
Features and Specifications
What separates the Extreme 3 from any other X58 in the ASRock arsenal are the updates. This platform does away with all the add-on USB 3.0 and SATA3 expansion cards. Instead, all the latest expansion features are integrated so you don’t have to worry about slot space.
The Extreme 3 also supports DDR3 2000MHz memory, overclocked of course. To support this the board also gets a number of component upgrades like DuraCap high quality solid state capacitors, and ASRock’s V8 Power Phase design. Given the CPU Bus Clock needed to support 2000MHz triple channel memory, these boards need to have top notch components supporting it.
ASRock went with a VIA VT2020 7.1 channel HD codec for integrated audio. Typically, these codecs offer more than enough for those looking to save some money depending on driver support. Given that the board fully supports Blu-ray, we’ll be the judge of that later on in audio testing.
OC DNA and OC Tuner software make a return giving enthusiasts what they want: Overclocking! The software has been updated since we last handled a performance ASRock motherboard, so we’re hoping for a good experience. And, if something should go wrong, Instant Flash can patch or update the BIOS quickly.
Finally, the ASRock X58 Extreme 3 LGA1366 board retails for $189.99US at NewEgg. Additional specifications can be found on the X58 Extreme 3 Product Page.
What’s In The Box?
The Xtreme 3 package contains the minimal amount of extras for getting the system up and running. Along with the documentation, manual, and reference guide, you’ll find the software disc with the drivers and utilities. Included on the disc are OC DNA and OC Tuner for getting your OC on.
ASRock also includes four yellow SATA cables, blue flat floppy cable, blue flat ATA cable, SLI/Crossfire bridge, two 4-pin to SATA power cable adapters, and of course a color IO case shield. This should be more than enough cables for the average system. We’re looking forward to the day all the legacy floppy and hard drive devices are removed from the boxes.
First Impressions
Here, we have the ASRock X58 Extreme 3in all its organized glory. Do you see any bright red, orange, or gold heat sinks? Pardon my bluntness, but the X58 Extreme 3 is an organized work of art compared to some of the others in the ASRock family. Everyone loves a motherboard with a decent color scheme. This time around, designers went with a white and blue on dark PCB for the theme. The gun metal silver Northbridge and PWM heat sinks further compliment the theme.
Looking over the layout, there really isn’t much out of place other than the white SATA3 ports just above the first PCI Express slot and the white front panel (case) wire header which is next to the memory slots. While the header might not be of concern, we’re curious why the SATA3 weren’t just added to the other 90 degree SATA ports. At least both are accessible. Also, it’s unfortunately not uncommon to see vendors still throwing in some legacy floppy and IDE ports. As far as we’re concerned, X58 (and P55A/H55) are light years past the IDE era that it doesn’t make much sense to continue to support them.
Cool as a Cucumber
The ASRock X58 Extreme 3 makes some concession to budget conscious users with high end coolers that fit previous generation LGA775 sockets. The Combo Cooler Option (C.C.O.) design allows support for both LGA775 and LGA1366 aftermarket CPU coolers. If you happen to have a Noctua NH-U12D from a couple years ago, you won’t need to order any special adapter kits or extra parts to make it fit this board. That’s a very significant savings.
Despite the novelty of this feature, users should also keep in mind that the LGA775 retail cooler itself is not recommended for any Core i7 900 series processor. If you have something newer like a Core i5-750, you’ll be fine with that particular retail cooler though Intel would like it if you stick with the cooler that come with specific sockets. Given the low price of so many aftermarket coolers, do yourself a favor and err on the side of caution if you’re sporting an old stocker.
The last cooling feature we want to comment on is the use of a 60mm mini-fan to cool the PWM heat sink which is in turn cooling the V8 Phase PWM circuits underneath. Typically, standard operations don’t drive these circuit temps that far up. Perhaps engineers see this more as a precaution given that the board supports some overclocking.
Buttons, Extras, and IO Ports
We’re happy to see ASRock continuing use of some good quality parts to assemble this motherboard. Some rather nice power and reset buttons can be found at the bottom right of the PCB near the front IO panel connections. There is also a matching CMOS CLR (BIOS Clear) button in the IO back. This will save you from having to open the case up to clear the BIOS if you happen to push your overclock just a little too far. If ASRock can get this right, why can’t everyone else?
Lastly, the rear IO panel offers your usual expansion and connectivity options. among the USB, Optical, LAN, Firewire, and PS/2 ports.
Test System Configuration
Since the X58 Extreme 3 supports 980X out of the box, we of course have to try that out. If it can handle Intel’s pride and joy desktop power house processor, it’ll handle any Quad or Dual core with ease. As for installation, I would compare it to the experiences of the ASUS, GIGABYTE, or MSI platforms: Uneventful and without hassle. This is usually a really good indication of what to expect during testing. We tend to be a bit unforgiving when a platform doesn’t install as it should. But, we’re giving the Extreme 3 here a big two thumbs up for just working out of the box.
Our test system setup is as follows:
- Processor: Intel Core i7-980X Gulftown
- CPU Cooled By: Zalman CNPS10X Extreme
- Motherboard 1: ASRock X58 Extreme 3 LGA1366 Motherboard
- Motherboard 2: GIGABYTE GA-X58A-UD5 LGA1366 Motherboard
- Memory: ViperII 6GB 2000MHz DDR3 Triple Channel Memory Kit
- Graphics Card: ZOTAC Geforce GTX480 Video Card
- Storage/SSD: Kingston SSDNow V+ 128GB SSD
- Power Supply: Antec TPQ-1000 Watt
- Test Enclosure: DangerDen Torture Rack
Just to be clear, the BIOS was updated, CPU cooler cleaned out, video card cleaned out as well, and I got a handy laser temp gun ready to check out some thermals during testing, where applicable. We also ensured that all drivers and BIOS were updated to the latest as of the publishing of this review and Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit was our operating system of choice. Now let’s get into our benchmarks shall we?
Performance Testing
Our objective here is to present you with non-redundant results that you can apply to real world situations. We’ve selected a well rounded benchmark suite covering CPU, platform stability, 3D performance, IO feature performance using a mixture of real-world and synthetic benchmarks.
We will finish off by exploring the overclocking capabilities of the board. Keep in mind that your results may vary depending on the capabilities of your CPU, video card, DDR3 memory, and system cooling. If you’re not able to reproduce our overclocked results, just be aware of that.
Synthetic Benchmarks
These benchmarks come in handy as third party creators have developed them to reveal any performance variances between systems. Some tax the entire system and some load specific components in the system. Most importantly, they are fairly consistent and can be run across platforms, allowing you to easily compare your results with ours.
3DMark Vantage
Starting off strong, the Extreme 3 seems to pull a little extra power from somewhere. Perhaps Intel Turbo settings are slightly more aggressive. Either way, it’s just enough to keep the average lead over the GIGABYTE X58A-UD5.
PCMark Vantage
PCMark reveals the Extreme 3 to be just a handful of points behind the X58A. It’s most likely due to different levels of BIOS tuning. Music and Communcations tilt in favor of the X58A-UD5 probably due to the use of the Realtek audio and slightly better implementation of the Realtek LAN.
Sisoft SANDRA CPU
Both platforms are comparable during the CPU tests. While the X58A is the more aggressive platform, the X58A and Extreme trade places on the multimedia test. A little tuning up in the BIOS and both would be right on queue.
Cinebench R11.5
It’s interesting to see the Extreme 3 pull just ahead in single CPU core performance and match everything else except the MP Ratio. This proves that it’s an equally capable rendering platform if you’re looking for the resources of the X58 chipset.
Unigine Heaven Demo v2.1
Here, we see very similar performance. The X58A just slightly sneaks past the Xtreme 3 in stock settings. Still, it’s pretty neat watching the benchmark run so smoothly on both platforms. Especially with a capable video card like the ZOTAC GTX 480.
3D Gaming Benchmarks
Three different game titles were picked based on game engines. Crysis Warhead and Battlefield Bad Company 2 both can give a system a good work out. BioHazard 5, while older, still gives users playing older games an idea of performance. Just make sure you’re running the latest drivers and a competent video card.
Crysis Warhead
Still one very graphics intensive game, the platforms offer just enough frames to keep it smooth like most folks like. Only a couple frames separated the two platform due to the X58A-UD5’s more aggressive nature during overclocking.
Battlefield Bad Company 2
Due to a few game and driver glitches associated with advanced high settings, three quick BFBC2 demos were recorded using only high settings with the help of Fraps. The demos involve darkness, lighting, fog, and large detail mapping.
The nice thing about both platforms is that they run the demos very smoothly. The X58A-UD5 provided a few more frames on the average when overclocked than the Extreme 3. However, we’re not exactly talking huge margins here and we’d never be able to feel the difference in real world gameplay.
BioHazard 5 Demo
This demo gives us a peak at the motherboards in action. The X58A-UD5 just pulls a head by a point or less. One thing is certain. Both platforms love running the benchmark demo with the GTX 480 in the driver’s seat.
SATA3 and USB 3.0 Benchmarks
We’ve noticed variations in SATA3 and USB 3.0 performance over the last few review so we’ve decided for the sake of brevity to concentrate on these areas instead. We rarely see major variances in SATA2 and USB 2.0 performance these days and even when we do, it’s not worth talking about. USB 3.0 and SATA 3 have a lot of growing up so these benchmarks should see who’s maturing quicker in terms of implementation.
CrystalDiskMark 2.2 – USB 3.0
Because both platforms rely heavily on the same NEC USB 3.0 controller chip without any help from PLX system bus chips, we didn’t expect much variance. Neither really out paced the other. Any of the minor variances are probably due to the physical design and components of the motherboard’s system bus.
CrystalDiskMark 2.2 – SATA 3
Again, both platforms share the same Marvell SATA 3 controller and drivers. As expected, performance is pretty similar. The variances could be attributed to trace designs. The interesting thing about both platforms is that the write speeds are higher than read.
Power Consumption
Before you go off screaming “what the heck”, keep in mind these platforms were tested with the Core i7-980X and are carrying a big phat ZOTAC GTX 480 video card which does a fine job of crunching impressive amounts of data. However, it comes at a cost in terms of power consumption. Pro users with this kind of equipment know what to expect when pulling watts from the wall. The Extreme 3 was clearly less power hungry overall however, this is without the GIGABYTE’s Green Power turned on which would have evened it up.
Networking and Audio Performance
Connectivity is very important in our always connected world so we must check out the lifeline that connects us to the Interwebz. Also equally important is audio performance especially when it comes to listening to music, gaming and watching videos.
Sisoft SANDRA Network
As far an integrated LAN (NIC) functions go, we need as much MB/s bandwidth as we can get. While onboard devices aren’t that fast, at least the X58A-UD5 offers just a bit more data bandwidth. This reflects the same result we achieved in the PCMark Vantage test as the X58A-UD5 also scored higher in the communication test over the Extreme 3.
RightMark Audio Analyzer 6
What we’re checking here is the dB(A) performance while keeping an eye on the THD and noise. Too little of one and too much of the other results in something less than fulfilling.
The VIA VT2020 audio codec isn’t without its good points. The Extreme3 was quite clear during playback and recording. But, the upper volume rich audio was missing as well. It’s probably the right amount of audio you’re looking to get for good HD video playback. In the end, it’s tough to get everything we want in any integrated audio codec. As you’ve seen in our previous motherboard reviews, the Realtek solutions do muster up a better performance overall.
Overclocking
ASRock’s OC Tuner software isn’t half bad. It’s not quite as aggressive as ASUS TurboV software, but it isn’t as intermittent as Easy Tune 6. In fact, it seems to either work at the setting you select, or it just doesn’t like it at all. Sometimes, it’s frustrating when your settings seem stable, but then go all kinds of crazy on you during a benchmark, or burn-in. Ultimately, the most I could get out of OC Tuner was 170MHz CPU bus clock even with scaling the multiplier back.
Working with the BIOS was a bit better. Setting the multiplier to 20 and starting off at 170MHz, the system was stable up to 190MHz bus clock. Looking at the CPU and PLL voltages, the BIOS isn’t quite capable of managing them on Auto, even with VDroop improved settings. It took a little bit extra manually from both. Try as I may, the system just wouldn’t reach the 200MHz bus clock even with more aggressive voltage settings.
Final Thoughts
We’ve revealed quite a bit of data here and it all points to this: The ASRock X58 Extreme 3 is solid. It’s an extremely stable motherboard offering all of the latest expansion and high end level performance you come to expect from the X58 chipset and more. It took on GIGABYTE’s X58A-UD5; a $289US premium board and it held its own.
As with any platform aimed at giving users a budget solution with some bells and whistles, there are some things that won’t be so high end like the audio solution and overclocking capabilities. We expected this so at the end of the day, no disappointment. With the money saved though, a great aftermarket audio solution could be purchased.
There’s nothing negative enough about the ASRock that would turn any PRO user or budding enthusiast away. It’s an attractive ASRock motherboard. Despite our giggles at previous attempts, it’s all true. This board does look good!
Overall, you should be pleasantly surprised and completely confident with making a buying decision on a budget with this board. If you’re looking for a handsomely priced $189US INTEL X58 motherboard, the ASRock X58 Extreme 3 just might be what your accountant ordered.
Pros
- Strong performance and stability
- Decent quality components
- Very attractive looking board
- Exceptional value for the money
- Offers some overclocking head room
- Keeps up with the latest USB 3.0 and SATA 3 trends
Cons
- Not a hardcore overclocker
- We’d be willing to pay another $10-$20 for a better audio solution
Overall Rating: 8.5/10.0
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ASRock X58 Extreme 3 LGA1366 Motherboard – Photo Gallery
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