Monday, October 31st 2011
ASRock X79 Motherboard Headed by Feature-Rich Extreme9 Model
ASRock's socket LGA2011 motherboard lineup doesn't end with X79 Extreme7 as thought before, the company thinks there's scope for an even more loaded model that's literally bursting with connectivity and expansion features. Enter the X79 Extreme9. This board uses high-grade digital PWM circuitry to power the CPU. It draws power for the CPU VRM from two 8-pin EPS connectors. Unlike the X79 Extreme7, this board features eight DDR3 DIMM slots, two per memory channel. Expansion slots include five PCI-Express 3.0 x16, and a PCIe x1.
Since it completely ran out of room on the main PCB, ASRock put two important connectivity features on a separate (included) addon card, called the ASRock "Game Blaster". This card occupies the PCIe x1 slot, it packs a next-generation Creative SoundCore3D audio processor (more advanced than X-Fi), and a low-overhead/low-latency gigabit Ethernet connection. It's not exactly known if this connection is driven by a Killer 2100 or a more common PCIe GbE PHY backed by ASRock's proprietary packet prioritization software (XLAN).
Moving on to storage connectivity, all six SATA ports from the PCH are wired as internal ones, with two SATA 6 Gb/s and four SATA 3 Gb/s from the PCH. There are six additional SATA 6 Gb/s and eSATA 6 Gb/s ports, all driven by Marvell-made controllers. There are four USB 3.0 controllers, which give out eight ports: four on the rear panel, and four via headers. Apart from the network connection on the addon card, there's another port on the board. Firewire and USB 2.0 ports make for the rest of it. The board will be driven by UEFI firmware. Expect it to be one of the more expensive LGA2011 offerings out there.
Since it completely ran out of room on the main PCB, ASRock put two important connectivity features on a separate (included) addon card, called the ASRock "Game Blaster". This card occupies the PCIe x1 slot, it packs a next-generation Creative SoundCore3D audio processor (more advanced than X-Fi), and a low-overhead/low-latency gigabit Ethernet connection. It's not exactly known if this connection is driven by a Killer 2100 or a more common PCIe GbE PHY backed by ASRock's proprietary packet prioritization software (XLAN).
31 Comments on ASRock X79 Motherboard Headed by Feature-Rich Extreme9 Model
Loving that add-on card.
The only thing I don't like is how the PCI-E 1x slot was positioned between the 16x slots, for 3-way SLI I would have to move the top video card to the 2nd slot and use the first 16x one for the sound card in order to use the SLI bridge.
Why not place that 1x slot on top of the 16x slots in the first place? :confused:
1 card taking 2 slots, 1x in the middle, then the other 2 cards, they might have a modded bridge for that little issue, hopefully they do or high-end builders, probably wont play with this as much as asrock might wants
Overall, loving the board. Also holding a little hope that it's a single 8-port Marvell chip instead of multiple 2 port controllers.
In my personal case I had already decided to get the ROG board and a SoundCore PCI-e card (I already have the USB version) but if this board is price competitive I might go back to Asrock, I used to have this Frankenstein board that had both AGP and PCI-E slots coupled with DDR2 and 3 sockets many years ago, and I've heard nothing but good things about Asrock in the past few years.
Until someone does better, this is mah board!
Still pretty nice they got that core audio on there.
Thankyou for the article, always great to note what of the latest features you may have missed out on in your last tech purchase!! lol.