ASRock kicked off its "Sandy Bridge-E" compatible motherboard series with one of the most complete lineups, including a micro-ATX model. It did include some oddities, such as the X79 Extreme7, with its six DIMM slot arrangement. Socket LGA2011 Core i7 processors embed a quad-channel integrated memory controller, and so it's only logical to either have one DIMM slot per channel (four DIMM slots in all), or two DIMM slots per channel (eight in all).

ASRock unveiled its latest addition to its X79 Extreme family, the X79 Extreme6/GB, which sets this oddity straight, while creating another. This model is supposed to be a notch inferior to the X79 Extreme7, yet it provides eight DIMM slots (two per channel). Other features, however, are consistent with those of the cheaper X79 Extreme4. So it's safe to call this ASRock's answer to MSI's recently-launched X79A-GD45 8D, a relatively cheaper X79 motherboard with eight DDR3 DIMM slots. 8 DIMM slots stopped being a thing of the "premium" (again, relatively), the moment Intel launched a $210 X79 motherboard that features it, the DX79TO.The CPU socket is powered by a 12-phase VRM, it is wired to eight DDR3 DIMM slots, supporting up to 64 GB of quad-channel DDR3 memory. Expansion slots include three PCI-Express 3.0 x16, of which two are x16 capable, one is electrically x8; one PCIe x1, and two legacy PCI. Storage connectivity includes five SATA 6 Gb/s internal ports, four SATA 3 Gb/s internal ports, and one eSATA 6 Gb/s. Other connectivity includes 8-channel HD audio, one gigabit Ethernet connection, Firewire, four USB 3.0 ports, and a number of USB 2.0 ports. This board will optionally also include ASRock's Game Blaster addon card, which provides an additional GbE connection, and Creative SoundCore audio.