The Board - Layout

I simply cannot avoid saying it: The esthetics of this board greatly remind me of my old P9X79 Deluxe. That was a great board for me. Though the blue on this ASRock X99 Extreme11 is a different shade and of a completely different ilk. The fan on the chipset cooler indicates something, and the many SATA ports here say something as well. The back of the board seems rather simple, although there are a fair number of surface-mounted parts you need to be aware of when installing it into your case. For those of us who prefer watercooling, the big screws on these heatsinks are more than welcome.


The socket area is pretty busy, with a fair bit of stuff right around the socket itself, although everything has a low profile so as not to interfere with aftermarket cooling. Removing the socket's lid reveals a rather standard socket layout, but that doesn't seem terribly important these days.


There are five PCIe slots on the ASRock X99 Extreme11, which should be enough for most. The electrical connectivity these offer will depend on which CPU you install into the Extreme 11. This board supports up to 128 GB of memory through its eight provided DIMM slots capable of speeds up to 3200 MHz.


The lower edge comes with its usual allotment of pins, although one addition is a MOLEX plug for some additional power to the PCIe slots just above, and there are some buttons and such on the right side, but I'll cover those in more detail momentarily. There are six fan headers on the ASRock X99 Extreme11, but only two of those are of the 4-pin type.


The rear I/O connectivity also comes with eSATA, in addition to the by-now standard USB 2.0/3.0 plugs, of which there are four each, and a Clear CMOS button and PS/2 port, just to keep most users happy. There are also the standard audio connectors, including optical digital, and two LAN ports, both of which are provided for by the Intel chipsets most favor. SATA connectivity continues on to the board's other edge for a huge number of ports, 18 to be exact. All at least support SATA 6 Gb/s connectivity, while the bottom 8 also offer SAS 12 Gb/s support over the board's LSI controller. ASRock doubled up on the USB 3.0 plugs for your case's front panel, so even if you have four USB 3.0 ports on your case, which most cases do not, you've got what you need here.


Drive connectivity doesn't end there as there are TWO Ultra M.2 ports between these PCIe slots, both of which feature PCIe x4 connectivity for jaw-dropping 32 Gb/s speeds should you manage to find a drive that can utilize such bandwidth.