I really don't think a lot has to be said about the ASRock Z77 Extreme11. The performance numbers speak for themselves, and the huge capacity for additional hardware, whether it be drives, VGAs, or anything else, is truly amazing, but all of that comes at the cost of higher overall power consumption. As the base of a huge media-editing rig or a BitCoin miner, the ASRock Z77 Extreme11 poses a great option that provides nearly every sort of capability you might need.

The downside to such products is that such functionality is far more than most users will ever truly need, which poses the problem of turning the board into a niche product that many might overlook, but EK's release of a block for this board shows that there is a high interest in having all these features rolled into the Intel Z77 Express platform. EK won't offer such a product for just any board, and their block also shows that users are more than willing to pay to have it cooled extremely well. When compared to the Intel X79 Express platform that offers similar functionality and connectivity right out of the box, the ASRock Z77 Extreme11 offers something it does not: Its Ivy Bridge-based CPU as opposed to a ginormous Socket LGA 2011 chip like the Intel i7 3820 really contributes to keeping power consumption in check. Having used that platform a lot and still using an X79 system as the base of my gaming rig has proven to me that the X79's power draw is a bit excessive for daily use, but I can clearly see how many would need the functionality that, until now, could not be had anywhere else.

The ASRock Z77 Extreme11 really shows what's possible with a bit of careful planning and design, since I didn't run into any situations where all of that connectivity posed a problem through system bottlenecks, and the added drive connectivity offered by the LSI SAS RAID chip is something that is exclusive to two ASRock products right now, with the ASRock Z77 Extreme11 being one and the ASRock X79 Extreme11 being the other. They both really prove to be the ultimate base for highly clocked workstation and gaming platforms with nearly no barriers to storage and performance. That is something that cannot be ignored, and if you are in the market to build a high-end rendering rig or similar, you really should look no further. Want to forget about add-on RAID cards, but need the connectivity? The ASRock Z77 Extreme11 is calling...