The Board - Layout

The ASRock Z87 Extreme6/ac features a fairly standard layout for Intel's Z87 platform but is seemingly stuffed to the rim with features; the board's surface is a big busy mix of parts here, there, and everywhere. Flipping the board over and looking at its back reveals the PCB's brown color, something quite a few enthusiasts dislike a fair bit.


The area around the socket is amazingly clear of components that might interfere with insulation for extreme cooling methods, and the back of the socket appears just the same. Mounting aftermarket coolers should pose no problem at all.


The ASRock Z87 Extreme6/ac feature three PCIe x16 slots, a single PCIe x1 slot, and two legacy PCI slots. The DIMM slots boast capabilities reaching 2933 MHz and then some. Each slot can handle DIMMs of up to 8 GB in density.


The ASRock Z87 Extreme6/ac's lower edge has a rather unusual assortment of pin headers and such, but I'll go into a bit more detail about those in just a minute. There are five fan headers in various locations on the ASRock Z87 Extreme6/ac. Two headers are PWM-based and three are of the 3-pin variety.


The ASRock Z87 Extreme6/ac's backplate has quite a few video outputs, including an HDMI input. There are also dual LAN ports and the usual USB and audio ports, and there's a CLEAR CMOS switch in a handy location. There are ten SATA 6 Gb/s ports on the ASRock Z87 Extreme6/ac. Six of these are powered via the Intel Z87 chipset. The other four are provided via a pair of ASMedia ASM1061 controllers.