Verdict and Conclusion
I figured that the Z77 Extreme6 had a hard act to follow after the Z77 Professional review, but the Extreme6 really did a good job of things.
The first thing I want to mention is the fantastic packaging ASRock saw fit to use with this board, it is far and away the best motherboard packaging I have run into (except for the Professional, which uses the same setup) in my ~18 years of working with computers. Given the shipping damage to the box a standard packaging job likely would have left me with a DOA board, as it is the board is in perfect condition.
Beyond that there are a lot of other cool things as well, one of them being impressive overclocking abilities for the CPU, 4848MHz on 1.45vcore (UEFI) / 1.424vcore (CPUz) is very good for this CPU, far beyond what any of the previous generation boards managed for me.
On the down side it seems to have issues with running my ram at a very high speed. It is worth noting that I discussed the issue with ASRock support and they were unable to duplicate the problem, it may be specific to my individual motherboard. I have to score on it anyway however.
The presense of a mini-PCIe slot is very cool, as is the Molex for additional PCIe power. I like the looks of the board and heatsinks quite a bit, the heatsinks have lots of surface area and look very nice as well.
The included software suite has all sorts of great stuff in it, I was especially impressed with the XFastRAM and XFastLAN functions and the AXTU suite, they are fantastic.
I am a sucker for backlit power/reset/clear cmos buttons as well as POST code LEDs, as an extreme bencher they come in handy for me when I am running the motherboard outside of a case, and as an overclocker the clear cmos button is especially useful for if I push too hard and have to reset the overclocking settings. No more fiddling with jumpers.
That said, the fact that ASRock also included a jumper is wonderful, I sometimes run a remote clear-cmos button so that I don’t have to fiddle with something on the motherboard and I still have that option with this board.
The front panel connector could be more clear, and the USB3 header is rather oddly placed.
On the plus side the board comes with a USB3 3.5″ bay adapter and rear PCIe slot cover option, so you can use the internal header even if your case does not support USB3.
All in all there are plenty of pros:
- Excellent CPU overclocking.
- Excellent UEFI BIOS layout.
- I like onboard power/reset/clear CMOS buttons and POST code LEDs.
- XFast stuff works nicely, I like that too.
- Mini-PCIe slot is great for a small caching SSD or WiFi card.
- LGA1155 and LGA775 CPU heatsink mounting holes make me happy.
- Best motherboard packaging I have ever run into.
- Nice color scheme and heatsinks.
- Molex for PCIe slot power is nice insurance.
There aren’t too many cons:
- Did not appreciate RAM at CAS7 at 2133MHz or RAM speeds >2200MHz CAS8.
- PCIe slot latches can be difficult in some circumstances.
- Mini-PCIe slot only has screw holes for cards with a short-card type screw hole.
- IES page in AXTU software BSODs with certain BIOS settings.
All told this is an excellent motherboard that I would not hesitate to recommend (unless you have my specific kit of ram…), the ram issues put a dent in the score, otherwise it would be in real danger of beating its larger sibling that I reviewed a bit ago.
As it stands I award the ASRock Z77 Extreme6 a 8.5/10 score and recommended badge.
SCORE
8.5/10
