ASrock 1155 motherboard

[OVerLoRDI]

Nevermind: http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2189554&page=2

Looks like a decent board once they ironed out the bios issues.

My Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD3 is starting to be flaky. The bios seems to "forget" its settings from time to time. Intel Smart Response seems to disable itself from time to time. The voltage drop is pretty impressive when loaded up. So I'm in the market for a more robust board.

I'm looking at this one in particular:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813157271

The price seems too good to be true and feature wise it has everything I need. My only gripe is that it isn't full ATX size, but I can live with that.

Anyone have any experience with ASrock boards? I'm really looking for some quality VRMs for the CPU for great overclocking.

 

[dma0991]

Get the ASRock Z77 Extreme4 instead. The previous ASRock Z68 Extreme4 is being replaced by the ASRock Z77 Extreme6 within the same price range. The price of the ASRock Z77 Extreme4 is now much closer to the price of the ASRock Z68 Extreme3 GEN3.

Based on the previous Extreme4 boards, they are proven to be good overclockers and the current Extreme4 shouldn't be that different as they have the same 8+4 design.

 

[OVerLoRDI]

^Good idea.

After reading the thread on the Extreme4, I'm worried about getting a crappy early bios on a brand new board. Whether or not to take the plunge or not. I guess if it is a crappy bios, I do have my Gigabyte board as a mostly working backup.

Also don't like that it isn't a full ATX board, so plugging things in on the right side requires some caution. But that isn't a deal breaker for me.

 

[chubbyfatazn]

^Good idea.

After reading the thread on the Extreme4, I'm worried about getting a crappy early bios on a brand new board. Whether or not to take the plunge or not. I guess if it is a crappy bios, I do have my Gigabyte board as a mostly working backup.

Also don't like that it isn't a full ATX board, so plugging things in on the right side requires some caution. But that isn't a deal breaker for me.

The worst problem I could possibly see you running into is the SATA ports, but they give you a couple L cables so that shouldn't be a big deal. Possibly the USB 3.0 header, but that's far enough into the board that you shouldn't have too big a problem with that.

Great boards.

 

[JonBlack]

I know you didn't ask about this board but I own the ASRock Z68 Pro3 Gen3. Not that you are considering it but avoid this board at all cost if you want to overclock! It's a 4+1 design and will not hold the voltage properly when overclocked and will drop the CPU speed to stock clocks. Also, there is little control of the CPU voltage offset in the UEFI BIOS.

I should have bought the ASRock Z68 Extreme3 Gen3 that you are considering when I bought the Pro3 Gen3. It worked out OK since the Z77s came out and I decided to try one of them.

I ended up getting the ASRock Z77 Extreme6 and have had it installed since yesterday afternoon. I went ahead and flashed the BIOS from 1.10 to 1.20. My initial testing of my i7-2600k at 4.2 indicates that the voltage is pretty stable on the Extreme6. When I bought it on Monday morning the Extreme6 was $20 more than the Extreme4. I figured it was worth it just to get the USB 3.0 front panel that I would need to get anyway. Now that they dropped the Extreme4 to $35 less than the Extreme6 I would have gone with it. Both boards I believe has the same 8+4 VRM design.