Asrock Z77 Extreme 4 Owners Thread

[HexiumVII]

Lets start a Z77 Extreme4 thread. I would say this is the spiritual successor of the real popular, super budget, note quite full atx, high feature board, the Asus P5NE-SLI (nforce 650).

Anyways I just got a pair of Extreme 4s(was going to go with Sabertooth, but decided I can get 2 boards for price of 1!) One with a i7 3770k and i5 3570k. Going to play around with the 3570k on a bench first with a cheapo Corsair A50 either tonight or tomorrow. Then seeing what o/cs and temps I can get with each board.

The ram I got is 4x4GB Crucial PC1600 1.35v CT2KIT51264BD160B and a Team Elite 4x4GB PC1333 TED38192M1333HC9DC. They were pretty much the cheapest mem i could fine, $60 for the 16GB! We'll see how well the micron does as it has the same chips as the Vengeance. Not so much high opes for the team elite ones

Going to try fit my trusty IFX-14 cooler on the extreme 4 and see what happens! (yay for socket 775 mounting holes!)

Anyways i'll have both boards testing next to each other, so lmk if any of you owners have any issues you want me to check out while i have them together. Any variances or whatever between the same model boards.

Updates:

Got BIOS 1.2-15b, flashing first one to 1.30. Internet update doesn't seem to be working, i get "no connection" error. Looks like the China FTPs are down on the site. Used the other mirrors on Asrock site and used USB method. Took about a minute to update. What in the world is Dehumidifier function lol.

For cyberjedi's question, there is no advanced fan speed controller on this board it seems. The software included only lets you choose from 1-10 in speed and set target temp. It doesn't have the more advance profiles or graphical charts like in vid cards. If you look at the new roundup here you can see they didn't put a fancy one like other brands. I'm going to look around maybe there is 3rd party software that will do it.

HOLY CRAP. I just disconnected the DVD Drive after a few tests, and the thing boots so now fast I can't even get to the UEFI! Its goes through everything before my monitor can even detect the signal! A win7 restart takes about 8 seconds and a power on takes 11. Its insane!!!! (Using my test Vertex 3 SSD). Not even put in my Samsung 830s yet!

Overclocking: So far trying to see how much "free" (no voltage change) o/cing i can get. Can 4.4 with voltages on auto (.9v) and LLC level 2 seems pretty stable. Temps are slightly over 70. 4.5 seems to be a bit more effort. Will try later, but will probably run 24/7 on 4.4. Tried to tighten up my memory, but will not go under 11 no matter what voltage (well went up to 1.6). Will try just high higher freqs instead.

 

[Rvenger]

I'm in.

I think its the successor of the Asrock Z68 Extreme 3 Gen 3. BTW If you didn't already know, Asrock is no longer tied to Asus.

 

[HexiumVII]

Yeah the z77 ex4 is more of a direct successor to the z68 ex3 (the z77 ex6 is more of a sucessor of the z68 ex4). But i was referring to how much you get in features compared to the big boys for much lower price. Similar how Sandy i5 2500k was to Celeron 300, Athlon XPs. Its true Asrock is their own company by still under the Pegatron wing (though that probably doesn't mean much, just make keep making better boards!)

 

[Rvenger]

They seem to be getting better and better too I am sure all Asus did was limit them in the first place.

 

[Destiny]

Yeah the z77 ex4 is more of a direct successor to the z68 ex3 (the z77 ex6 is more of a sucessor of the z68 ex4). But i was referring to how much you get in features compared to the big boys for much lower price. Similar how Sandy i5 2500k was to Celeron 300, Athlon XPs. Its true Asrock is their own company by still under the Pegatron wing (though that probably doesn't mean much, just make keep making better boards!)

Pegatron either owns or contract manufactures a lot of big brands out there (acquisitions, majority share holder of outstandign stocks, etc)...
From what I know:

ASUS, Apple, ASRock, Canon,Siemens, Smart Phones, HTPC, LCD/LED TVs and PC Monitor Displays, media players, Laptops, memory, Mother boards...etc...

It kind of helps when I have a former Pegatron employee in my office...

 

[xAlias]

I got one this weekend and its been superb so far and excellent vfm considering that i got it for $300 as a bundle offer from microcenter along with a 3570k.

 

[cyberjedi]

Dear Owners, does this mobo have a certain thermal profile for automatic fan speed? In other words, as the temps go up, the fan speed goes up too? Can this profile be set by the user? I mean can i set certain speeds to certain temps? It is not a problem if this can only be done under Windows.

I am coming from a Gigabyte mobo, where i had the luxury of setting my own fan speed profile, have good OC but silent computing if not at full CPU load. I am eyeing this Asrock mobo...

 

[gothuevos]

Paired one with an i7 3770k last week...so far so good.

 

[xAlias]

Dear Owners, does this mobo have a certain thermal profile for automatic fan speed? In other words, as the temps go up, the fan speed goes up too? Can this profile be set by the user? I mean can i set certain speeds to certain temps? It is not a problem if this can only be done under Windows.

I am coming from a Gigabyte mobo, where i had the luxury of setting my own fan speed profile, have good OC but silent computing if not at full CPU load. I am eyeing this Asrock mobo...

Well, i set fan target speed to level when certain target temperature is reached (51'C) but is that all that is possible? You can't set levels here?

 

[Avalon]

Loving the board so far. Fan controls not so good, but neither are Gigabytes. This thing has been rock solid and boots quickly. Still working on my overclock, but the reviews are good in that area.

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

Any of you having problems getting good overclocks on Ivy Bridge with it? HardOCP (who I don't trust in the slightest) say that overclocking with the board proved to be terrible and that the UEFI was horrible. To me it sounded like they're talking crap as usual, so I wanted to hear from people that actually have the board paired with an IB CPU.

 

[xAlias]

Any of you having problems getting good overclocks on Ivy Bridge with it? HardOCP (who I don't trust in the slightest) say that overclocking with the board proved to be terrible and that the UEFI was horrible. To me it sounded like they're talking crap as usual, so I wanted to hear from people that actually have the board paired with an IB CPU.

I didnt overclock it yet but I find no issues with the UEFI and find it easy to understand and work with.

 

[Avalon]

Axel, I'll let you know today how it goes. In the shootout that AT posted today, it seemed to do quite well with their 3770K sample hitting 4.7 @ 1.19V (if memory serves me correctly), which was slightly better than the requires 1.2V of Asus and 1.25V of MSI.

 

[HexiumVII]

Incredibly impressed with the board right now. Playing with the second board to see if I can spot any differences with 1.2 and 1.3. With only an SSD in, I can get to working windows in 10 seconds flat (even with Radeon 6850 with Cat 12.4). Simply amazing. I just have to press f2 right after i press the power to get into the UEFI. All my old boards i had to wait about 5 seconds after the splash or else I risk losing keyboards altogether. The waiting games are over!!!

As for the RAM, the TEAM Elite are disappointing. One stick can't even pass memtest at stock profile time/freq/voltage. Its fine at 1066. Pretty sad. I found the bad stick, will try see if the rest can o/c at 1.65v.

The Crucial 1.35 runs 1866 at 1.5 ok. Get errors at 2000. Might bump to 1.65 to see how high it can go as these chips like 1.65 it seems. Will probably just tighten up the timings and leave it at 1600.

For O/Cing i'm trying to see how far i can go with stock voltages. the i5 seems ok at 4.3 so far. 4.5 is no boot.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Teamgroup memory used to be high end overclocker friendly memory.

 

[DarkZ]

Can this board OC i5 2500k flawlessly?
(New to this)

 

[Emo]

I got this motherboard with i5 3570k combo from MC and just put it together over the weekend. Still testing it but so far I'm impressed with the value that I got for $90. My CPU is currently at 4.4Ghz@1.2v but I still have a long way to fine tune it (hopefully up another 200Mhz). I'm also using 4x4gb Samsung 30nm ram that is very overclockable (currently at 2000). What do you think about a guide for the recommended settings, who's up to the task?

 

[HexiumVII]

Interesting. On the second board I put in the Team Elite ram and set it to 1.35v as i thought the Crucial were in there. Timings are 9s. It been running memtest for an hour without error now! It couldn't pass 15min before.

Update tried stock voltages (1.55) and it would give errors within 10 minutes. Weird that it doesn't at lower voltage! Counter intuitive!

Go check out the asrock review on the main anandtech site. They usually get very high ratings. So yeah it does o/c very well.

 

[Rvenger]

Any of you having problems getting good overclocks on Ivy Bridge with it? HardOCP (who I don't trust in the slightest) say that overclocking with the board proved to be terrible and that the UEFI was horrible. To me it sounded like they're talking crap as usual, so I wanted to hear from people that actually have the board paired with an IB CPU.

Where did you see over at HardOCP they were having issues with a Z77 Asrock? This board has been rock solid out of the box. Seems like a lot of the Asus fanboys get their panties up in a bunch when a competitor comes into town.

My Asrock Z68 Extreme 3 Gen 3 overclocked better than my P8Z68V Gen 3. Go figure.

 

[ElFenix]

Loving the board so far. Fan controls not so good, but neither are Gigabytes. This thing has been rock solid and boots quickly. Still working on my overclock, but the reviews are good in that area.

fan controls seem nearly non existent in mine. my previous gigabyte board would automatically run my 140mm fan at a fairly quiet level. not so this board. i'd never actually heard the fan at 100% before. loud.

i've gotten some random crashes i need to sort out, though.

 

[xAlias]

How do you do fan control with this? My only gripe with the motherboard so far.

 

[Avalon]

Under the hardware monitor in BIOS there are fan controls for all the fan headers. Full on is obviously max, while the various levels are in betweens. Not very intuitive, but they do work well.

 

[HexiumVII]

HardOCP had problems with their Z68 Pro3 board. They hated Asrock so much after that, even after getting a perfect X79 Asrock board, they made a point to publish two reviews of the board to try and find something wrong with the review and a retail purchase of the board lol!

Fan controls are also in the AXTU utility for Windows. Its not as detailed as GPU software, but it does work and has target temperature (It can control 4 headers. (CPU 1&2 are combined).

Where did you see over at HardOCP they were having issues with a Z77 Asrock? This board has been rock solid out of the box. Seems like a lot of the Asus fanboys get their panties up in a bunch when a competitor comes into town.

My Asrock Z68 Extreme 3 Gen 3 overclocked better than my P8Z68V Gen 3. Go figure.

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

Where did you see over at HardOCP they were having issues with a Z77 Asrock? This board has been rock solid out of the box. Seems like a lot of the Asus fanboys get their panties up in a bunch when a competitor comes into town.

My Asrock Z68 Extreme 3 Gen 3 overclocked better than my P8Z68V Gen 3. Go figure.

Looks like they pulled the review. It was live about a week ago, so go figure.

Less of a reason for me trust them.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Anyone gotten the A2 error that hangs the system with a PCIe video card installed? Is this fixed in a later BIOS or did you just use the on-board video to enter the BIOS and remedy the problem?

I'm curious about this because it's popped up on forums and newegg reviews (which sometimes are made by idiots I know). Might get this board for my build if there's a fix for this particular issue. Also, what did they mean in the Anandtech review where they mentioned "remember to set CPU fan speed manually"?