ASRock Z68 Extreme4 Gen3 Motherboard Review
Motherboards/Intel S1155 by stefan @ 2011-09-20
The new Z68 Extreme4 Gen3 motherboard from ASRock comes with a rich software bundle, but also very useful features like C.C.O., Intel Smart Response Technology, Lucid VIRTU or PCI-E 3.0 slots (to be used with future Ivy Bridge CPUs). The color scheme has been reworked, so now the motherboard has a more professional look.
If I may, when you guys are about to do a review on a product, can I suggest trying to do a little internet survey about potential problems BEFORE publishing your conclusions?
If you would have done that for the Extreme4 GEN3, you would have found very quickly a lot of forum posts about 2 major issues. I would like Asrock and/or you guys to comment about them:
1- Etron EJ168A USB 3.0 controller
Despite the fact this controller recently received the SuperSpeed USB Certification from the USB-IF, it is still plagued by problems such as random disconnect from external USB 3.0 hard drive. It also has issue with some web cam and other peripherals. Your USB device might work, or not. How would you like Russian roulette style USB connectivity with your brand new 185.00$ purchase?
Neither the latest 0.105 drivers or BIOS 1.10 from Asrock solved those problems. This is unacceptable for a brand new product. To Asrock defense, Gigabyte board with the same Etron controller have similar issues.
2- Integrated Intel video
Get this: If you use only the onboard video without a discrete card, the system reboot and/or crash randomly many time every day. According to Asrock tech support on those forums, the only current fix is to up de CPU voltage to 1.2V!!! This is an Asrock specific problem as I couldn’t find forum complaining about this from other vendors. Just Imagine someone not knowing about this major flaw and planning to use the Extem4 GEN3 with the onboard video only... Let the tech support / endless e-mail / multiple RMA begin…
Ramon