ASRock X99 Extreme6 (LGA 2011-3) Motherboard Review

Final Thoughts

Pricing (accurate at the time of writing)

The ASRock X99 Extreme6 will set you back around £235 here in the UK or $280 over in the USA. A 3 year warranty is provided by ASRock on this product.

Summary

The ASRock X99 Extreme6 has an interesting mixture of features for a high-end user looking to get going with Haswell-E. The inclusion of dual Gigabit LAN ports, an upgraded bandwidth M.2 port and high quality audio will appeal to a broad user-base: these are desirable and flexible features, especially the dual Gigabit LAN ports when combined with cloud-management software like ASRock’s Orbweb ME. ASRock’s X99 Extreme6 feels like a solid overall board with a strong UEFI BIOS implementation, consistent and reliable performance, a strong VRM implementation and interesting onboard features like power and reset buttons and a USB 2.0 port. The blue and black colour scheme also provides an aesthetic edge to rival products as no other vendors offers blue and black X99 motherboards.

However, for it’s price point there are some notable exceptions. Firstly, there’s no support for 4-Way GPU configurations which is something I would have expected ASRock to add to differentiate between the begrudgingly similar X99 Extreme4 and X99 Extreme6. Second, is the notable absence of SATA Express. This is balanced out, in part, by the offering of eSATA but it would be nice to have SATA Express too in case we do start to see SATA Express SSDs materialise in the near future. Given this board is aimed at the more general-purpose user one would think that storage connectivity is an important consideration and point of differentiation between X99 gaming SKUs. Matched with the upgraded M.2 port, SATA Express would have ticked all the boxes on the storage side. The last concern is that the WiFi module is not included as standard. The process of making the WiFi module optional, with two separate SKUs, is smart in practice as consumers do not have to pay for something they might not use. However, given the high cost of this motherboard I would liked to have seen WiFi included, especially as many rival motherboards at the same price point do equip WiFi.

Under scrutiny the X99 Extreme6 does seem to be slightly lacking in features, or is fractionally too expensive, considering the X99 Extreme4 offers more or less the same thing for 20% lower cost. The ASRock X99 Extreme4 drops a LAN port and replaces a few USB 3.0 ports with 2.0 ports. In that sense I am more inclined to recommend the X99 Extreme4 as it brings all the good things about the X99 Extreme6 to a more reachable price point. The X99 Extreme6 also finds itself at a tough price segment where competition is fierce.

Pros

• Dual Gigabit
• Strong audio performance
• Refreshing aesthetics
• A lot of USB connectivity
• Upgraded M.2 port

Cons

• No SATA Express
• Needs WiFi for the price
• Isn’t 4-Way capable

“ASRock’s X99 Extreme6 ticks a lot of the right boxes for an Intel X99 build. Although, many consumers will find their needs, and their wallets, are better served by choosing the well-balanced ASRock X99 Extreme4 that is broadly the same.”

Thank you to ASRock for providing this review sample.