ASRock Z87 Extreme6 (LGA 1150) ATX Motherboard Review

Final Thoughts

Pricing

ASRock’s Extreme 6 retails for $189.99 in the USA and £137.84 | £169.99 in the UK from two of our preferred retailers.

Overview

ASRock’s Extreme 6 is a very well priced motherboard relative to the competition. At the $190/£140 marker it is cheaper than most mid to high end motherboards from competing motherboard vendors making it a very good value for money motherboard. On the performance side of things I think the ASRock Extreme 6 did well in the vast majority of areas though the memory performance was unusually slow and after checking a few other reviews this seemed to be a common theme for this motherboard. That said in real life this makes little to no difference to its performance as CPU, gaming, USB and general system performance were as high as they should be. SATA performance was a little bit lower than the competition but the figure isn’t going to bring a noticeable slow down to even the fastest of SSDs. In terms of overclocking as I’ve already mentioned this motherboard is capable of maxing out any Haswell CPU so fear not when it comes to overclocking – this motherboard has you covered.

Power consumption was also a strong point of this motherboard and despite its abundant connectivity it actually offered power consumption close to that of a much smaller mini-ITX motherboard from ASUS – interesting indeed. The audio performance of the ASRock Extreme 6 is as good as they claimed. Certainly you may read their audio descriptions (read: marketing) and think it all looks a bit gimmicky but our results show there is no reason to doubt ASRock’s audio implementation – it is very good indeed. Connectivity is another strong point of the ASRock Extreme 6 with dual Intel Gigabit a seemingly rare and “bonus” inclusion for a product of this price point. It certainly gives you much more flexibility with what you can use this motherboard for than other motherboards at the same price. Connectivity didn’t just stop at Gigabit Ethernet as ASRock also provided 10 SATA III ports, up to 8 USB 3.0, 7 USB 2.0 (including the one integrated onto the motherboard) and eSATA. I was slightly estranged to see that ASRock’s XFast USB software didn’t change our USB 3.0 results, but maybe I did something wrong there – I have seen other reviewers produce faster results with the use of the XFast USB.

I could really go on for ever about all the features crammed into the Extreme 6 but I won’t as I’ve probably lost the attention of most people already. I will conclude by saying I think ASRock’s Z87 Extreme 6 motherboard is a fantastic offering for someone who wants a high end and feature packged motherboard but on a budget. Sure it doesn’t have the really top-level & extreme performance of more expensive motherboards, but for the precise reason that they are (much) more expensive than this. The ASRock Z87 Extreme 6 is a little ruff around the edges in some places but for the price there are very few complaints to be made and it certainly will not let you down if its performance in our review is anything to go by.

Pros

• Great aesthetics
• Abundant connectivity
• Affordable price tag
• High quality audio
• Relatively low power consumption
• Dual Intel Gigabit
• USB 3.0 break-out box
• Relatively advanced (maybe too advanced?) UEFI BIOS

Cons

• Weak memory performance
• Slightly below-par SATA performance
• No WiFi
• Only a 2 year warranty
• Overclocking can be confusing

“If you’re looking for all the premium features, connectivity and styling of a high end motherboard then the ASRock Z87 Extreme 6 has you covered. It offers exceptionally good value for money relative to the competition with a lot of things you wouldn’t expect to find at its price point, such as dual Intel Gigabit LAN and a 12 phase CPU VRM. While this motherboard isn’t a perfect creation, it is as close to perfect as you can get considering the impressively low price it is brought to market for. There is certainly no reason to doubt ASRock with the Extreme 6 and if you’re looking to create a overclocked Haswell system on a mid-range budget then this motherboard has to be a top contender.”

Thanks to ASRock for providing this review sample.