ASRock Z68 Extreme3 Gen3 LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

Pros: oc's really well.

Cons: After a few months. PCI-E slot 1 starts crashing the nvidia driver anytime I have a card in it. Removed SLI, put just one 560 ti Frozn II in primary PCI-E slot and crashing continued, removed and put in secondary PCI-E slot, temps dropped instantly from IDLE 60c to 30c. Left in works fine for another two months.

Two months later, Audio out on front panel stops working, day later, back panel stops working. RMA requires I pay them for shipping and they won't expedite a new Motherboard to me with a hold charge on my CC while I wait like Asus did with my previous builds.

Now I have a board where I have no audio unless I use a secondary audio card or the spdif out. PCI-E in second slot unless I need to actually get in my cmos then I have to either hook up the Intel onboard, or put a card temporary in the PCI-E (1) slot.

Also, NO Hauppage (or any that I have found) Tuner cards will work on this board. I am using the latest beta 2.30a1 version of the BIOS also.

I have tried previous bios reverts and updates, I have tried both realtek reference drivers from different releases I have tried ASrocks (after waiting 3 hours for it to download on a 55mb connection!) driver updates, nothing works.

The cost in time, stress and overall unstable environment makes me suggest a new vendor. At this point I am not in a financial place to replace the board so I use it with crashes, overheating and no audio... next time I won't risk the hassle and just go with a brand who has good Customer Service.

Other Thoughts: if all you need is overclocking and nothing else board is ok.

Pros: Love this full featured motherboard and its cheaper than most others in its class.

Cons: None really, some of the onboard audio ports were hard to reach, but that could be because my case is a monster and the cables arent really long enough.

Pros: Works OK w/o drivers

Cons: OK first off, I no its been a while (no net) but I never gotten any CD or DVD or anything with drivers and I tryed there site at the time but it was 1of the worst trying to find anything. I never did find a way to download drivers for my PC, the ether net did not work, in the end I got a WiFi, but I'm still mad I never gotten drivers with it unless it was already loaded.... ..

If there's a way to get them I still want them since I'm going to reformat my PCjust to clean it out, plz iI want drivers =(

Other Thoughts: It some how still works w/o thge disk and it runs really good I would rebuy this for a new system.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear ASRock Customer

We sincerely apologize that you having difficulty with finding drivers. Please visit the drivers link at " http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Z68%20Extreme3%20Gen3/?cat=Download ", select appropriate Windows to download and install.
If you have any technical questions or warranty issues please contact our Tech Support at http://www.ASRock.com/support/tsd.asp. We can assist you shortly.

Thank you

ASRock SUPPORT
Tech Support Email: user@ASRockamerica.com

Pros: Feature rich motherboard with lots of options.

Cons: Doesn't come with aspirin to cover all the headaches it will cause. Bought this board 11/10/2011.

Memory slots b1 and b2 stopped working after a few months. Computer won't even boot if there is a memory stick in either of those slots.

Motherboard ONLY WORKS WITH SANDY BRIDGE WITH NO IVY BRIDGE SUPPORT. I have the latest bios (P2.30) and still can't get the computer to boot with an Ivy Bridge processor. Same processor works fine in a Biostar H61 board. Go figure.

The motherboard also has issues with the USB 3.0, having incredibly long boot times if anything is plugged into them, sometimes not booting at all depending on the device. Using Asrock's latest drivers doesn't help. Some devices won't even initialize if plugged into the USB 3.0.

Then there is the USB problems in general- I can't get ANY external DVD burner to work with this motherboard, in any USB slots. None of the external DVD drives I use have a problem on my netbook, second home computer, office computer, or any friend's computers.

Seems to be a miracle to me that this board ever passed quality control...

The more time I spend with this motherboard, the more problems I discover.

Other Thoughts: I have used many Asrock motherboards in the past. The 939Dual-VSTA, the N68C-GS FX, A55M-HVS, just to count a few. And every board I've gotten from them has to have at least ONE problem. I've been building computers for the past 6 years and no other motherboard manufacturer has given me so much grief. So far my favorites are Biostar for budget builds and Gigabyte/Zotac for enthusiast builds.

Parts/OS used for build with this motherboard:

Windows 7 Pro 64-bit
i5-2500k
Gigabyte Radeon 7870
G.Skill Sniper 2x4gb
Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB
OCZ ModXstream 600w Modular PSU

Manufacturer Response:

Dear ASRock Customer

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you.
Due to the mainboard has been released before ivy bridge processor, the BIOS update is needed to recognizing the new processor and would not having issue with the processors.
For the USB 3.0, we recommend using these ports under Windows with driver installed.
For the memory slot B1, B2 issue, please remove the CPU to check if the mainboard's CPU socket pins should not be bent. Reseat the CPU and cooler if the pins are normal.
Test with known good memory to eliminate the problem.
As always, we appreciate your purchase and constructive reviews are welcome.
If you have any technical questions or warranty issues please contact our Tech Support at http://www.ASRock.com/support/tsd.asp. We can assist you shortly.

Thank you

ASRock SUPPORT
Tech Support Email: user@ASRockamerica.com

Pros: - Has worked as expected. No issues at all
- Good price, solid ratings by numerous testing websites

Cons: I only took out 1 egg because it does not have USB 3 heads, so if your case has a front usb3 port you will lose that functionality.

Pros: This board is a great and feature rich. I love the high power phases for good overclocking. The caps are high quality japanese capacitors. It looks great. In fact I would have given this 5 eggs, but the only downside is one of the usbs broke in the back of the board. It still works, but the usb can now be inserted both ways meaning one way it wont read because it is not making proper contact. It still works though. Its the best bang for the buck, so i'm not complaining and i will probably use an asrock board on my next build when Haswell processors come out. I was able to overclock my i5 2500k to 4.6ghz with my Enzotech extreme a Rev A

Cons: Usb kinda broke, but it still works.

Pros: - PCI Express 3.0
- Ivy Bridge Compatible
- THX Audio
- Crossfire
-Sli

Feature filled motherboard for a very cheap price. Can even go up with the newer Z77

Cons: - CMOS Reset in a bad location accidently pressed it plugging in USB
- Needs more USB
- NO IDE
- Only support for 32GB RAM

Other Thoughts: Got hosed on the rebate. Otherwise it would have been 5 eggs

Pros: Aside from the problem I'll be listing below, it's a great board. Everything plugged in properly, the UI was great and very straightforward, and it fit quite well in a Cooler Master HAF 932.

Overall, was a fairly easy board to install.

Cons: Since I'm not a stickler this hardware still gets 3 stars, however I'm sure it'd be docked down to 1-2 if I cared more.

This was my first custom built computer, so the instructions to mount the board on the mounting screws were extremely poor. Luckily I caught on quick enough to realize that the board shouldn't screw in directly to the case, however to someone who's never done it before, the directions were very poor.

The 2nd graphics card slot does not work. I've tried running a Dual SLI which after about 15 minutes of running anything, the screen would skip around, then my computer would freeze. Not to mention the slot would overheat my graphics card to no end and actually scared the bejeezus out of me.

I tried the 2 different graphics cards I had in the 1st slot, both worked perfectly. Then I tried running each of the alone in the second slot, and the same thing happened. So it had to be the motherboard's 2nd graphics card slot, which was quite upsetting because I was very much looking forward to Dual SLI'ing my cards.

Now, to take away a little of the blame on ASRock, I slightly torqued the board when initially installing the board into my computer, but honestly I feel like at this point I'm just trying to justify why the other slot won't work.

Other Thoughts: Overall was still a good board. Aside from the specific problems I had with it, it ran everything perfectly. I'll check back in another few months and say how it's performing then.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear AsRock Customer

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you. For the issue, please download and update the latest BIOS at "http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?cat=Download&os=BIOS&Model=Z68 Extreme3 Gen3", set the UEFI BIOS default, make sure that the VGA card is fully seated on the PCIE slot. If you have any technical questions or warranty issues please contact us at http://www.asrock.com/support/tsd.asp. We can assist you shortly.

Thank you

AsRock SUPPORT
Tech Support Email: user@asrockamerica.com

Pros: Includes of features found on boards costing much more, no problems after 6 months. Easy to install, PCIe 3.0 if paired with an Ivy Bridge. UEFI bios options made silencing the case fans simple.

Cons: None so far

Other Thoughts: I seem to recall 2 PWM connectors on-board so I had to use a PWM splitter.

Great on a Core i5 2500K build (without PCIe 3.0) with an Asus GTX 560, 8GB RAM, an SSD for the OS and HDD for user profiles and Steam apps.

Pros: Small, affordable, gets the job done.

Cons: Lasted less than a year before it failed without warning. Something went wrong with how it handles memory and it just started giving memory code errors even though the RAM was still perfectly fine. Bought a replacement motherboard from ASUS and was able to use my existing CPU, RAM, and video card so I know for a fact that the mobo was the problem.

Other Thoughts: Buy something else.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear AsRock Customer

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you. Sorry to hear the mainboard has malfunctioned after months of used which due to nature of electronic product, it can happen. If you have any technical questions or warranty issues, please contact us at http://www.asrock.com/support/tsd.asp. We can assist you shortly.

Thank you

AsRock SUPPORT
Tech Support Email: user@asrockamerica.com