ASRock 970 EXTREME3 AM3+ AMD 970 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard

Pros: inexpensive.
bios easy.
supports 32gb of RAM

Cons: not good for overclocking

Other Thoughts: have had this board about 2 years. at the time, i wanted an am3+ board but didn't want to spend a lot of money. got exactly what i wanted. great budget board, even better if you don't plan on overclocking, because you won't get very far before the mosfets overheat. never had to deal with asrock customer support, but i like their naming conventions... makes it easy to know what you're getting and they are very competitively priced

Pros: Amazing! It does everything it needs to do very well.

Cons: Absolutely nothing :)

Other Thoughts: Idc what anyone says. I got an ASUS mobo for my very first build and the first time I started it was one of the biggest disappointments I've ever had. It would take multiple times to power on and even when it did I had to manually boot it up from the BIOS. So I decided I didn't like my first computer building experience until I got this mobo!!! Once I installed this mobo it powered on and booted up the first time!!! I've had it for about a month now and have had 0 bad experiences with it. Couldn't be happier with it!!!

Pros: It worked fine as intended at first.

Cons: The biggest con for me is the fact that my onboard LAN has completely ceased to function. I thought I might have just gotten a little unlucky, so I bought a new PCI-E LAN card. Now it is failing as well. The funny thing is, I put it into another machine and the card works fine. Put it back on this board, and it works for about 15 minutes then automatically FAILS. I have todisable the adapter, then re-enable it in order to get it running. The problem with that is that it only works about 50% of the time.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear ASRock Customer

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you.
For the LAN issue, please check the local network devices (Modem, Router, switch, cable) causing the issue.
Check the Windows has infected Virus and/or malware.
If possible, install fresh Windows to check if the symptom still occurs.
If you have any technical issues or warranty questions 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: durable,
plenty room for expansions

Cons: none

Other Thoughts: hasnt failed me so its awesome

Pros: I bought this motherboard a year a ago and it's been great. I was able to unlock the fourth core on an AMD Athlon x3 450 and it was stable. Works well with the new fx CPUs also. It feels solid and durable.

Cons: No cons so far

Other Thoughts: If you are on a budget this motherboard is a good option. Asrock knows what they are doing when it comes to motherboards.

Pros: Works fine with linux mint 15 64 bit except for one small problem.

Cons: I paired this mobo with a FX8350 with 2x8 stick of RAM.
The Bios is P1.70 and see's both sticks.

I added GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="iommu=pt iommu=1" to grub.

Ran this:
check-my-memory.py - version: SJ 2013-02-22
OK, you're root
ANALYSIS:
Total of physical memory modules found 16384 MB in 2 memory module(s)
BIOS offers 8147 MB as usable
Memory seen by OS 7879 MB
BIOS version 10/12/2012
CPU is PAE enabled
CPU is x86_64 64-bit enabled
OS is x86_64 64-bit

SUMMARY:
Memory difference between DIMM hardware and BIOS offering 8237 MB
Memory difference between BIOS offering and memory seen by OS 268 MB
Memory difference between DIMM hardware and memory seen by OS 8505 MB

ADVICE:
Your BIOS is not offering all of your physical memory. Try to update your BIOS, and/or enable 'memory hole remapping / hoisting' in your BIOS to get more usable memory

Finally: show more detailed memory info from lshw. This can take up to 30 seconds ...
description: System Memory
size: 16GiB
description: DIMM DDR3 Synchronous 667 MHz (1.5 ns)
size: 8GiB
description: DIMM Synchronous [empty]
description: DIMM DDR3 Synchronous 667 MHz (1.5 ns)
size: 8GiB
description: DIMM Synchronous [empty]

Finished

And than ran this:

dmesg |grep AMD-V
[ 1.096361] AMD-Vi: Found IOMMU at 0000:00:00.2 cap 0x40
[ 1.096364] AMD-Vi: Interrupt remapping enabled
[ 1.096600] AMD-Vi: Initialized for Passthrough Mode



Linux Mint still only sees 8G of ram. I would like to see if there is a solution to this before I have to RMA the board.

Other Thoughts: If it wasn't for the memory issue I would give the board 5 stars.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear ASRock Customer

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you.
Please install both memory on A1 and B1 or A2 and B2 slots.
Verify that mainboard has detected both memory with dual channel under BIOS, Main.
If detecting memory with single channel on A1 and B1 or A2 and B2 which will be causing the limited memory usable issue.
Turn the power off, clear the CMOS.
Test with another pair known good memory to check if its solved.
If you have any technical issues or warranty questions 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: Looks nice.
Decent packaging.

For Newegg:
Fast Shipping! Bought on a Sunday, came on a Tuesday. You rock, Newegg!

Cons: When I saw this board, It looked promising despite the negative reviews. Most 1-egg review are due to DOA. I took my chances, and what do you know, I GOT A DOA AS WELL. The board wouldn't post or anything. It just powered my fans. I reinstalled my old motherboard, and it worked fine. The ASRock mobo looks fancy, but poorly made. Like other reviews, it is REALLY FLIMSY. My mATX is more sturdy than it... Heatsinks on the board are protected by a piece of thin plastic. ASRock put no effort in putting a "Please remove plastic note". This board came with no screws for your case so be prepared; however, I'd go against buying this particular board! Getting a refund and going for another brand.

Other Thoughts: I've built two computer builds with ASRock before. Worked great. I recommend going to another brand if you want a more reliable and stable motherboard that'll last you longer. I have nothing against ASRock, but they really need to put more effort into their product.

Newegg's RMA was a breeze.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear ASRock Customer

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you. ASRock mainboards are fully tested to assure that they're working before shipped. Unfortunately, due to nature of electronic product, it can happen.
For the future reference, pre-trouble shooting can be done by below steps;
Turn the power off.
Remove the mainboard from inside computer to outside, place the mainboard on top of the empty mainboard’s box
Clear the CMOS
Reseat the CPU and heatsink fan as well
Test with single memory module (non-ECC, un-buffered), try with another known good memory if its same issue.
Video card with 6+6 power (if applied)
Power supply with connecting 24 pins + 8 or 4 pins ATX power to the mainboard
Plug the computer case’s power switch to mainboard's front panel power header and try again
As always, we appreciate your purchase and constructive reviews are welcome.

Thank you

ASRock SUPPORT
Tech Support Email: user@ASRockamerica.com

Pros: There's lots of good things about this board, aside from the fact that it's slick looking. The UEFI BIOS, I've never had a BIOS I could run with a mouse before, that's pretty sweet. Mostly runs smooth, I'll get to that in a bit. It's really easy to overclock everything from the BIOS, love it! There's also a lot of fan inputs, my last board had the problem where I didn't have enough inputs for my fans.

Cons: No USB 3.0 input to connect to the front. All the heatsinks I tried had difficultly fitting on the cpu.

One big problem I've had that a few other posters suggested is the freezing problem. Occasionally with increasing frequency my system will just randomly freeze up. From the reviews and feedback from ASRock they suggested the cpu was overheating causing the freezes.

Other Thoughts: At first I was a little hesitant to buy this board with all the DOA's and general negative reviews, but I just decided to go with it based on the fact that someone told me a majority of the DOA and negative reviews are from kids who don't know how to properly assemble a computer. Not sure how true that is, but it made me feel better about it.

Aside from that, I'm going to try running some tests regarding the freezing problem. Also since I just got my new case I might have installed a fan wrong so we'll see if maybe that's causing part of the increasingly frequent freezing. Might also upgrade to water cooling and see how that works.

I'll update my review if I figure anything out.

Pros: I was able to get two of these on sale for $75 each. I put in AMD FX-8120 CPUs with 32GB of DDR3 1600MHz Memory. These systems are being utilized for virtualization so this motherboard really helped make this happen in a much more affordable manner.

Cons: Number of SATA and USB 3.0 ports, but you get what you pay for there. If you want more ports, go bigger.

Pros: NONE

Cons: DOA! Did everything including taking to a pro to install. Called ASRock number no body home. thinking company went out of business.

Other Thoughts: newegg did help with the return. so thumbs up for them.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear ASRock Customer

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you.
Please trouble shooting the mainboard for below steps with known good components;
Turn the power off.
Remove the mainboard from inside computer to outside, place the mainboard on top of the empty mainboard’s box
Clear the CMOS
Reseat the CPU and heatsink fan as well
Test with single memory module (non-ECC, un-buffered).
Video card with 6+6 power (if applied)
Power supply with connecting 24 pins + 8 or 4 pins ATX power to the mainboard
Plug the computer case’s power switch to mainboard's front panel power header and try again
If you have any technical questions please contact us at 909-590-8308 or http://www.ASRock.com/support/tsd.asp. We can assist you shortly.


Thank you

ASRock SUPPORT
Tech Support Email: user@ASRockamerica.com