ASRock X79 EXTREME4-M LGA 2011 Intel X79 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard

Pros: none i haven't had the chance to use the board

asrock has been helping me more than newegg has

Cons: newegg customer service .. thats a con

Other Thoughts: i ordered this board in a combo pack that newegg put together with a i7 3820 , the board and processor were not compatible. after talking to newegg i send the MB back, they claimed i broke a pci express lock pin and shipped the board back , now i receive the board and about 12 of my processor pins are bent or smashed down.. i call newegg back and am basically told its not their problem to contact asrock . ive spent thousands upon thousand of dollars at this site and have never had a problem, they will defiantly be loosing a customer that builds a new computer almost every year.

Pros: 1 of 2 choices if you want a Micro ATX board with the Intel X79 chipset and LGA 2011 socket. Went with this board because the reviews were about the same and it was $70.00 less. The board fit perfectly in my stock HP m8020n case. Installation instructions were easy to follow even for me. Installed the CPU (i7-3820), (4) 8 GB of Crucial Ballistix Sport Low Profile memory cards, and a Coolermaster Hyper 212 Plus on the board and installed it in the case. My case has a Personal Media Device bay that I thought would need to be tossed to make room for the Coolermaster. After installing the MoBo I decided to reverse the air flow of the case from front to back to back to front- reversing the back fan and the Coolermaster CPU fan. This worked out well and I was able to re-install my TV tuner card in the PCI slot and my old GeForce 260 graphics card in one of the (3) PCI Express slots(I have since ordered a Saphire Radeon HD 7770 PCI-E 3.0 card to replace the old gen 1 card- it will be here on Monday). I added an Intel 330 Series SSD as the boot and kept my (2) Seagate 320 GB HHD in RAID 0 (I originally had these on RAID 1) for data storage. I fired the machine up and installed Windows 7 Professional without any problems. Ran the Windows Experience Rating and had 7.9's for everthing but Grapics which came in at 6.7. I am guessing that will improve on Monday. The AsRock tuning utility works great and I haven't had any problems controlling the fan speeds to keep the system cool- even with the cramped case and all of the stuff I have packed into it. Great Board!!!!

Cons: No cons with the board. Only with Microsoft. When I first installed the hardware and fired it up I found out Windows Home Premium can only use 16 GB's of RAM. So I had to buy Professional to take advatage of the 32 GB's of RAM I purchased. Shame on you Microsoft. Oh well....

Other Thoughts: This whole upgrade project was the result of a system that was bogging down due to a movie library that was exceeding 1200+ on external HHD's. At some point (say around 900 movies) the Media Center would lock-up when the external HHD's were turned on. My old system consisted of an Intel Q6600 CPU and 4 GB's of Ram and was 5 years old. I also had a USB hub hooked up to the system to handle the overwhelming amount of devices hooked up to the system (wireless Mouse and Keyboard, Webcam, Wireless Computer Remote Control, (3) external HDD's, WiFi Adapter, and Printer). With only (4) USB 2.0 back connectors and (2) USB front connectors the system was maxed out without the hub. This board has (6) USB 2.0 back ports and (2) USB 3.0 back ports. I was able to hook up all of my divices on the back of the computer without the hub. The case also has a built in 15 to 1 card reader built in that I was able to keep plugged in to an internal USB 2.0 header. Also, I was able to plug in my front Firewire port, my front HD audio, my front Video, and my front (2) USB ports. The board was perfect for my needs. A great board for anyone who wants to upgrade their stock board with a really awesome board.

Pros: Great specs, on sale for $179.99 you couldn't go wrong! Z77 Extreme4 has a great reputation.

Cons: DOA out of the box, fighting store (not newegg) and with manufacturer to have it replaced. Looks like I am out $200..... Thanks ASRock.

Other Thoughts: My ASRock Z77 Extreme4 works flawlessly (my first ASRock board) and I figured I would buy the ASRock X79 Extreme4 for aother build. DOA out of the box, would not post and the store (not newegg) wouldn't budge on a return for me. I now have to PAY to ship it back to ASRock and wait for a new board IF they accept it under warranty. Not impressed, I have already purchased a Gigabyte board (5 year warranty, always been reliable for me as I've been buying them for years.) it worked first try and runs great. Maybe I received a bad apple but the run around for warranty is not worth it... buy another make of board.

This was NOT a newegg purchase, however, I like the feedback section on this site and wanted to contribute my experience with this product.

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. We’ll glad to do the replacement under RMA policy at “http://www.asrock.com/support/index.asp?cat=Policy” . If you have any technical questions 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: ASRock makes GREAT boards. I've been buying them at work for almost two years now with no issues. VERY satisfied.

Cons: Just don't have an issue after 30 days. 1) ASRock has no phone support, you have to fill out a web form. Personally, I don't expect a response for days or weeks. 2) ASRock only offers a 1 year warranty to **authorized dealers**. Users are told to refer to their dealer's RMA policy. 3) My authorized dealer, Newegg, has only a 30 day RMA policy on motherboards.

So basically if you're a PC tinkerer like myself and buy all your parts from Newegg, you're only going to get a 30 day warranty on ASRock boards. Also, the hassle I have dealt with so far just trying to talk to someone about this one bad board is far greater then the cost of buying a new board. Unfortunately it probably won't be ASRock. Maybe ASRock needs to start putting pressure on Newegg to change it's 30 policy?

Other Thoughts: Be aware of ASRock and Newegg's warranty/RMA policy before you purchase ASRock.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear AsRock Customer

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you. Please check the product warranty under product detail which states the Manufacturer Warranty. Newegg has 30 days return policy, if past the 30 days, contact the manufacturer for return and we do honor the warranty. As always, we appreciate your purchase and constructive reviews are welcome. If you have any technical questions or warranty issues in the future please contact us at user@asrockamerica.com

Thank you

AsRock SUPPORT
Tech Support Email: user@asrockamerica.com

Pros: Fast , overclocks easily.

Cons: VMR heatsink inadequate . Windows freezes up then have to restart. Read other thoughts

Other Thoughts: Was having strange issue of windows 7 64bt freezing up from time to time. Then I noticed the VMR heatsink was burning hot so i downloaded hardware monitor and it said the VMR would go up to 226f . To make this sort I places a fan blowing over the VMR heatsink and now it stay below 100f even after 2 hours playing bf3 and no more freezing up.

Pros: fast, easy easy easy overclocking and stable

Cons: noda

Other Thoughts: in my last review i stated i had to set up the voltages manually. that's because it set the ddr memory to 1.72V and also all the other voltages where off and for some reason the motherboard would freeze up no matter what voltage even if i let the bios set it up.
i was using 8 gigs of kingston intel certifide 1333mhz ECC memory.i change memory to 16 gigs of corsair 2100 mhz 1.5v xmp 3 memory then pressed reset on the IO panel in the back and wallah, all voltages came up this time correct this time .
next the easy bios overclocking in the bios i set the Core i7-3820 to 5ghz cpu and it was that easy i am now typing this at 5ghz procesor clock speed i think since its water cooled i can go much higher and will try. i am now a happy camper :)
now to run benchmarks :)

Pros: works and SB fan is quiet and has speed control of thermal control also xeon compatible

Cons: not realy other than slow sata speeds and its slower then the asus gene

Other Thoughts: the motherboard works fine with the latest bios, windows 7 64 bit installs no issues. fan in not a issue, it has 9 different speeds to set to or can be thermally controlled, even on high it's quieter than the intel cpu water cooler or about the same. its been running fine no problems since install,my only quarrel is its sata speeds or not fast.i using a super talent 129 gb sata 3 SSD on the sata3 port and its slower than a OCZ vertex 2 sata 2 on my 5 year old hp, i upgrade the hp last year with the OCZ SSD. this is very discouraging.

Manufacturer Response:

Thank you for your purchase and review. If you have any technical questions or warranty issues in the future please contact us at user@asrockamerica.com

Thank you

AsRock SUPPORT
Tech Support Email: user@asrockamerica.com

Pros: First thing i did was Easy bios updates with USB drive updated in the bios. Did not have any issues that other reviewers stated, the SB fan is silent even on high and it has 9 speed range that can be set up in bios either with thermally or set allways on and all inboard fan plugs can be set up same way and even controlled with asrock overclocking utility that has a number a utilities in it . It works flawless , seems faster with a low end CPU then asus ws workstation though not with high end CPU

Cons: Not as fast as the asus gene

Other Thoughts: Not interested in over clocking though there is a easy over clocking in the bios to over 5ghz maybe try one day. Now I just interested in a stable fast mini computer this one certainly certainly qualifies. Sata speeds not as fast as I would like. Also was kind of verry unstable at first till i set all voltages to stock manually but I do that with all motherboards though this one was the worst ever windows was wacky not working right at all till I set voltages. Aside from that works great

Pros: Best packed motherboard ever, the reason I perchased this motherboard it's the only socket 2011 micro atx board that supports Xeon processors. That's a big plus for me

Cons: Don't know yet

Other Thoughts: Well I havnt installed this board yet and will update when I do , just thought I should post how well asrock packed this board. Will be using a Intel Xeon E5-1660. A 12 thread Procesor with 3.0 pic-e and native 1600mhz memory
using Kingston 1600mhz ECC memory

Pros: i am responding to a ( Tom the builder ) redicules review, i dont own this board yet though do plan to.

other thoughts continued
i realy hope no one is judging this board on what (Tom the builder) has to say
there are many and all "positive professional reviews" on this board and all give it a thumbs up over 90%+ positive reviews.

Cons: hope not

Other Thoughts: To ( Tom the builder ) first i like to comment on your narrow minded, bios and false review.
1. this is not the only micro atx x79 option take a look at the "ASUS Rampage IV Gene LGA 2011" a top scoring x79 micro atx motherboard and MSI has one
2.Even the full size atx board "ASUS Rampage IV Extreme" has a few complaints on graphics cards rubbing on the chipset fan. if you where to check the motherboard you would see the fan is set just set below the pci-e slot so it's not the motherboard usually the cases fault
3. this board has overclock to 5ghz "all overclocks are dependent on hardware used and no 2 are the same"
4. there are many applications were a x79 atx motherboard could come in handy. why would anyone with so called high tech level be so bios and narrow minded to say(You shouldn't build an X79 period, if you don't have the room for a full board) your unbelievable
5.there are many full size atx boards with same pci-e issue to close together