ASRock Z77 Extreme9 LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

Pros: Board is feature rich and price is low. Documentation is OK.

Cons: 1) Board won't enter POST. The startup stalls with a cryptic "A2" code. The web is filled with posts concerning the error for various ASROCK boards, including this one. I have always suspected bad boards were the result of other people not knowing how to install. I thought a truly bad board would be rare.
Well, I just installed a replacement ASROCK Z77 board that I recived from NewEgg. It has the exact same issue as the original. Now, I'm guessing there really are quite a number of bad motherboards being produced. I'd certainly avoid this one.
2) Echoing other reviews: ASROCK support is email only. There is no way to talk to anyone.
3) NewEgg is a ONLY a distributor. If you get an RMA OK for original item, the replacement part likely will not be RMA'd if it is bad. The Warranty clock starts with original purchase, not replacement.

Other Thoughts: For me, 2 strikes is enough. I won't purchase another ASROCK board.
As for NewEgg, I've posted several positive comments about NewEgg. The site is decent and NewEgg can supply almost any item a techie person could want. NewEgg has made it very clear they are only a distributor of what they sell. Keep that in mind when making a purchase. Make certain the manufacturor has a solid track record of support for their products and avoid those that don't.
I know that is just basic, good, buyer behavior. In my case, I chose to believe the positive reviews and discount the negative ones. I wish I had paid more attention to the warnings rather than thinking I'd fall into the "everything is great" group. Lesson learned, I hope.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear ASRock Customer

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you. Code A2 should have screen display, please press F2 to check if it's changed to A6 (BIOS screen). Please try with another known good monitor and cable to check if it’s get the BIOS screen post (A6). 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

Pros: This is my second motherboard from Asrock, and I have to say I am very impressed with it. Very easy to use UEFI, well thought out placement for all the fan connectors, and one of the few motherboards that I can find that has 2 usb 3.0 plugs. The white LED lights from the heatsinks are a nice touch, you can keep them on past the initial boot if you go in the UEFI and turn off the night light mode, and they will stay on.

Cons: The only thing I can think of is that out of the box it will NOT support GTX 660 ti graphic cards. I bought a EVGA gtx 660 ti and put it in and wouldn't boot. Looked on a couple of websites and said that it might require a bios update in order to work. So I did, and now it works.

Other Thoughts: My next motherboard will probably be another Asrock. My first build I have done was an Asrock and 4 years still running strong it still has no problems with it.

Pros: Does everything it's supposed to do.

Cons: Neweggs return policy

Other Thoughts: First one I ordered Dr. Debug gave me a D0 code (CPU initialization error)... so RMA'd which was painless.

I have some qualms with Neweggs return policy... no refunds, no advance RMA, no exchanges on Intel based mother boards.

Pros: Nice packaging, started up without a problem

Cons: This is a replacement motherboard as my son needed anew one for his system, so he got the hand-me-down; Go to website and it says Windows 8 Ready! Really? Tried to load drivers and Windows 8 say, not compatible with current Operating System, hmm, ok so I get the current driver off of ASRock sight via my laptop, and get the motherboard up and running. You expect everything would be ok, nope USB has tendency not to pick up the mouse, and I continue to have issues with the NVidia graphics card having error (will stall and make a feedback noise over the speakers). I don't see any BIOS updates for the motherboard, it seems ASRock let this motherboard slip thru the cracks as they try to keep up with ASUS

Other Thoughts: will contact ASRock, If that does not work will return and go back to another brand

Manufacturer Response:

Dear ASRock Customer

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you. Unfortunately, due to mainboard has released before Windows 8, the provided drivers CD will not be come with Windows 8 drivers. However, the drivers can be download at http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Z77%20Extreme9/?cat=Download. For the USB, if using USB 3.0 please download and install the USB 3.0 driver. However, it’s recommended to plug keyboard and mouse to USB red ports. We appreciate your review and feedback. 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: I ordered four sticks.. 8GB for my AW M15x (1st gen i7) and 8GB for my AW M11x R3 (2nd gen i5). It clocked down to 1333MHz with no issues, and it fit perfectly fine.

Cons: None that I can find..

Pros: Tons of features, its future proof, tons of USB ports, easy to follow instructions, simple wiring, and Dr debug is awesome if you have any issues.

Cons: Less than half of the USB ports work. I have one dead sata port and one dead PCI.

Other Thoughts: This is my first ASROCK board and I replaced my asus p8z77 with it which I now regret. I find it very irritating that I payed the priced I did for a bunch of broken USB's and other ports. I use my PC for work so the opportunity to have it down for a week+ for an RMA is out of the question. I have to say that the board does perform very well and seems to have increased my overall desktop speed. The board also looks pretty awesome, but as an over all buy for the price I payed(When I pay premium dollar I expect a premium product.) I would say pass this one up. I'll be sticking to what I know(ASUS) from now on.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear ASRock Customer

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you. For the USB issue, please download and install both USB 3.0 Intel and Etron drivers at "http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Z77%20Extreme9/?cat=Download". For the SATA port, if external SATA3 port has used, the onboard SATA3_A4 will be disable due to sharing with eSATA3. Thank you for your purchase and review. 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: Amazing set of features! It has all the USB 3.0 ports you would ever need, Wi-Fi/Bluetooth 4 (which work flawlessly), a ton of Sata3 ports, fan connections and the thing just looks amazing. It also is supposed to do 4-way or in my case 16x SLI (con section) This board also can use a wide variety of RAM (I was using the Trident 2400 2x 8gb pack, these are known to not overclock so if 2400 isn’t good enough go elsewhere) Also my 2600k would only read the RAM at 2133, my 3770k reads them at 2400 all the way to 3000 (which of course won’t work since they don’t overclock). Bios is easy to work around, not complicated at all, the software included like X-Fast (have to install the OC utility to see the options) work well, but the program itself could use a facelift (its UGLY) but it works.

Cons: 16x SLI! This simply DOESNT WORK, this could be my particular board though. Slots 1 and 5 are used for 16x, Windows(8) simply will not run (no overclocking on CPU or GPU, no reason for me). It will boot but the display drivers just crash out(I tried the previous drivers I used on my flawless Sabertooth board). So I move my card to slots 3 and 5 (8x/8x) and they seem to work fine (for a while). Then my cards started to crash AGAIN. I went to a single card and it worked the day I got the board but was too frustrated to try again since I have an SLI setup. I have an 850 watt power supply (with the PSU calc it says my system is pulling 607 watts, I previously (4 days ago) had a 2600k @ 4.7ghz and both my 670 PE cards on a Z77 Sabertooth and the system worked FINE, so I HIGHLY doubt it’s a PSU issue (this is what ASRock thinks the issue is). I would have tested all this on my Sabertooth but I made the mistake of selling it(I should have kept it with all the things that happened with this board). I RMA’d the motherboard and will be getting a replacement. I will not use it, I am considering my options but Asus and Gigabyte are my targets now. I am not saying I’ll never buy an ASRock board again BUT after this and reading that ASRock boards do not show correct voltage readings is worrisome and makes me hesitant to buy again. Advertisement of 16x/16x when it simply doesn’t work is unacceptable. ASRock told me to RMA the board to Newegg, I won’t buy another MB from Newegg because I can’t return it, only RMA it. Another retailer will get that order. I don’t want this board AT ALL.

Other Thoughts: Fix the power issues or PLX issues, whichever it is and this board COULD be a solid performer. And fix the voltage readings while you are at it!

Manufacturer Response:

Dear AsRock Customer

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you. The mainboard works most of the VGA cards on the market with SLI setting. However, there might be the either compitable issues or the drivers if the exclude the power supply problem. Please update the mainboard's BIOS at link " http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Z77%20Extreme9/?cat=Download&os=BIOS ", set the BIOS default, update the VGA card firmware if available. Test the single card one at the time to assure both cards are fine. Test with another known good SLI bridge card. However, the mainboard has tested on our test bench with SLI GTX 670 Ti without any issue. As always, we appreciate your purchase and constructive reviews are welcome. 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: Great expandablity and future upgrades.

The Number of PCIe slots ensures you have room for a good amount of cards.

Dual LAN connections

Wireless and Bluetooth Built in

Cons: I was not a big fan of the memory slot type, only one side has the tabs you click into the slots on each chip, the other side just slides in.

No Crossfire Bridges included only SLi. Given the fact that they recommend that a dual ATI card setup in Crossfire use PCIe Slots 1 and 5, they should provide Crossfire bridges to accommodate this. The Crossfire Bridges you receive with almost all cards is going to be either 60cm or 80cm, the gap on this MB is going to require a 100cm Bridge . Based on this fact I think the MB should have came with the bridges.

Pros: This thing is a solid performer. I bought my Extrem9 from a second source who originally bought from new egg still has some ASRock warranty left but told that warranty does not transfer. EVGA 04G-P4-3687-KR GeForce GTX 680 FTW+ w/Backplate Intel Core i7-3930K Sandy Bridge-E 3.2GHz (3.8GHz Turbo) LGA 2011 130W Six-Core Desktop Processor BX80619i73930K 2x G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 32GB (4 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-1600C9Q-32GXM Just with the lighter weight CPU it holds it own against the 11!!!

Cons: I UN-Wrapped the sound card brand new it lasted two weeks and died!
I replaced it with the blaster Fatality Model SB1354 just to keep some sort of them going on with original ideas. Been many weeks has not died yet!

Other Thoughts: I also own a Extreme 11with a 1 x Intel Core i7-3930K Sandy Bridge-E 3.2GHz (3.8GHz Turbo) LGA 2011. EVGA 04G-P4-3687-KR GeForce GTX 680 FTW+ w/Backplate 2x G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 32GB (4 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-1600C9Q-32GXM

Pros: Included utilities are helpful such as XFastUSB. Board is nice an roomy and has a lot of features that I wanted. It's also nice to have the ability to upgrade to more than 1 GPU at a later date. Board supports GSKILL Trident 2400 OC RAM.

Cons: Marked 1 egg off because I've had some issues with the USB ports. I have a Das Keyboard and it doesn't seem to get recognized in time to enter UEFI(BIOS) or to choose boot options. Also I've noticed that one of the USB ports doesn't work at all. Only marked 1 egg off since there are plenty of USB ports to work with and 1 USB port isn't too bad.