ASRock P67 EXTREME4 (B3) LGA 1155 Intel P67 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

Pros: -Excellent value for the money. Other boards with similar features are in the $200+ range, if not higher. -Solid construction makes the board feel like a piece of art. -UEFI and its tuning utility in Windows makes you feel in control of board features at all times. -Supports 775 CPU coolers* -Contains plentiful USB ports and gives room for expansion. The same can be said for SATA. -On-board heatsink is very efficient--even when overclocking. -Overclocking tools work like a breeze, effectively allowing novices the ability to overclock by setting the multiplier and leaving the voltages alone. On the same note, all juicy voltage controls are available for those so inclined. -Onboard de-bugger LED, power/reset and clear CMOS switch on board are wonderful and welcome. -Can support a floppy drive--if you're into that kind of thing. -CPU overheat protection works like a charm. The board even starts beeping at you saying, "You'd better power me down if you like your shiny new Sandy b

Cons: -With a big GPU, the SATA ports on board can be hard to access without removing the card first, making quick drive additions take a bit longer. -The Clear CMOS button on the rear panel is placed were it can accidentally pressed if trying to insert an optical cable while not looking. -While it states it supports 775 coolers, a bit of "ghetto rigging" is required in the even your cooler uses a back bracket for screw on mounting. This is because the bracket does not sit flush with the bottom side of board. -My power LED for my case is not supported due to the pin layout for the front panel switches on the board. If you care about that kind of thing then take note.

Overall Review: You serious cannot go wrong with this board. There are a few horror stories form the old versions before Intel fixed the P67 issues that effected all boards. It has been running stable since day one without issue. For the price, this board simply cannot be beat. Every con has at least five pros. Small things such as the placement of the SATA ports are so small in the scale of just how awesome this board is. Board used with: CPU: Intel Core i5 2500k PSU: Antec BP550 550w RAM: G.Skill Ripjaw X Series (4gb = 2x 2gb) GPU: AMD Radion HD6870

Pros: So many of the good things I have to say about this board have already been said in other reviews, so I'll simply reiterate that it is fast, stable, and packed with great features that are seldom found at this price point. The "Clear CMOS" button on the rear panel and POST code display on the motherboard makes the "trial and error" process of overclocking so much less painful! System runs great configured with: i2500k @ 4.0 GHz (WEI 7.6) G.Skill Ripjaws X DDR3 2133 (9-11-9-28 1T) (WEI 7.9) Crucial RealSSD C300 128GB (WEI 7.9) Gigabyte GeForce FTX 550 Ti (WEI 7.4)

Cons: The SATA II/III connectors are mounted parallel to the motherboard, which makes them rather hard to get at in many cases. On the flipside, though, this is beneficial to aesthetic cable management

Overall Review: To spare you some hair loss, here are the fixes to some issues you may encounter: 1. Have DDR3-1866 or DDR3-2133? It is undocumented, but only slots 2 & 4 support these XMP profiles. Using slots 1 & 3 will result in failed stability tests like Prime95 or Intel Burn Test unless you've left the RAM running at the slower DDR3-1600 (the default in UEFI). 2. Stuck on POST with code 98 (especially when overclocking)? Move your mouse and/or keyboard to USB3 ports 3. Device manager missing the driver for "Simple PCI Communication Controller"? Download the Intel Management Engine from the Asrock site. 4. Hard drives not scoring as high in WEI as you expect? Download the Intel Rapid Storage Driver & BIOS from the Asrock site. 5. It goes without saying: don't use the CD that comes with the motherboard. Download the latest drivers and BIOS from the Asrock site and save them on a USB drive, then install them all (starting with the INF files) to ensure maximum performance.

Pros: As of the date of this review, and considering the price, I think this is the absolute best Mobo out there for the 1155 socket. Sure, there are other Mobo's out there with a few extra ports, a few more acronyms, and/or with some legitimate additional features - but (at least for me) they're just not worth it (and are usually borderline overkill anyway). This Mobo has SATA3 6Gbps, USB 3.0 (with an included 2 port front panel), eSATA, all of the SATA2, USB 2.0, and PCI expansion slots you could need, and a UEFI interface that's simple and easy to navigate. And what's most important (in my admittedly very limited hands on time) is that it seems rock stable. My 2500K *painlessly* overclocked to a stable 45x at barely over 1.3V (with vdroop under load it's actually ~.065V less). At 45x I ran Intel Burn Test for hours with no errors. For fun I tested it at 1.51V and 51x - booted fine, but crashed under IBT within a few minutes. All of this on air using a Corsair A70 (with only 1 fan).

Cons: There's not much to complain about - especially considering the 'class' this motherboard is in. The only real gripe I did have (that I wasn't aware of before purchasing) was that I wasn't able to use the 2nd exhaust fan included with my Corsair A70 HSF (the one on the right side that would hang over the memory DIMMs). But even that is at least also partially attributable to the HSF and the height of the RAM heat spreaders, too (not just the mobo). FWIW, I think RAM w/o heat spreaders would just barely sneak underneath the A70's 2nd fan (Corsair Vengeance will not, though). Despite not being able to use the 2nd fan, my 2500K idles barely over 30C, and peaks barely over 60C (under full load for hours via IBT). Other cons would be lack of at least 1 IDE channel (I guess it's finally time to get SATA optical drives), SATA ports' 90 degree orientation is nice once you have them plugged, but a big PITA to get plugged once the Mobo is seated. Overall, though, not much to complain about.

Overall Review: My last two builds both used high end ASUS boards (939 & 775). This board does lack a few of those 'ultra' high-end features you may find on current 'ultra' high-end 1155 boards (dual LAN, dual x16 PCI-E, extra eSATA/USB3,SATA3 ports, some power phase/VRM acronyms, etc). But to tell you the truth, if you're not going to use SLI/Xfire, and you're not going to do an extreme overclock - then I wouldn't waste the money on those other boards. My last two boards have both had dual LAN, but I *never* used it. Plus the extra PCI & PCIe x1 ports provide plenty of options for expanding if you do find you need something later. Further, the clear CMOS on the back is nice, and makes for quick overclocking trials when teamed with the UEFI. But, honestly, I think you'd have to try pretty hard to get this board to fail to post - I was only able to do it once (most OCs that fail to boot into Windows will still post into UEFI w/o needing to clear CMOS). Dr. Debug codes could be useful too. GREAT BOARD!

Pros: It has a high value for price. While ASUS has the cursor bug in it's UEFI, and MSI is known for it's continual reboot cycle, this motherboard does not have these quirky inconveniences and works as a motherboard should.

Cons: The board's color scheme is something only it's mother could love.

Overall Review: Within the price range of the MSI GD65 and the ASUS P8P67, this is the best option; lacking any frustrating glitches or bugs that plague the competitors.

Pros: Nice features. LED display on board for error codes is very nice. Handy having power, reset, and c-mos reset buttons on board.

Cons: My board has an error and will not boot up anytime there are 2 sticks of memory present (and the one stick can only be in one particular slot). When I started researching this error code #45, it seems it is a common problem with the board. RMA here I come!

Overall Review: I read a lot of glowing reports on the board before I bought it and found nothing about this memory problem until I had it. Google error code #45 for this board, you'll find no shortage of people discussing it. I do like the features of the board, so I'm going to try another one, against my better judgement.

Pros: * Features and quality of boards that easily cost $200-250. * Great Bios * Great Layout * Has a molex 12v connection on the MB in addition to the 8 pin, allows for more stability if you are using SLI/Crossfire configuration. Something for some reason many mid grade boards stopped doing. This additional power connection adds to overall stability in my experience. Also allows for more verstaile OC to MB and GPU cards. * Onboard Power, Restet, and CMOS Reset power buttons, for enthusiast it really is a must feature. I will not buy mid and high grade boards without this simple feature. * Plenty of room around the CPU to install the largest Cooler. I installed a XIGMATEK Gaia SD1283 with two 120mm fans. * Has 4 SATA III connections vs 2 that most motherboards that cost $50 has. * A lot of USB 2.0 & 3.0 ports and more headers avaialbe if you need. * THX certified sounds card with Digital SPDIF connections.

Cons: There is one real con and if you know ahead of time you can work around it. If you isntall a large CPU cooler like I did, the first memory slot is almost unusable to any memory stick that has a high profile. So keep in mind to use low profile memory stuck if you are going to use a large cooler. For example a lot of the cooling sinks have those high spikes coming out of them, there is no way one will fit with a large cooler. What I had to do is to take the memory stick out of the metal cooling sink, to fit, no biggy. I dont OC my memory and my Phantom case has excellent ventilation so im not worried. As long as you are prepared for this, you'll be fine.

Overall Review: I have been building my own systems since the beginning when you had to use a chip puller to upgrade my XT machine, and a 20mb HD cost almost a thousand dollars. Most of my building time I have been a brand elitist. Sticking to EVGA or ASUS, and sometimes MSI. Most of the for good reason, other manufacturers didnt take care to really address the needs of the enthusiast market. At any given time I have at least 6 running PC's in my house, spread between wife, kids, and various functions. So I upgrade or build 2-3 systems a year on average. In the last year I have had 4 motherboard failures that in turn took out other parts when they failed, I have found out that companies like Asus and EVGA have really slacked in their QA department. So I gave ASROCK a try, a brand I always considered a low price brand, that I have used to build cheap $400 systems before. In the last three months I have bough $200 to $300 Asus and MS motherboards, and none have come close to this MB!

Pros: Excellent price point value and performance for most if not all of the features found on other P67 1155 motherboards.

Cons: There is currently an issue with Microsoft update loading an incorrect storage driver that can effect the network interface, causing it to disappear entirely from windows. Ref: http://www.asrock.com/mb/faq.asp?Model=P67%20Extreme4 The Marvell Sata 6 ports are supposed to be supported via a web interface installable from the OEM CDROM that ships with the board. Unfortunately the Marvell Raid Utility (MRU) is not included as it should be. Only the device driver exists, leaving owners to search for the software on their own. This problem has not been fixed in the currently available downloads from the ASRock support site. The included CDROM with Drivers and Utilities presents the user with an "Install All" button while displaying only core system drivers. If selected, a considerable amount of "other" software is also installed that not all users will appreciate. The user manual is poorly written with dark, unclear illustrative images that could be difficult for some users to fol

Overall Review: ASRock should be able to do a better job of ensuring that intended system enabling software like the Marvell Raid Utility are included with the product, or at the very least available for download from their support website. Despite a few shortcomings, the P67 Extreme4 has a lot to offer and is a worth while investment if you want to save a few bucks and still get top tier performance and features

Pros: Great price for what you get. I bought this, like many others, to overclock a Sandy Bridge Core i5 2500 and it has not disappointed. Brand new build and it fired up perfectly first time. Recognized all components without a hitch. Get yourself a solid aftermarket CPU heatsink and a good case and you are set to OC with this thing. For an SLI setup the nicest thing about this board is that if you're going with a dual SLI and not triple SLI, there's a nice gap between your 2 video cards for better airflow because there are 2 regular PCI slots between 2 of the PCI-Express slots. I thought that was nice because normally on SLI setups you have to deal with cards sitting right on top of one another which is ok provided you have adequate cooling but this could be a nice plus for people who buy Mid-Tower cases and want to run SLI. So far I'm pretty impressed. Been running my core i5 OC'ed to 4.6 straight for days now without any problems whatsoever. Only time will tell.

Cons: None yet. Seems that a good portion of lower reviews for this board are due to memory issues on error code 45 - make sure you go to the ASRock website first and verify your RAM is compatible.

Overall Review: ASRock p67 extreme4 Cooler Master HAF 932 full-tower Sandy Bridge Core i5 2500k 16g G.Skill Sniper 1866 SLI GTX 570's Samsung 1TB HDD x2 RAID-1 Cooler Master Hyper 212 heatsink Cooler Master Silent Pro 1000W PSU