ASRock Z97 Extreme4/3.1 LGA 1150 Intel Z97 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.1 USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

Pros: Visual appearance

Cons: Came in dead on arrival. Shipped it back and bought a different motherboard, didn't want to deal with the same board

Pros: I paired this board with an i7-4790K. It runs great without a hitch. Lots of USB and SATA ports. The board is laid out nice and long for PCI expansion if you wanted to add more video cards.

Cons: none

Overall Review: I had a little bit of trouble getting the stock i7 heatsink/fan onto the board. The fan pegs that attach to the board wouldn't stay attached. I made sure to twist the pegs correctly after I punched them through the mount hole. Not sure if this is the board or the fan though. Despite that, it runs great.

Pros: This is a great motherboard with so many features! Especially the 3.0 front panel headers. Not to mention the many sata ports and 3 PCIE slots.

Cons: None

Overall Review: Aesthetically pleasing for black and blue builds.

Pros: Excellent bios setup; excellent driver support. Has all video connections, and legacy PS2 connector, for those with beloved keyboards.

Cons: none

Overall Review: Paired with an Intel I7-4790K, 32g of ram, dual 1920x1080 flatscreens, win7 pro. Works with no issues.

Pros: None.

Cons: Nothing but problems with this board. Get nothing but errors complaining about SATA devices. When I finally got it to boot during a new build, I finally updated the bios. Seemed to fix the problem for about 5 hours, then right back to SATA errors. I can't even get to the UEFI screen anymore. Pure garbage.

Pros: Purchase this for a total rebuild as I moved from AMD to Intel. It's a good board, it has its downsides, but I haven't encountered anything serious.

Cons: Sideways facing SATA ports are a real pain to put wires into in a smaller case. This may have also caused a problem I'll mention below. The CPU pins are very fragile, and the locking mechanism for the CPU sounds like it wants to snap the board in two. Fortunately it didn't, and I noticed a couple of pins I accidentally bent before I put the CPU in. To repeat: the pins were FINE from manufacturer, I WAS THE FOOL that bent them! Still, would've thought they'd be just a little stronger than they were. My computer doesn't immediately boot up first time around from cold start. It's been like since day one. When going through POST it gets stuck with code A2. Seems to have something to do with the system not finding an OS on one of my two HDDs. BIOS says I've got my storage drive hooked up in the port that comes before the one I hooked my Primary drive into. Telling the BIOS to boot from the Primary HDD first has no effect. When the system hangs, I simply press reset and it boots up fine the second time around. I'll eventually see about switching the wires around, but given how cramped it is where they are, I'm discouraged from doing so. I may update the results when I do.

Overall Review: ASRock was the manufacturer of my previous board. I had far less complications with it, and I never had any booting issues associated with the board itself (just Win 7 dying a death). I like to think that this new board is just an odd one in the current lineup, but maybe they're starting to slip? The software disc is meh like always, but the BIOS seeming to ignore my load order is a concern. And those SATA ports are just horrid to work with.

Pros: Nice BIOS Interface with rich features Easy overclocking ability

Cons: Lack of support response Issues with USB input devices (lag)

Overall Review: I have a Microsoft Sculpt Ergonomic Mouse and Keyboard which I have been using for over a year on my laptop and other desktop. HOWEVER, after building this server, I have discovered that the keyboard and mouse lag. I can out type the keyboard and out move the mouse. The issue is with the board as I have done the following with no avail: 1. Replaced all batteries (even though I can unplug it from this Motherboard and plug it into my laptop without any issues) 2. Updated all drivers to ASRock versions 3. Tried USB 2.0 and 3.0 inputs on front and rear 4. Changed BIOS usb options from legacy to whatever the other option was (can't recall right now) 5. Tried contacting support via ASRock app, website and BIOS, no response. Overall I liked the board, but the USB lag is unacceptable. I have no issues using this same keyboard/mouse combo on my other computers so it's clearly an issue with ASRock. I have read other users have had the same issue, it seems that only a return and purchase of another motherboard brand is the way to resolve it. Which is sad because I really like the features this board has to offer and shouldn't have to troubleshoot a simple input device.

Pros: One on the best options for expansion capabilities on an 1150 platform. and with memory speed O.C.'d above 3000. Building for a small start and later getting upgrades with at least 5 years of life in the future for this system base.

Cons: Little hard to fit SATA lines in sideways unless they can make 90 degree inserts that can snap in.

Overall Review: Could damage MB if not careful with installations in smaller cases even midtowers. AHCI support depends on latest components but IDE mode is supported for compatabilty (very good !)