ASRock X58 Extreme3 Product gallery

 *drum roll* ...the box -- we always show it so you guys know what to look for in the store. So be honest, which of you guys still go to stores or just order online? It is amazing what e-tail did to competitive pricing eh?

After unpacking you'll notice a decently designed motherboard. Nice black PCB with white/blue/black tone coloring scheme and the usual complementary products. You'll find one motherboard, a manual that explains every aspect of the board. Other than that you'll find a back I/O panel protector, 2-way SLI bridge connector, four SATA cables, IDE cable and yes yes... a manual + driver CD.

You have to agree here that for 165 EUR / 189 USD that is looking mighty fine. Eye catching is the PCH (X58 chip) active cooler. Though intended for a little extra overclocking performance it really is my one hardware quirk with this motherboard as it MIGHT block high and bulky CPU coolers. The X58 PCH when properly passively cooled really does not need active cooling. But let's zoom in a little.

As you can see you'll get plenty of connectivity and options with this motherboard. The Extreme3 supports multiple levels of GPU configurations including dual and triple multi-GPU Crossfire and SLI setups.

The amount of spacing between the three PCIe 16x slots is done properly with dual-slot coolers in mind.  When using all full length PCIe slots bandwidth goes to 16x/16x/4x. But look at the connectivity on that toosh there, that's quite stuffed. Let's zoom in a little and focus on the back-panel connectors.