ASRock X58 Extreme3 review

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Asrock X58 Extreme3

So from left to right that's a PS2 keyboard and mouse connector. Then I count a total of five USB ports and two blue colored USB 3.0 ports, then one eSATA/USB combo port, Firewire, but unfortunately there is only one Gigabit Ethernet port. Digital audio in the form of optical TOSLINK connectors, and then all the way to the right the analog audio connectors.
You can also spot a button for CMOS clear. Audio is arranged by VIA's VT2020 audio codec which has received mixed reviews.

Asrock X58 Extreme3

When we flip the board around we stumble into the processor area. We spot one 8-pin CPU power header positioned perfectly (below the heatsink). All ferrite core chokes and quality capacitors catch the eye (Duralife is the marketing name for this from ASRock) And obviously there's Socket 1366 and two fan headers nicely close below it.

Asrock X58 Extreme3

There is lots of space surrounding the CPU socket, unfortunate is the height of the active-cooling heat sink which can limit placement of bulky CPU coolers, lower profile would have been the way to go here.

Asrock X58 Extreme3

Once we flip the board around we stumble into the DIMM slots, DDR3 of course. Up-to 24GB may be installed and the board will actually support 2000 MHz straight out of the BIOS (though overclocked). XMP profiles are detected properly and if desired activated optionally. What you'll notice is that everything is just positioned really well.

Inconvenient is the placement of the two SATA3 headers which you can spot in the middle of the motherboard colored in white. ASRock ran out of space at the regular SATA2 location as it decided to include the traditional IDE connector as well. Most X58 boards have dropped that connector. So in ASRock's defense the placement of SATA3 might be slightly inconvenient... but at least they did include a traditional IDE connector.

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