Product Showcase

Product Showcase

The ASRock Z270 Extreme 4 follows a standard ATX form factor (30.5x24.4cm). The motherboard is located in the somewhat high-end range within the Skylake and Kaby Lake desktop processor range. 

Nice huh? X is gonna give it to ya! Included with the motherboard are the regulars including; manuals, driver CDs, SATA cables and a rear IO plate. It also has a couple of new features which we'll talk about in-depth in this review. BTW the white accents are incredibly hard to photograph in our white studio, so sorry about that as things can look a little washed out.

• CPU support: Skylake / Kaby lake class Intel Core processors
• Chipset: Intel Z270 Chipset
• 1x Gigabit: Ethernet Intel Gb and Killer E2500
• Storage: 
  • 2 x M.2 Socket 3 connectors
  • 6 x SATA connectors (Intel)
  • 2x  SATA connectors (Asmedia)
• Connectivity: 
  • 3x PCI-E 3.0 x16  (single at x16 / dual at x8 / triple at x8 - x8 - x4)
  • 3x PCI-E 3.0 x1
• USB 3.0 / 3.1 
• 8-channel Audio Realtek 1220 based enhanced capcitors and SNR ratio. 

Included in the bundle is one interesting looking motherboard and gear like SATA cables, SLI connectors and so on. What this motherboard misses however is WIFI, a bit of a miss if you ask me. ASRock did prep the motherboard for it (we'll show you that later) but the WIFI module comes as an extra you need to purchase.

The I/O back panel reveals various USB 3.1/3.0/2.0 ports. The audio unit has special noise reducing capacitors and shielding. You will spot one 10/100/1,000 Gigabit Ethernet jack. Included is a PS/2 combo port for either a keyboard or a mouse, optical SPDIF out port and five audio jacks. If you plan to use the integrated IGP of the processor, you can make use of one HDMI or DVI or DSUB (VGA) connector. The rear connectivity back-panel is loaded full - we like that, nice. You can also spot Type A and C USB 3.1 connectors mostly powered by the intel chipset and / or ASMEDIA 1242 controllers.

The board has 3 x PCIe 3.0 x16 slots which can be arranged in these slot configurations with graphics cards:

• 1-way mode - x16 / x0 / x0 
• 2-way mode - x8 / x8 / x0
• 3-way mode - x8 / x8 / x4

So basically the lower on in black is x4 only.  As you can see these are PCI Express Gen 3.0 configurations, that's plenty for regular graphics card setups up-to 2-way SLI/Crossfire. The motherboard comes with one 8-pin power connector. You'll get four DIMM slots that can be used for up-to 64 GB of dual-channel memory up-to even 3,866 MHz supported in OC mode. 

Back Panel I/O Ports

• 1 x PS/2 keyboard/mouse port
• 1 x HDMI port
• 1 x DVI and DSUB
• USB 3.1 Type-A port
• USB 3.0/2.0 ports
• 1 x RJ-45 ports
• 1 x optical S/PDIF Out connector
• 5 x audio jacks (Center/Subwoofer Speaker Out, Rear Speaker Out, Line In/Mic In, Line Out, Headphone)
   

The empy shielding is for WIFI antennas, yet that is an optional you need to purchase extra. A bit of a bummer really.