Welcome to Sandy Bridge, with the ASRock P67 Extreme4
by Ian Cutress on January 3, 2011 7:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- ASRock
Final Words
The ASRock P67 Extreme4 shows a lot of potential. With this being our first Sandy Bridge motherboard review, there’s a very fine line of being wowed by Sandy Bridge, and deciding whether this motherboard is something people will want to buy. There will be a lot of choices on offer on release day, and ASRock is obviously competing to be the best board out there.
Our first look at the board is positive. The color scheme isn’t something to be disgusted by, the UEFI is easy to navigate and offers the options you would expect. The PCIe slots are ideally spaced, and the ability to use either 1155/1156 and 775 coolers is always a plus in my book. The 4.6GHz overclock straight from the UEFI option is also a bonus, as is the USB 3.0 bracket included in the box, which as I mentioned previously, I could easily see it on sale for $15. The USB speed, thanks to XFast, is better than other motherboards, and the 2D performance is quite good as well.
On the negative side, you could consider ASRock’s idea to put the default BCLK at 100.4MHz, as it means other vendors will do similar or push even higher. We'd like to see stock clocks be exactly that, and a 0.4% boost while small is sometimes enough to put your board slightly higher on benchmark charts. But on the plus side, if that works for the consumer, it results in a slightly faster system. Also a negative is the fan header location, the lack of dual gigabit Ethernet connectors, and that the Instant Boot software failed to work at the 4.6GHz overclock. The warranty for this board is one year in the US (two in Europe, three in China/Asia), with an option to extend to two for a fee. This is a little less than warranties by other manufacturers, such as ASUS which offers three on their main P67 lines.
If ASRock are really able to get this board out for $150, we have a really nice offering here. Compared to a couple of other boards I have tested this week, I'm liking this ASRock board more and more. It looks OK, it performs well, and the box contains that nice USB bracket. A lot of people would be quite happy with this motherboard if it performs as it did on our test bed. We're not ready to crown the champion P67 board just yet, but the ASRock P67 Extreme4 is definitely a contender.
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chrnochime - Monday, January 3, 2011 - link
So basically for any CPU that has its multiplier locked, there's just no way to oc the CPU. Either pay up for an unlocked CPU or be content with stock speed. Hmm...wolfman3k5 - Monday, January 3, 2011 - link
I've read all the Sandy Bridge articles that you guys posted. And while at first glance it seems that you're really enthusiastic about the products, they are low end and mid range products. What I take from all the Sandy Bridge articles is that X58 high end platform is obsolete and that everyone should jump on the mediocre Sandy Bridge bandwagon. When I'm saying mediocre I'm not referring to the Core i5 2500K or to the Core i7 2600K CPUs. I'm referring to the rest of the platform and its limitations. No full support for SATA 6.0 (which AMD already had for months), only two 8X PCI-E lanes for high end SLI or CrossFire configurations, only dual channel memory. I mean, it is obvious that this is a new product and that Intel needs to sell it, but it doesn't mean that everyone who got a high end system on a X58 platform should throw it away. Also, the old X58 platform is far more modular. Yes, I know that X58 is old, and I hope that we'll see an update in the high end segment.But the question is: Do you guys ever get tired of advertising for Intel, or is the money just too good?
extide - Monday, January 3, 2011 - link
If you actually read all the articles like you said, you would see that they said that if you already have a high end x58/i7 system, then you should keep it. If you are considering BUYING a new system then they suggest getting SB over a p55 or x58 system.wolfman3k5 - Monday, January 3, 2011 - link
X58 has been around before LGA1156, and is still around. Sandy Bridge is meant to kill everything that runs on LGA1156, not X58. The platform that Sandy Bridge runs on will be obsolete in 6 months. PCI-E 3.0 is just around the corner. That's when LGA2011 will be released, the successor of LGA1366. Conclusion: It doesn't really matter if you buy X58/i7 or P67/SandyBridge, they'll be both obsolete.AssBall - Monday, January 3, 2011 - link
So you must never buy anything new, because in 6 months it will be obsolete. Just because there are new platforms doesn't mean the old ones are useless or no longer cost effective.I don't see where you get that "advertising for intel" junk from, either.
vol7ron - Monday, January 3, 2011 - link
Wolfman, if you read any of Anandtech's articles, you'd know they don't accept compensation for any of their reviews - while this has helped them out sometimes, it has also hurt them. They have to be careful to be non-biased, but also respectful of manufacturers. Downing a product too much means they won't get as many products to test in the future (and have to wait longer to buy it for the review), not being honest enough discredits the article in the reader's eyes - the fine line must be walked and words chosen delicately. Still, funding is from advertisement and donations.Your AMD points are valid, but still unimpressive in comparison. As they stated, AMD is a better option for the lower CPUs, since you can OC them, whereas Intel has locked the i3's.
I agree, USB3 needs adoption, they've had long enough. That said, Intel is still in domination and AMD has some work to do if they want to contend.
DanNeely - Monday, January 3, 2011 - link
The point of the reviews is that unless you need something that is only available on x58 (ie enough PCIe lanes for 3/4GPU setups, or 2 GPUs and a high end raid card) then there's next to no point in buying into the platform because a $300 2600k, is able to beat a $1000 hexcore in most benchmarks.I'm interested in LGA2011 too because a 30% faster quad core isn't overly exciting as an upgrade. My main concern is that with the 2600K running $300, that intel might demand $500+ for a hexcore that doesn't have crippled OC limits.
Etern205 - Monday, January 3, 2011 - link
The only people interested in PCIe 3.0 are the gamers and enthusiast. 99% of the average use won't give a thought about what they have and test shows PCIe 2.0 doesn't have that much of a improvement over PCIe 1.1 in terms of performance.LGA 2011 the successor to LGA 1366 is still call Sandy Bridge. Funny how your not interested in this "obsolete" hardware but excited about the one after which by your terms is still "obsolete". This is the first time I've seen a person excited about some outdated hardware which has yet gone out the door.
As for AMD, if they made a CPU that can out perform Intel, I'm sure this site and all other will be all over it like a celebrity meet with lights and flashes. Unfortunately, the last time AMD has that spot light was before Intel came up with the Conroe.
Hopefully, AMD's bulldozer will let them once again shine in the spot light.
tim851 - Tuesday, January 4, 2011 - link
99% of the average users are still happy with the Athlon X2s they bought in 2005...mapesdhs - Wednesday, January 5, 2011 - link
That's a good summary, unless of course one prefers to dabble with 'traditional'
overclocking and/or overall platform costs of P55/X58 are more attractive. There
are plenty of very well priced P55 boards available now. Hard to give a concrete
nod to SB without knowing the mbd costs.
Personally, my results reinforce your summary. Performance-wise, SB offers
nothing useful over what I already have. Different though perhaps for someone
who is running with an i3/i5 on a P55 board, but yet again it depends on the
application.
Ian.
PS. I've praising Asrock's PCIE slot spacing for months, very glad to see
they're sticking to it. Their P55 boards use the same setup. Perfect for
cooling SLI/CF setups and a lot better than most X58 boards.