We have a long wait until Ivy Bridge-E hits the shelves, and until that point the dichotomy between the features and price of both Sandy Bridge-E and Ivy Bridge will continue to weigh on the minds of performance enthusiasts. But does it weigh on the minds of gamers so much? Continuing debates rage on regarding how many cores are needed for game X, the low uptake of multi-GPU configurations, and the percentage of users with multi-monitor setups – are most gamers equipped with single screen and a single GPU? There will always be niche categories for the über enthusiast, and the ASRock Fatal1ty X79 range is aiming in that direction. Today’s review focuses on the Champion and Professional boards, both of...
ASRock Z77 OC Formula Review: Living In The Fast Lane
Enthusiasts and speed freaks are always looking for an edge – a little something that will help push their gear that little bit faster. There is already a...
48 by Ian Cutress on 1/15/2013_carousel.jpg)
Email In: ASRock Offering Two New Motherboards – 990FX Extreme9 and FM2A85X-ITX
With the release of the Vishera processors (AMD Piledriver based FX-8350), very few motherboards were brought to the market as the chips slotted directly into the AM3+ socket and...
12 by Ian Cutress on 1/7/2013
Z77 mITX Round-Up: Five of the Best – MSI, Zotac, ASRock, EVGA and ASUS
The mini-ITX motherboard market seems like a fast growing segment. It has many applications in terms of small home servers, work machines, HTPC devices, mobile gaming desktop machines...
51 by Ian Cutress on 12/31/2012
ASRock FM2A85X Extreme6 Review
The answer to the question ‘What makes a good motherboard?’ can generate an alarming number of responses. When a manufacturer starts with a new chipset, the idealized view...
16 by Ian Cutress on 12/3/2012
ASRock Vision HT: Ivy Bridge Carries the SFF HTPC Forward
The small form factor (SFF) HTPC market has been steadily growing over the last few years. As mobile processors become more and more powerful, it is becoming easier for...
40 by Ganesh T S on 11/12/2012
ASRock X79 Extreme11 Review: PCIe 3.0 x16/x16/x16/x16 and LSI 8-Way SAS/SATA
The end of summer marks the start of the X79 refresh line. We are, at best estimates, coming up to half-way in the Sandy Bridge-E life as the...
58 by Ian Cutress on 9/3/2012
Four Multi-GPU Z77 Boards from $280-$350 - PLX PEX 8747 featuring Gigabyte, ASRock, ECS and EVGA
With only sixteen PCIe 3.0 lanes available on a Z77 motherboard paired with an Ivy Bridge CPU, when we get to three or four-way GPU solutions these GPUs are...
22 by Ian Cutress on 8/22/2012
ASRock Z77 Extreme6 Review: Legacy Bites Back
ASRock are not afraid of the legacy connections. Not merely content on having both a floppy drive header and an IDE connector on the Fatal1ty Z77 Professional, they...
34 by Ian Cutress on 7/13/2012
Computex 2012: ASRock's New Motherboards: X79 Extreme11 with LSI SAS and Z77 OC Formula
ASRock have now gone slightly mad. You could argue that within that madness lies some semblance of innovation, as they are going to release a mad product with...
4 by Ian Cutress on 6/6/2012
ASRock Revamps HTPC Lineup with VisionX, Vision HT and MINI Series
ASRock's mini-ITX form factor HTPCs have been held in high esteem by us, but their second generation refresh left a lot to be desired in terms of being revolutionary...
11 by Ganesh T S on 6/2/2012
ASRock Fatal1ty Z77 Professional Review - IDE and Floppy on Z77
Marketing is a very powerful tool. A successful marketing campaign or product segmentation can increase sales more than ten-fold. It is not something we hear or talk...
56 by Ian Cutress on 5/20/2012
Intel Z77 Motherboard Review with Ivy Bridge - ASRock, ASUS, Gigabyte, and MSI
So we have survived one of the biggest days of the year for all things computer performance related - the release of Intel's new Ivy Bridge processor. It...
115 by Ian Cutress on 5/7/2012
Intel Z77 Panther Point Chipset and Motherboard Preview – ASRock, ASUS, Gigabyte, MSI, ECS and Biostar
Well, today is a day that everyone was expecting, but perhaps not the most exciting day of the month. Today, Intel officially releases the spate of 7-series chipsets for...
145 by Ian Cutress on 4/8/2012
ASRock CoreHT Server Edition Review
Late last year, we took a look at the ASRock CoreHT 252B, a Sandy Bridge-based midrange HTPC. We liked the CoreHT quite a bit, noting that the small form...
44 by Vivek Gowri on 2/16/2012
ASRock X79 Extreme9 Review - Price For Performance?
When you pay more for a product, you expect a better level of everything - performance, features, support. In a motherboard, I'd want all the upgrades - top...
13 by Ian Cutress on 1/24/2012
ASRock X79 Extreme4-M and X79 Extreme4 Review – Sandy Bridge-E meets mATX
In our series of X79 reviews, the next boards to face scrutiny are a pair of ASRock boards – the X79 Extreme4-M, one of the first mATX solutions to...
53 by Ian Cutress on 12/9/2011
File Server Builder's Guide
The proliferation of mobile devices, multi-computer homes, broadband internet access, inexpensive mass storage, and the replacement of many other home electronics by the PC (such as media devices like...
150 by Zach Throckmorton on 9/4/2011
ASRock CoreHT 252B Review
Approximately a year back, we reviewed the ASRock Core 100 HTPC which was a pioneer of sorts in the small form factor (SFF) HTPC space. Till that point, the...
56 by Ganesh T S on 9/2/2011
ASRock A75 Extreme6 Review and Desktop Llano Overclocking
Our initial tests with the ASRock A75 Extreme6 were based on a pre-release model, and shown in our preview. At that point, the board design was not finalized...
44 by Ian Cutress on 6/30/2011